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DAM-L Water Pollution: Great Lakes Cleanup Strategy Targets (fwd)
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From: Right to Water <right-to-water@iatp.org>
To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Subject: Water Pollution: Great Lakes Cleanup Strategy Targets
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 14:20:50 -0500
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Right to Water (right-to-water@iatp.org) Posted: 06/15/2001 By svarghese@iatp.org
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International Environment Reporter
Volume 24 Number 12
Wednesday, June 6, 2001 Page 485
ISSN 1522-4090
News
Water Pollution: Great Lakes Cleanup Strategy Targets Persistent
Bioaccumulative Contaminants
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new strategy for cleaning up the
Great Lakes Basin places a heavy emphasis on reducing persistent
bioaccumulative substances, including mercury and dioxins, according to a
notice published June 5 (66 FR 30187).
In its notice, EPA announced the availability of the new Great Lakes
Strategy and said it will host a series of public meetings designed to
coordinate federal, state, and local cleanup efforts.
The overall strategy encompasses four broad categories: reducing and
eliminating the threat of toxin pollution and excess nutrients; improving
land use, water quality management, and habitat protection; protecting
human health and the ecosystem's species; and effectively coordinating
programs and resources.
Public meetings on the strategy, required under amendments to the Great
Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1972, will be held at four locations in
late June and early July. EPA is also accepting public comment until July 31.
CAA, Binational Treaty
The plan places a heavy emphasis on reducing persistent toxins--including
mercury, DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls, and dioxins--under the framework
of the Clean Water Act as well as the more comprehensive Great Lakes
Binational Toxics Strategy with Canada (INER Reference File 1, 31:0601).
Signed by the governments of the United States and Canada in 1997, the
binational treaty identifies a four-step analytical process to work toward
"virtual elimination" of persistent toxic chemicals.
It lists 12 bioaccumulative substances "having sufficient toxicity and
presence in water, sediment, and/or aquatic biota in the Great Lakes system
to warrant concerted action to eliminate their input."
Sources of bioaccumulative pollution include runoff of soils and pesticides
from farms, air deposition, industrial and municipal discharges, and
previously contaminated sediments. The Great Lakes Strategy sets a number
of goals in reducing bioaccumulative pollutants by 2006, including:
a 90 percent reduction of high-level PCBs used in electrical equipment,
a 50 percent reduction nationally in the deliberate use and a 50 percent
reduction nationally in the release of mercury,
a 75 percent reduction nationally in total releases of dioxins and furans,
continued emphasis on state "Clean Sweep" programs to collect unused
agricultural pesticides for disposal or recycling, and
creation of 10 additional "voluntary partnerships" with industry to meet
program goals
Superfund, Drinking Water
The strategy also recognizes that existing contaminated sediments on the
bottom of many tributaries and harbors continue to be "a significant
problem in the Great Lakes Basin."
The report estimated that existing superfund and similar programs will
clean up about 10 contaminated Great Lakes sites by 2006 but that a
"substantial budget increase ... could address about 30 sites by 2007,
including some of the largest, most troublesome sites."
The strategy also endorses a number of ongoing efforts to protect drinking
water derived from the Great Lakes Basin. Among them is a joint project by
the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference and the American Water Works
Association to assess the quality of 22 water treatment plants around the
lakes.
EPA's Stage I Disinfectants and Disinfection By-products Rule will require
most large surface plants to begin monitoring total organic carbon (TOC) of
raw waters by January 2002. Under the strategy, the agency will also
compile and report to the public on TOC levels by January 2003.
EPA has also pledged to track and biannually report on water quality at a
number of intake points for water treatment plants around the Great Lakes
Basin.
More information and a copy of the Great Lakes Strategy are available at
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/gls/review.htm.
Copyright © 2001 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.
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