Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News The Newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund Volume 8, Number 4 • July-August 2000

International Joint Commision (IJC) Report Released

The IJC sent a strong message to US and Canadian Federal Governments in its Tenth Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality released earlier this week. They have made direct recommendations regarding the concerns to human health from;

• Consumption of contaminated sports fish;
• Uncompleted remediation of contaminated sediments in each Area of Concern;
• Atmospheric deposition of persistent toxic substances from within and out of the basin needs prevention and control measures;  
• Adequate attention to effects of urban sprawl such as increased runoff containing nutrients, pathogens, sediment, industrial chemicals and pesticides which can increase erosion, flooding and threaten groundwater;
• Research strategy of ballast water releases to reduce alien invasive species into the great lakes basin;
• Immediate need of coordinated binational monitoring and surveillance programs necessary to enable federal governments to fulfill their commitments under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and a binational information policy to support the agreement.

The IJC recommends that the public has a right to know of the progress made on remedial action plans on each area of concern and that governments must clearly state what role they will be playing with each area of concern and what resources they will be dedicating to restoring the impaired beneficial uses.

Threats to human health or aquatic life are of concern to the IJC, especially the inadequate integration of human health issues related to critical pollutants in Lakewide Management Plans (LAMP). Lake Ontario’s LAMP review by the IJC notes “shortcomings exist particularly in the area of defining the threat to human health and estimation of total loadings of critical pollutants.” The IJC Science Advisory Board has recommended that a comprehensive assessment of the threat to human health from exposure to critical pollutants is needed. Consumption of contaminated Great Lakes fish containing persistent toxic substances is a serious risk to critical subpopulations that eat the fish. The IJC recommends that more comprehensive sport fish consumption advisories be culturally appropriate and directed towards women in addition to the general distribution, because exposure may lead to birth anomalies and other serious health problems for children and women of child-bearing age.

The IJC notes three desired outcomes, first that the water is drinkable, second that people can swim in the water and third that people can eat the fish without exposure to harmful pollutants in the Great Lakes basin. For communities who depend on fish for food or bathe in and drink polluted waters, there is no other option. What will it take to wake the people up, for the government to listen and for all of us to walk lightly on Mother Earth? Whether or not the recommendations will be achieved is yet to be seen, it has been 22 years since GLWQA, and we are still permitting the “dumping” of critical pollutants into one of the greatest resources on earth: fresh water.

To help meet the recommendation of the IJC and help clean up the Lakes contact Great Lakes United at (716) 886-0142 or email glu@glu.org or join a local grass roots effort in your community.

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