Summer Edition | 2021
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence News for Legislators
GLLC Member News
Caucus is Tracking Big Developments in Great Lakes Policy, Making Plans to Reschedule Annual Meeting of Legislators
The year 2021 is shaping up to be a potentially momentous one in Great Lakes policy, particularly in the five priority areas of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus:

  • Ensuring safe drinking water for the people and communities of the Great Lakes region.
  • Curbing levels of nutrient runoff into the Great Lakes and its tributaries.
  • Helping coastal communities thrive and adjust to changing climate conditions.
  • Eliminating toxic “hot spots” and addressing the threat of new or emerging toxic substances.
  • Preventing the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species.

For legislators interested in Great Lakes protection, eyes right now are on Washington, D.C. The reason: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, most recently passed by the Senate in August, calls for unprecedented investments in several of those priority areas.

Details on some of those key provisions are highlighted in the sections below.

States and provinces, too, have been active in recent months, as can be seen in the many bills being monitored via the GLLC’s legislative tracker. For most Great Lakes states, the new fiscal year began in July, and recently enacted budgets included a mix of new investments and policies related to the GLLC agenda. We highlight some of those legislative actions in the sections below.

Update on the GLLC Annual Meeting

Unfortunately, the original GLLC Annual Meeting for 2021 had to be postponed due to continuing pandemic-related uncertainty and restrictions at the U.S.-Canada border. The meeting had been scheduled to be held in September in Québec City. The GLLC hopes to return in Québec City in the near future.

Meanwhile, the GLLC Executive Committee — led by its chair and vice chair, Illinois Rep. Robyn Gabel and Minnesota Rep. Jennifer Schultz, respectively — is working to reschedule the 2021 meeting. GLLC members will be alerted of the exact meeting dates and location. Information also will be posted on the GLLC website. Please contact Mike McCabe, director of the Midwestern Office of The Council of State Governments, if you have questions.

Your Invitation to Join the GLLC

Legislators from the Great Lakes states and provinces are invited to join the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus — the leading binational organization of state and provincial legislators promoting the restoration, protection, economy and sustainable use of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River.

GLLC membership is free and offers many benefits to state and provincial legislators.

Developments Related to GLLC Policy Agenda
Toxic Substances
As passed by the U.S. Senate, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $1 billion in additional funding over five years for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Since its inception, the GLRI has accelerated the cleanup and delisting of the Great Lakes "Areas of Concern" — toxic "hot spots" first identified in the U.S.-Canada 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. (A list of 26 U.S. sites is here; a list of 12 Canadian sites is here; five sites have binational responsibility.)

The initiative prioritizes several areas of Great Lakes protection and restoration. More than any other priority area, though, GLRI funding has gone to initiatives in the Great Lakes region that address toxic substances and clean up the Areas of Concern (see pie chart below).

Earlier this year, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Act was signed into law. It boosts GLRI funding levels from $300 million in FY 2021 to $375 million in FY 2020, and authorizes this amount to gradually increase to $475 million by FY 2026.

Update on PFAS

Also pending in the U.S. Congress are more than three dozen PFAS-related bills, but only one, the proposed PFAS Action Act of 2021 (H.R. 2467), has advanced from its originating chamber. A recent U.S. Senate hearing on “PFAS: the View from Affected Citizens and States” can be seen here.

Update from the states and provinces

  • An April 2021 report from the Michigan Environmental Council cites coal ash as another threat to clean drinking water, especially when, if wet, it leaches into groundwater from unlined storage pits. The report says 1.45 million tons of coal ash, which contains myriad heavy metals, is created annually by the state’s utility companies, and a review of groundwater monitoring data from 2017-19 shows “there is widespread groundwater contamination under the majority of” the state’s coal ash ponds. Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has enforcement and oversight authority over coal ash disposal under a 2018 law (HB 6269).
  • A new Ontario law (Bill 228) will require people who sell or construct floating platforms, docks or buoys to ensure that any expanded or extruded polystyrene in the structure is fully encapsulated. The law will take effect on May 20, 2023.
Invasive Species
Projects related to the control of invasive species are the second-largest recipient of GLRI funding (see pie chart). For instance, in FY 2020, $5 million was allocated for a research-and-development initiative that aims to develop an effective ballast water management system for “lakers” — commercial vessels operating solely within the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain system. (This work is being led by the Great Waters Research Collaborative at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.)

Historically, the ballast water of ships has been the most common vector for aquatic invasive species to enter the Great Lakes.

On the U.S. side of the border, the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, passed in 2018, authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection to regulate ballast water discharges as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act and to establish science-based treatment standards. EPA rules under the federal law exclude lakers.

On the Canadian side of the border, all vessels — including lakers — will need to have ballast water treatment systems by 2030 under new rules released this summer by the Canadian government, according to the Alliance for the Great Lakes. The alliance praised these new rules as an important advance in Great Lakes protection, noting the Canadian government's estimate that they would result in an 82 percent reduction in the spread of invasive species at Canada's Great Lakes ports.

On both sides of the border, the regulation of ballast water is largely left to the federal governments. (The Vessel Incidental Discharge Act of 2018 notably pre-empted the authority of states to have specific regulations of their own.)

