John C. Austin

JA:

• Read a related article Great Lakes invaluable, irreplaceable.
• Read a related article Great Lakes can be engine to drive region’s economy.
• Watch a video clip of Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling of WGN-TV 9 in Chicago as he reports from the Lake Guardian, a high tech research vessel, and see Lake Michigan through the eyes of experts in a September 9, 2009 broadcast.
• Listen to a short radio public service announcement from the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ campaign called This is my Water. 

• the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact was signed into U.S. law and a parallel agreement with two Canadian provinces also was signed;
• President Barack Obama appointed the nation’s first Great Lakes director; and
• members of Congress have committed almost $2.5 billion to protect and restore the Great Lakes.
  

Another hopeful sign came when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon announced in June 2009 that the two countries intend to renegotiate the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which was signed in 1972 and last updated in 1987. Experts say that it needs additional updating to address new threats to the health of the Great Lakes.

These victories do not mean people should become lax in supporting initiatives that benefit these globally significant Lakes, says Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes Office of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), a 25-year Mott grantee. [Since 1984 Mott has made 28 grants to NWF, totaling $3.9 million, for its work to protect and restore the Great Lakes.]

Photo credit: Lloyd DeGrane

Instead, he says, advocates need to build on the momentum already under way. Still to be decided, for example, are details relating to water conservation efforts called for under the Great Lakes Compact (the shortened name for the federal agreement). And it could be years before all conservation provisions are fully implemented.

“When the Great Lakes Compact was signed, it was a historic moment for the region and the planet,” Buchsbaum said.

“This Compact raised the bar for everybody. It showed that even though there were different controversial issues in every state, a group of people could still work together to get far-reaching and powerful results for the entire Great Lakes Basin.”

The Compact -- a legally binding water management plan between the eight Great Lakes states -- was signed into federal law in October 2008 and became effective in December.

With limited exceptions, the Compact and the parallel international agreement with the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec prohibit the diversion of water out of the Great Lakes Basin. They also require water conservation plans with policies and practices that contain specificity from all signers. Those applying for exceptions must adhere to strict standards and go through a formal decisionmaking process, something lacking in previous laws and policies.

Recognizing the Lakes’ value

The five Great Lakes -- Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario and Superior -- contain one-fifth of the world’s surface freshwater, making it the planet’s largest single source. They also account for 95 percent of the U.S.’s surface freshwater, and provide drinking water for 40 million U.S. and Canadian residents.

“The Great Lakes are invaluable and irreplaceable,” said Joel Brammeier, acting president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. (Since 1982, Mott has provided 18 grants to the alliance, totaling $1.5 million.)

The Lakes -- located in the industrial heartland of North America -- contribute substantially to the national economies of both the U.S. and Canada, according to a March 2008 report released by the Brookings Institution. The research shows that the Lakes generate billions of dollars in annual revenue for the region from manufacturing, maritime transportation, agriculture, commercial fishing, tourism, and recreation such as boating and fishing. [See related article about the economic impact of the Great Lakes.]

As much as they are recognized for their economic and environmental importance, the Lakes also are valued for their sheer beauty. They contain 10,000 miles of coastline and 20,000 islands. They are bordered by natural landscapes such as sand dunes, wetlands, prairies, savannas and forests.

“They are on par with the Rocky Mountains. In that same sense, we need to preserve and restore them just because they are there,” Brammeier said.

“We’re starting to see a national appreciation of the Great Lakes in the form of precedent-setting restoration commitments from Washington. We’re definitely moving in the right direction.”

Although the Compact promotes water conservation within the basin, the Lakes -- and the people, animals and wildlife habitat that depend upon them -- still face threats from several sources, including non-native invasive species; sewage overflows; toxic substances from industrial, municipal and household sources; emerging contaminants such as pharmaceutical byproducts; and agricultural and urban runoff. These have resulted in high concentrations of toxins in fish; and endangered ecosystems for wildlife, says Sam Passmore, Mott’s Environment Program Director. 

When a U.S. presidential executive order named the Great Lakes “a national treasure” in 2004, the designation added strength to an already-in-motion drive to protect and restore them, says Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of NWF, which is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

But much of today’s increased media interest in Lakes’ issues is also partly because two of the highest-ranking public figures in the nation -- President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel -- have close ties to the Midwest. Before moving to their White House offices, the Chicago residents each lived close enough to Lake Michigan to swim in its water and stroll on its shore, Schweiger says.

