I am generally available, except during the week of April
17-23. Cheers, Allegra
Allegra
Cangelosi
Senior Policy Analyst,
Ecosystem Team
Northeast-Midwest Institute
218 D St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
202-544-5200
-----Original Message-----
From:
owner-glin-announce@great-lakes.net
[mailto:owner-glin-announce@great-lakes.net] On
Behalf Of Reg Gilbert
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 9:40
AM
To: GLIN announce; Enviro-mich
Subject: GLIN==> habitat,
species, & biodiversity and review of the great lakes water quality
agreement
Dear member of the Great Lakes non-profit
environmental community,
We would like to invite you to participate in two or more phone conversations
over the next month to discuss habitat, species, and biodiversity in the Great
Lakes and the upcoming review and possible renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.
Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
The agreement now focuses on toxic substances, but the agreement could also be
broadened to address other issues, including habitat. The review and possible
renegotiation are scheduled to take place starting in May and continue through
next year.
We are holding eight series of calls among environmentalists about the separate
issues already or potentially connected to the review. If you would like to be
involved in the calls on on habitat, species, and biodiversity (or any of the
calls, see the list below), please send an email to Reg Gilbert at reg@glu.org
indicating your time availability for the period Friday, April 14, to Friday,
May 5.
The review will look at how well the governments have lived up to their
existing commitments to limit, eliminate, and cleanup toxics releases, but
could result in recommendations to make entirely new commitments in other
areas to better achieve the broad aims of the agreement to protect the lakes.
The purpose of this call (and the other issue calls) is to empower citizens to
participate in the review, and to help us all figure out what positions to take
during the review.
Please let us know of your interest in being
on the call by the end of the day, Wednesday, April 12.
Note: for now these calls are not intended for members of the basin
environmental community from government agencies or regional industry.
For more information on the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, connect to http://www.greatlakesforever.org/html/glwqa.html
Issue calls being scheduled include:
(Current issues found in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement:)
> Toxic substances
> Remedial Action Plans and contaminated sediment
> Monitoring and research
> Coastal health (mostly sewage and non-point discharges)
> Governance (structures to assure that governments fulfill the terms of the
agreement)
(New issues that could possibly be included in the agreement:)
> Aquatic invasive species
> Habitat, species, and biodiversity
> Climate change
Background
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was first negotiated in 1972
to control sewage discharges to the lakes. It was updated in 1978 and 1987 to
address toxic substances and highly contaminated "Areas of Concern"
-- basin toxic hot spots. The Canadian and U.S. governments are now in the
process of reviewing how well they have fulfilled their commitments under the
agreement since their last review, held in 1999, and to consider whether or not
they should make changes ("revise" the agreement) and possibly even
add entirely new issues to the agreement ("renegotiate" the
agreement).
The calls we are inviting you to participate in are not part of the official
review process -- they are not part of the public "Review Working
Groups" now being set up by the governments to carry out the first stage
of their review. See below for information on how to join the official process,
something we are also encouraging. The calls we are inviting you to participate
in are intended to inform and empower the environmental community to
participate in the official process.
The official Review Working Groups will include all "stakeholders"
and will begin work in May. The calls that are the topic of this message are
intended for the environmental community only, and will begin work immediately.
We have written up a "guidance paper" on aquatic invasive species and
the review of the agreement. If you would like to see that document, email
Jennifer Nalbone at jen@glu.org for a copy. If you would like to see any of the
other seven documents we have prepared for the other issues, email Reg Gilbert
at reg@glu.org for a copy.
What should citizens advocate?
Activists who have monitored the agreement for years, and in some
cases decades, are divided over the wisdom of revision or renegotiation of the
agreement.
On the one hand the agreement has weaknesses, has not been well implemented
since the last revision in 1987, and does not address several issues of serious
binational environmental concern. This would argue *for* revision or
renegotiation of the agreement.
On the other hand, the federal governments in both countries are currently in
the hands of leaders without a notable interest in environmental protection,
and broadening the agreement beyond sewage and toxic substances could weaken
its power to make a difference on those issues without necessarily doing much
for other issues. This would argue against revision or renegotiation of the
agreement.
Thus there is a need for issue-specific calls that allow members of the Great
Lakes environmental community to discuss how well the agreement has addressed
or might address various environmental problems. This will be followed by a discussion
of the wisdom of changing or broadening the agreement to solve the
problems raised.
With these conversations as background, hopefully activists will be better
prepared to participate in the official review process. Our hope is that we can
find substantial consensus that will allow basin environmentalists to enter the
review process with a unified position on what outcomes we would like to have
achieved by the official review.
Please get involved
We want to encourage basin environmental activists to participate in
this review process to the greatest extent possible. There are two ways to do
this:
1) Join the issue-specific calls among environmental activists that is the main
subject of this email. The issues are listed above. If you would like to be on
one of the calls:
a) email Reg Gilbert at reg@glu.org
b) note the issue you are interested in (see list above)
c) list your time availability during the three-week period of Friday, April
14, through Friday, May 5
Please send this message by the end of the
day Wednesday, April 12.
We hope to have the largest number of people on these calls, so please be as
liberal as possible in listing your available times. For example, please list
times when you might be traveling, but are otherwise available. Calls will be
free to all participants.
2) You can also join the official government "Review Working Groups."
For more information and to join a working group, download the 4-page
government document at:
http://www.greatlakesforever.org/html/action/GLWQAWorkingGroupInvite.pdf
.
If the above Web link breaks across two lines and does not work automatically,
piece together manually in your address bar. The complete address should have
no spaces or hyphens.
The deadline for joining the official Review Working Groups listed in the
official materials has been extended to April 26. First calls or meetings will
be sometime in May.
Help us reach people
Please pass this message on to anyone you know is interested in this
issue.
Please send Reg Gilbert an email at reg@glu.org a message indicating the issue
(or issues) you are interested and your time availability by this Wednesday,
April 12.
We hope to hear you on the calls.
Signed,
Cameron Davis, Executive Director, Alliance for the Great Lakes
Derek Stack, Executive Director, Great Lakes United
Jeffrey Potter, Director of Communications Programs, Biodiversity Project
Fe De Leon, Researcher, Canadian Environmental Law Association