However, states play a critical role in the larger issue of controlling the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species. This year in Minnesota, for instance, the state’s omnibus environmental bill includes the following provisions:

  • Provide $14 million over the biennium on projects (water-access inspections, public awareness campaigns, monitoring, etc.) and research to control the spread of invasive species.
  • Fund the University of Minnesota’s Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center.
  • Invest in new partnerships with commercial anglers, develop new monitoring and removal techniques, and install new barriers to address the problem of invasive carp. 
Nutrient Pollution
The new biennial budget in Ohio deepens the state’s commitment to a water quality initiative that helps farmers in the western Lake Erie basin invest in evidence-based agricultural practices which prevent nutrient runoff.

Run by the state Department of Agriculture, the initiative provides payments to farmers who develop nutrient management plans and carry out practices such as planting cover crops, installing new drainage systems, and changing how fertilizers are applied. The legislature is appropriating $100 million over the next two years as part of the broader H2Ohio plan. The budget also includes $50 million to restore and protect wetlands, which help keep nitrogen and phosphorus from reaching waterways.

Other recent actions and developments related to this GLLC priority area include:

  • A boost in Illinois’ new budget for the Partners for Conservation Fund, which helps private landowners institute practices to control erosion and prevent nutrient loss on farmland. For the first time, too, Partners for Conservation will be used as a dedicated source of funding to implement the state’s Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy.
  • Indiana’s announcement in April that a record-high 32,000 new conservation practices had been implemented via the Indiana Conservation Partnership, an alliance of eight state agencies, farm groups and university extension that provides technical and financial assistance to landowners.
  • A pilot project in Michigan to determine the efficacy of wetlands restoration in reducing nutrient runoff in the western Lake Erie basin. The Legislature included this project in a bill allocating money from the state Natural Resources Trust Fund, which gets its revenue from royalties on the sale and lease of state-owned oil, gas and mineral rights.
  • Minnesota’s use of funding in its Legacy Finance Bill (money for it comes from a dedicated portion of the state sales tax, three-eighths of 1 percent) to start new programs that promote soil health and best practices in nutrient management. 
  • Legislative passage in New York of the Soil Health and Climate Resiliency Act, the goals of which are to advance practices that increase carbon sequestration in the agriculture sector, improve water quality and soil, and promote resilience to extreme weather events.
Water Consumption
Illinois legislators in late May approved the Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act (HB 3739), which would require all water systems to fully replace lead service lines within a timeframe based on the number of lead service lines in their systems. The measure bans partial lead service line replacements. Starting next year, too, water systems would be required to identify and replace lead service lines when replacing water mains.

HB 3739 calls for creation of a Lead Service Line Replacement Fund and establishment of a Lead Service Line Replacement Advisory Board. It also would create a statewide water assistance policy and program for low-income residents.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has not yet acted on HB 3739. He has signed HB 414, which authorizes the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to institute a voluntary program for water and sewer providers to assist low-income households. A monthly charge on all water and sewer customers could be used to fund the program.

In the nation's capital, the most recent version of the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $48 billion for water infrastructure improvements nationwide, including $15 billion for lead pipe replacement.
Coastal Communities
In what is surely welcome news after the beating doled out in recent years to lakefront communities by high lake levels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August predicted the Great Lakes will remain above their long-term averages, but below the historic levels seen in 2019-2020, through February 2022.

The reason, according to the Corps’ August update, was “very dry conditions” across the Great Lakes basin during the spring months.

That breathing room was announced in the same month as the release of a new survey from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. It found that Great Lakes coastal communities will spend at least $2 billion over the next five years battling shoreline erosion -- on top of the $878 million they’ve already spent in the past two years. The survey of 241 municipalities from all Great Lakes states and provinces was conducted from March through May 2021. “These figures only represent a fraction of the true need as not all shoreline jurisdictions are reflected in this figure," the initiative noted in the study.

The proposed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $491 million for a National Coastal Resilience Fund.

At the state level, Ohio’s new budget (HB 110) includes a provision allowing for the creation of “shoreline improvement districts” that help fund erosion-abatement projects.

Birkholz Institute on climate resiliency

Helping coastal communities become more climate resilient is the focus of the GLLC's upcoming Patricia Birkholz Institute for Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Policy. Plans are being made now to hold the institute, where legislators will have the chance to take a "deep-dive" into this policy area and develop policy recommendations for their jurisdictions and the entire Great Lakes region.

Please contact CSG Midwest director Mike McCabe for more information about the institute.
Legislative Tracker
The GLLC monitors state and provincial legislation on issues related to water quality in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region. The caucus's "State and Provincial Legislative Tracker" compiles these bills and their status. The tracker is available on the GLLC website. GLLC members and other legislators are encouraged to send their bills for posting to gllc@csg.org.
About the GLLC
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus (GLLC) is a binational, nonpartisan organization that exists solely for the purpose of engaging state and provincial legislators in the policymaking process related to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Secretariat services are provided by The Council of State Governments Midwestern Office. Financial support is provided in part by The Joyce Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation provides support for the GLLC's work on nutrient pollution.

For more information about the caucus, visit the GLLC website. CSG Midwest's Tim Anderson and Jon contributed to this newsletter.