Things You Can Do to Help Protect the Great Lakes:    Properly dispose of oil, gas, chemicals, electronic equipment and unused medicines. Tip: Unused medicines should be wrapped and placed in the trash – NOT flushed. Shut off water while brushing teeth, take shorter showers and consider low-flow bathroom fixtures. Tip: The Energystar website provides great information on appliances that reduce water use. Protect habitat for fish, birds and plants by following best practices for shoreline management. Tip: Replacing hard sea walls with “softer” materials can enhance the value of your property. Participate in local stream, river and lake clean-up activities in your community. Tip: Protect drinking water supplies by not dumping chemicals or debris in storm water drains. Hard surfaces -- impervious to water -- allow sediment and chemicals to enter the Great Lakes through runoff. Tip: Use a broom, not a hose to sweep driveways and walkways. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, help prevent soil erosion, and provide wildlife habitat. Tip: Preserve and plant native trees, bushes and perennial plants. Reduce, reuse and recycle plastics, paper, metal, cardboard and any other materials possible. Tip: Reuse stores with “gently used” goods are a great source for cottage furniture. Source: Michigan Sea Grant

“They both understand that the Great Lakes are the most important asset the region has,” he said.

“They also know the negative impacts of invasive species, declining water levels and climate change -- and they want to address these issues.”

In September 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised, if elected, to create a $5-billion Great Lakes fund within the next decade. As newly sworn-in president, Obama took a step toward fulfilling that promise, Schweiger says, when in February 2009 he committed $475 million in additional dollars in his proposed 2010 federal budget for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. [In late September, the Senate passed legislation for $400 million while the House approved the full $475 million in June. The exact amount will be determined in a House-Senate conference committee.]

An additional $2 billion was allocated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for projects in the region that contribute to economic development as well as restoration and protection of the Lakes, but most people don’t include this stimulus money as partial fulfillment of Obama’s $5-billion pledge.

When the president appointed a Great Lakes director in June 2009, Schweiger says, he again showed his commitment to ensuring the Lakes’ health for future generations. Cameron Davis, former president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, is now senior adviser on the Great Lakes at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and coordinates efforts among about a dozen federal agencies working on Great Lakes projects.

Binational stewardship

Within the past few years, the Great Lakes region has been increasingly identified by elected officials, researchers and community leaders as the nation’s “North Coast” because of its thousands of miles of shoreline. But the Lakes have been long valued by the U.S. and Canada, evidenced by the Boundary Waters Treaty that was crafted a century ago to resolve disputes, and jointly manage shared international waters, including the Great Lakes.

When President William H. Taft signed the treaty in 1909, he could not have known that 100 years later environmentalists and national leaders would point to it as one of the world’s first environmental agreements.

In June 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Canada’s Cannon used the 100-year anniversary celebration of the treaty’s signing to announce that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement would be updated.

“We have to update it to reflect new knowledge, new technology and, unfortunately, new threats,” Clinton said.

While this agreement aims to address water quality issues, the Compact addresses the quantity of water in the Lakes. In fact, it was a 1998 request from a private company to export millions of gallons of Lake Superior water annually to Asia that awakened Great Lakes residents and governments to the need for regional policy that would prohibit moving large quantities of water out of the Great Lakes Basin.

“We realized back then that we lacked the ability to protect the water in the basin, which lit a fire under everybody to do something,” said NWF’s Buchsbaum.

But the work of the leaders of the eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces didn’t end with the signing of the Compact and its parallel Canadian agreement, which took seven years of negotiations and votes, Buchsbaum says. The Compact mandates signers to develop water conservation policies and efficiency programs within two years. He says that it could take two to 10 years until all the conservation provisions are fully implemented in each state and province.

In the U.S., the process will vary from state to state, with each state creating and refining its laws and regulatory system so the Compact can be effective in different contexts, Buchsbaum said.

Challenges for future

Those following the Compact’s implementation predict an uphill climb for hammering out details related to water conservation efforts within the Great Lakes Basin, says Derek Stack, executive director of Great Lakes United (GLU).

