To learn about best-management practices for preventing nutrient runoff, members of the Task Force on Nutrient Management toured Darling Farms in Michigan during the 2019 Birkholz Institute.

Released on February 10, the President's " Budget for America's Future" contains a mixed bag for advocates of Great Lakes protection and restoration. The budget blueprint includes full funding ( $320 million) for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), which came as a welcome surprise after the administration tried three years running to eliminate or drastically cut the initiative. But missing from the budget was any funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Brandon Road Lock and Dam project, which most advocates view as the best chance to stop Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes through the Chicago Area Waterway System. The omission was all the more surprising because of the president's remarks — made recently at a campaign rally in Warren, Michigan — in which he pledged to "work together" with members of Michigan's congressional delegation "to protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp ... and other invasive species." President Trump told the crowd, "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already has a plan, and we are going to get this done and ready to go.... We have all of the top technology, and we’re going to take care of it, just like I made the promise — and that promise where so much has already been done.″

The Alliance for the Great Lakes was quick to point out the contradiction between the president's words and the priorities included in the budget blueprint. In a press release, the Alliance's Molly Flanagan, Vice President for Policy, said, "Two weeks ago, the President promised to protect the Great Lakes from invasive Asian Carp. Actions speak louder than words." In addition, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative issued a press release in which Québec City Deputy Mayor Michelle Morin-Doyle called on President Trump and the U.S. Congress "to fund the Asian Carp Barrier designed to protect 75,000 jobs and $7 Billion a year industry across the Great Lakes region."

Despite the interest in the budget blueprint, Congress, not the president, controls the budgeting process. In 2017-2019, after funding for the GLRI was either cut or not included in the budget blueprint, the Great Lakes congressional delegations were able to restore funding. According to MLive, Michigan Congressman Bill Huizenga cited past successes by the Michigan delegation to convince the president to restore GLRI funding. “That same strategy of engagement should be used to stress the importance, significance, and need for protective measures at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam system,” Rep. Huizenga told MLive. 

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus is tracking several measures in the region's state capitols and in Washington, D.C., to address water contamination. Here are some of the more notable recent developments:

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will no longer pursue its plan of constructing a deep geologic repository (DGR) for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste at the company's Bruce Power facility. Proposed in the early 2000s, and the subject of 33 days of licensing hearings in 2013-14, the DGR would have contained waste from Bruce and other nuclear power plants owned by OPG. The company considered the repository the safest way to permanently dispose of waste that currently is stored above ground. Critics of the plan — including the GLLC — countered that the site's location within the Great Lakes basin should have disqualified it from consideration.

In 2013, OPG committed not to proceed with the facility without support from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), the First Nation on whose ancestral land the Bruce facility sits. On January 31, the SON effectively killed the planned repository location by voting overwhelmingly against building the facility at Bruce. It is reported that OPG will seek alternative sites instead.

The decision not to build the DGR near Lake Huron comes at a critical time as Canada considers potential sites for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel from the nation's fleet of operating and shutdown nuclear reactors. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), which has responsibility for siting, constructing, and operating a DGR for spent fuel, announced in January that only two sites remain under consideration after a 10-year effort to find a geologically suitable site in a willing host community. Both sites are in Ontario: the Township of Ignace in northwestern Ontario and the Municipality of South Bruce in the southern part of the province.

A winter storm system that battered the Great Lakes region on January 10-12 prompted gubernatorial declarations of emergencies in Illinois and Wisconsin, and calls for similar statements in other states. In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot both issued disaster proclamations for Chicago's lakefront (Pritzker's declaration was for all of Cook and Lake counties), while Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared an emergency for Kenosha and Racine counties.

Indiana official have rejected calls for similar disaster declarations, while Michigan legislators in December called upon Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to issue an erosion emergency declaration in the southwest corner of the state's lower peninsula (the "mitten").

Michigan legislators in mid-February introduced HB 5485, which would create a new "Flooding and Erosion Control Task Force" within the state's Department of Natural Resources. Its 11 members would be appointed from counties and communities along Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, and from state agencies; it would be charged with reviewing weather and flooding and erosion control efforts, and creating a cost-benefit analysis to help local officials prepare for future flooding and erosion.

In other news of coastal issues, Indiana legislators are debating just who owns the Lake Michigan shoreline, following a 2018 ruling from the state's Supreme Court that the state owns the shoreline, has done so since statehood in 1816, and thus the shoreline is open to public access. SB 321 would cede shoreline ownership to adjacent private property owners if the property description in their deeds shows the land extends to Lake Michigan. HB 1031 and SB 325, in contrast, would both enshrine public ownership in law. HB 1031 would also absolve private property owners from injury or property damage liability when someone is crossing the property on the way to or from the shoreline.

The GLLC monitors federal, state, and provincial legislation on issues related to water quality in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region. Several of these pieces of legislation are referenced in this newsletter.

GLLC members and other legislators are encouraged to send their bills for posting to gllc@csg.org. Here are links to the updated trackers:

GLLC Federal Legislative Tracker »

GLLC State and Provincial Legislative Tracker »