scholarly journals Virtual Elimination of Dioxin: Efforts of the United States and Canada to Eliminate Dioxin Pollution as Required by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-164
Author(s):  
Christina D. Arvin
Author(s):  
Nancy Langston

By the 1960s, the failures of research and cooperative pragmatism to control Great Lakes pollution were becoming painfully evident. In 1972 Canada and the United States signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The agreement was groundbreaking in its focus on cleaning up existing pollution and preventing new pollutants, but the International Joint Commission has no authority to force the two nations to implement recommendations. Therefore, when Canada or the United States refuses to abide by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (in its various revisions), very little happens in response—besides calls for more research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolyn E Gallagher ◽  
Ryan K Duncombe ◽  
Timothy M Steeves

Over the past decade, both the average rainfall and the frequency of high precipitation storm events in the Great Lakes Basin have been steadily increasing as a consequence of climate change. In this same period, cities and communities along the coasts are experiencing record high water levels and severe flooding events (ECC Canada et al. 2018). When cities are unprepared for these floods, the safety of communities and the water quality of the Great Lakes are jeopardized. For example, coastal flooding increases runoff pollution and contaminates the freshwater resource that 40 million people rely on for drinking water (Lyandres and Welch 2012, Roth 2016). Since the Great Lakes are shared between two nations, the United States and Canada, the region is protected by several international treaties and national compacts, including the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). In order to increase climate change resiliency against flooding in the region, we recommend the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) work with Environment and Climate Change Canada to relocate the GLRI under the GLWQA in order to guarantee consistent funding and protection efforts. We additionally recommend expansion of both agreements in their scope and long-term commitments to engender cooperative efforts to protect the Great Lakes against climate change.


2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Santiago ◽  
Jean-Pierre Pelletier

Abstract Since the beginning of North America's industrialization, the Great Lakes have been negatively impacted by the discharge of industrial, agricultural and municipal pollutants. The governments of Canada and the United States have recognized that the accumulation of pollutants within the bottom sediment and the water column has had a detrimental effect on the Great Lakes ecosystem. In 1972, Canada and the United States signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which established common water quality objectives and commitments to programs and other measures to achieve these objectives. This included measures for the abatement and control of pollution from dredging activities. By 1985, the International Joint Commission, a body established by the two countries to provide advice on boundary water issues, identified 43 Areas of Concern where impaired water quality prevented full beneficial use of rivers, bays, harbours and ports. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, amended in 1987, committed both countries to concentrate remediation efforts in these 43 Areas of Concern. This led to the development of Remedial Action Plans to assess and remediate contamination problems. Contaminated sediment was identified in all of these Areas of Concern. In 1989, the Canadian government created the 5-year $125-million Great Lakes Action Plan in support of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Of this, $55 million was allocated to the Great Lakes 2000 Cleanup Fund for the 17 Canadian Areas of Concern. A portion of the Cleanup Fund was designated for the development and demonstration of technologies for assessment, removal and treatment of contaminated sediment. Since its creation, the Remediation Technologies Program, established under the Cleanup Fund, has successfully performed 3 full-scale remediation projects, 11 pilot-scale technology demonstrations and 29 bench-scale tests. In addition to these projects, the program also evaluated existing sediment management practices and processes.


Author(s):  
Bruce D. Lindsey ◽  
Marian P. Berndt ◽  
Brian G. Katz ◽  
Ann F. Ardis ◽  
Kenneth A. Skach

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191
Author(s):  
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

Abstract:While Africans are generally satisfied that a person of African descent was reelected to the White House following a campaign in which vicious and racist attacks were made against him, the U.S. Africa policy under President Barack Obama will continue to be guided by the strategic interests of the United States, which are not necessarily compatible with the popular aspirations for democracy, peace, and prosperity in Africa. Obama’s policy in the Great Lakes region provides an excellent illustration of this point. Since Rwanda and Uganda are Washington’s allies in the “war against terror” in Darfur and Somalia, respectively, the Obama administration has done little to stop Kigali and Kampala from destabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and looting its natural resources, either directly or through proxies. Rwanda and Uganda have even been included in an international oversight mechanism that is supposed to guide governance and security sector reforms in the DRC, but whose real objective is to facilitate Western access to the enormous natural wealth of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.


Author(s):  
Stephanie Hinnershitz

The wreckage of the Vietnam War and new American polices geared toward resettling refugees brought thousands of Vietnamese to the United States. Although many Vietnamese settled on the West Coast and in the Great Lakes region, thousands more came to the Gulf of Mexico through sponsors or established family connections seeking work in the shrimping or oil industries of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. But, as the Vietnamese soon discovered, they were not welcomed by the largely white population who feared competition and distrusted racial outsiders. The Vietnamese fought back in the Houston District Court, filing a civil rights suit against the Klan with the assistance of the Southern Poverty Law Center.


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