He says that even though more than 10 million Canadians get their drinking water from the Lakes, a recent survey conducted in the Ontario and Quebec provinces showed that almost one-third of residents did not know where their drinking water came from.

“We have to reconnect people back to their watershed,” Stack said.

“It’s much easier to say to outsiders, ‘You can’t have our water’ than it is to say to insiders, ‘We need limits. We need water restrictions.’”

Stack cites research reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that shows Americans and Canadians living in the Great Lakes region are the planet’s most wasteful water users. They use three times as much water as people in Germany and six times as much as residents of the United Kingdom.

“We use more water than is currently sustainable,” Stack said.

“By drawing less water, and using the water we do withdraw more wisely, we lighten the stresses that lead to water-quality problems, relieve the burden on aging wastewater infrastructure, and quell greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the energy used to pump and treat water.”

GLU is a broad-based international coalition with Canadian offices in Ottawa and Montreal and a U.S. office in Buffalo, New York. It has received 22 Mott grants since 1987 totaling $1.8 million.

“I am passionate about protecting the Great Lakes,” Stack said.

“Overall, we have seen some real gains in the past few years. Now the priority for everybody doing this work -- in the States and Canada -- is to keep the Great Lakes on the public map so our efforts continue to translate into action that restores and protects these fragile waters.”

• Read an interview with John Austin, director of the Great Lakes Economic Initiative at the Brookings Institution, about the Great Lakes.
• Read a related article Great Lakes can be engine to drive region’s economy.
• Listen to a short radio public service announcement from the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ campaign called This is my Water. 

• Read a related article Great Lakes invaluable, irreplaceable.
• Read an interview with John Austin, director of the Great Lakes Economic Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
• Listen to a short radio public service announcement from the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ campaign called This is my Water. 

By MAGGIE JARUZEL POTTER

When environmental attorney Michelle Halley learned that a documentary about metallic sulfide mining in northern Michigan had won an award, she rejoiced with the film’s producers.

“The movie reaches people who would never learn about this environmental issue otherwise,” said Halley, senior manager of the Lake Superior Protection & Restoration program of the National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) Great Lakes Natural Resource Center.

“The award draws even more attention to the film and adds credibility to its content.”

The movie, Mining Madness, Water Wars: The Great Lakes in the Balance, was commissioned by NWF with grant support from the Mott Foundation’s Environment program under its Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystems focus area. It won a 2009 bronze Telly Award in the documentary category for its co-producers, Brauer Productions, Inc., and Summit Public Relations Strategies, LLC. -– both northern Michigan companies.

The 33-minute movie describes the plans of Utah-based Kennecott Minerals Company –- with approval from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) -– to develop a mine beneath a pristine trout river stream in the state’s Upper Peninsula. Throughout the documentary, scientists, residents, tribal board members, environmentalists (including Halley), and others, say their goal is to prevent the mine from having a detrimental impact on public health and the natural environment.

Several people affiliated with the film have said a welcomed result would be to have Michigan’s DEQ change the ways in which the department addresses community issues and interacts with concerned citizens.

“The film helps viewers realize that the DEQ’s approval process was not transparent and it was not fair,” Halley said.

“People come away from the movie concerned about the regulatory process -– and they should be.”

Since the mid 2000s, NWF -– along with other local, state and national groups -– has worked to raise public awareness about Kennecott’s proposed mining operations. Their efforts increased after December 2007 when a series of permits, several from the DEQ, were approved.

According to Halley, challenges to the mining and groundwater discharge permits are pending before an administrative law judge. Also, there’s a circuit court challenge of a Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) decision to allow state lands (containing Eagle Rock, a significant sacred site that tribal members discuss in the film) to be used by Kennecott.

"We set out to create a documentary film that explored this complex subject in a way that was informative, but also challenged the audience to think deeply about future impacts of mining in Michigan and around the Great Lakes."At least one federal permit related to drinking water safety is still required, she said, and by mid-April 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will release its decision on whether to list the Coaster Brook Trout, which spawns in the Salmon Trout River, as an endangered species. However, final decisions and appeals are still years away, Halley said.

Kennecott Minerals is a member of the Rio Tinto Group, one of the world’s largest mining and exploration companies with headquarters in London, United Kingdom, and operations literally from A to Z -– Australia to Zimbabwe.

