Open Comment Period continues for one more week Commissioners of the International Joint Commission (IJC) continue to invite comments on Priorities Work Group Reports during an open public comment period through Monday, November 30th. The Commission is developing its 15th Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality based on these reports and comments received from the public at its Biennial Meeting in Windsor last month and during this open comment period. Please take advantage of this good opportunity to review the reports in English or French and provide your comments online conveniently at http://meeting.ijc.org. About the Priorities Work Group Reports "Can I drink the water?" "Can I eat the fish?" "Can I swim at the beach?" "Can I walk the shoreline without rotting algae?" "Can I stop the invasion of aquatic aliens?" "Can I 'rethink' the Great Lakes?" "Can I make the Great Lakes a better place?" These questions are addressed in a series of reports released in September by the IJC on its 2007-09 Priorities under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the United States. These reports, developed by work groups of the IJC advisory boards, address critical issues of the nearshore, eutrophication, beaches and recreational water quality, chemicals of emerging concern, binational aquatic invasive species (AIS) rapid response, and the benefits and risks of Great Lakes fish consumption. About the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement The original Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Richard Nixon in 1972. Subsequently a new Agreement was signed in 1978 and amended in 1987. However, the Agreement has not been updated or changed in more than 22 years. During this time, our scientific knowledge and understanding and technology have grown immensely. New threats to the well being of the Great Lakes ecosystem are becoming better defined. In response, on Saturday, June 13, 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon committed to updating the Agreement. Click here http://www.canamglass.org/glwqa/ for resource documents and information regarding the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. # # # Great Lakes Regional Office International Joint Commission http://www.ijc.org http://bwt.ijc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/glin-announce/attachments/20091120/860e7085/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 25651 bytes Desc: image001.jpg Url : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/glin-announce/attachments/20091120/860e7085/attachment.jpe