The Michigan mining property, located in the Yellow Dog Plains at the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River, is in northwestern Marquette County, which boasts old-growth forests, waterfalls, and Lake Superior, the largest and cleanest of the five Great Lakes.

The film crew traveled to the area to get a firsthand glimpse of the property and to meet with concerned community leaders, many of whom speak out in the film.

According to its Web site, the Telly Award honors the best local, regional and cable television programs and commercials. It also recognizes videos, films and web productions. The 2009 competition received more than 14,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents.

Angela Nebel, the movie’s co-producer and director, is proud of having earned the award.

“We set out to create a documentary film that explored this complex subject in a way that was informative, but also challenged the audience to think deeply about future impacts of mining in Michigan and around the Great Lakes,” she said.

“The news of our Telly Award win is icing on the cake.”

It’s important for environmental organizations to act as the public’s eyes and ears, says Chandra Taylor, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), a Mott grantee.

She said this large spill is different from others in the past however, because it has prompted a groundswell of support for regulatory changes -- not just from traditional environmental groups, but also from the general public.

“People are getting involved,” Taylor said.

“This spill was a significant event that is triggering a momentum for change. Now is the time for the federal government to step in and do something significant.”

Trees enveloped by coal waste after spill. ©Jerry Greer

• Ban disposal units in floodplains and wetlands;
  
• Require dual liner waste collection and removal systems to protect groundwater;
  
• Mandate covers on waste storage facilities to minimize airborne pollution; and
  
• Require consistent groundwater monitoring for all new and existing facilities.
  

TVA’s most recent news release, dated Jan. 23, reports that samplings taken for drinking water quality by the EPA, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and TVA –- including samples from public drinking water sites, private wells, and in-stream river water –- all indicate the drinking water is safe.

• View a PDF of Southern Environmental Law Center's: Blueprint to Safeguard the Environment, Public Health & Safety from Coal Waste

]]>EnvironmentMon, 09 Feb 2009 09:49:33 GMT976395F4-4D04-4270-9104-1070C98C2415http://www.mott.org/publications/Mott%20Mosaic/April%202007%20v6n1/env%20April%202007.aspx By MAGGIE I. JARUZEL

The first thing a visitor notices after stepping inside the second-story New Orleans office of the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) is its soaring 14-foot ceilings. On nearly every wall are large, colorful maps, including one of Louisiana with hundreds of black dots along its coastline.

“Each of those dots represents an oil or gas rig,” said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of GRN, a Mott Foundation grantee.

“The wetlands provide protection for the oil and gas infrastructure. Wetlands can lessen a storm's overall impact when it hits land. 

Wetlands can lessen a storm's overall impact when it hits land.

Sarthou’s sense of urgency about protecting Louisiana’s wetlands is shared by an unlikely ally, R. King Milling, president of the New Orleans-based Whitney Bank.

According to conventional wisdom, the business and environmental communities are supposed to be at odds, he said, but not after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.

“The necessary infrastructure required for the delivery of petroleum products was built assuming it would have the protections of this massive ecosystem,” Milling said. “After Katrina, oil spiked over $70 a barrel because there was damage that put production off for an extended period of time.”

He and Sarthou agree that without the natural protection of wetlands, future storms have the potential to destroy an infrastructure responsible for supplying one-third of oil and gas that is consumed in the nation -- whether drilled in the Gulf of Mexico or drilled elsewhere and shipped through Louisiana’s ports.

In addition, 30 percent of the nation’s crabs, oysters, shrimp and fish are caught in these waters, which also function as an intercoastal transportation system that moves goods to and from several states, and to world markets.

Milling, a native of Louisiana, serves as chairman of the Louisiana Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation. He also is chairman of America’s WETLAND Foundation. The foundation manages a Louisiana-sponsored public education campaign to raise awareness about the impact of the state’s wetland loss on the nation and world.

In addition, Milling is a board member of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL), a Mott Foundation grantee that has received $615,000 in general support since 2000.

“This is not just about the environment. It’s pure economics,” he said.

“From a business perspective, it’s critical to be involved. Prior to Katrina, some business leaders thought I was nuts getting involved in all of this. But Katrina took the hypothesis out of the discussion and turned it into fact. We must protect Louisiana and the national assets that are here.”

Sarthou is pleased that Milling, and other Louisiana business leaders like him, acknowledge how economically important it is -- to both the state and nation -- to protect and restore the wetlands.

But the national and global significance of Louisiana’s valuable biodiversity can’t be underestimated either, Sarthou said.

Wetlands are an ideal spawning and feeding grounds for fish and shellfish, she says. They provide nesting grounds for birds, such as eagles, and they also are home to waterfowl and many mammal species, including mink, otter and even black bears. A variety of plants, insects, reptiles and amphibians -- some of which are endangered, such as the green sea turtle -- also inhabit these areas.

“The coastal communities are filled with a variety of species that need the protection provided by wetlands,” Sarthou said.

Since 1994, GRN has been addressing environmental issues in the Gulf of Mexico states, including coastal land loss, on behalf of a network of about 50 non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Mott has provided GRN with seven grants totaling $655,000 since 2000 to support its work.

Wetlands are vitally important because they serve as nature’s “kidneys,” filtering pollutants and soil runoff from upstream sources, and as its “speed bumps” for major storms, Sarthou said. The shallow waters commonly found in bayous (swamp regions connected to lakes or rivers) reduce wave action, while marsh vegetation provides frictional drag.

As a result, scientists have concluded that wetlands can reduce a storm’s overall impact when it hits land and they also can lessen the height of a storm surge.

However, Louisiana’s wetlands have been disappearing at the rate of one acre every half hour for many decades, resulting in a loss of 1.2 million acres since the 1930s. A major cause of this wetland loss was the massive levy system put in place after the flood of 1927, Milling said.

While protecting people and property, the levy system had an unintended consequence of choking off the supply of fresh water and nutrients that fed the wetlands, initiating their slow death, he said.

Thus, hurricanes Katrina and Rita had few natural barriers to act like sponges and absorb the rain and wind they generated. When the storms blasted ashore, they claimed at least 1,400 lives, destroyed more than 200,000 homes and displaced about 1 million state residents.

Consequently, after the hurricanes caused the greater New Orleans’ economy to come to a halt -- and affected the economies elsewhere in the state and nation -- there was a much greater push to put coastal wetlands protection and restoration on the state and national agendas.

“Our goal is to educate the public and legislators,” Sarthou said. “There’s a large constituency that cares about the long-term repercussions of what’s happening in the Gulf Coast.”

To protect Louisiana and the nation’s assets, a draft master plan -- unveiled in February 2007 and now under public review -- addresses both the need for coastal wetlands restoration and hurricane protection.

The report, “Integrated Ecosystem Restoration and Hurricane Protection: Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast,” was authored by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana (CPRA) Interagency Planning Team.

The authority is comprised of about a dozen people who head a variety of state departments. Milling also participates wearing a couple of hats -- as a prominent businessman and as chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Commission.

The banker and other authority members know that protecting and restoring Louisiana’s natural “speed bumps” comes with a tremendous price tag. While estimates vary widely, most people agree with Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources staff, which predicts the costs could exceed $30 billion.

Much of the money is expected to come from a percentage of the $6 billion the federal government gets annually from offshore oil royalties in the Gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana, a recent constitutional amendment earmarks all such income for coastal restoration. These designated royalties are in addition to other public and private funds for rebuilding efforts.

The estimated $30-billion price tag is so high because there are no easy fixes, said Mark Ford, executive director of CRCL.

He said many pre- and post-Katrina studies show that several factors have contributed to Louisiana’s vulnerable coast, including rerouting the natural flow of the Mississippi River, erecting levees that were never completely interconnected and allowing people to build in wetlands.

From Ford’s viewpoint, enough studies have been done; it’s time to start acting.

“We’ve learned that we have much more success working with nature than against it. In the areas where there were natural marshes, the levees didn’t fail,” he said.

“This is the seventh largest delta system in the world. It’s an awesome system. It’s North America’s version of the Amazon, but we’ve disconnected the river from the land. We need to reconnect the water flows to the landscape.”

He suggests replacing lost sediment to encourage further vegetation growth, and restoring an outer fringe of wetlands to reduce storm surges by 25 percent or more. Also, educating people about the value of wetlands is a necessary storm defense tactic.

Ford points to the region’s Pearl River as one of the most unspoiled rivers in the north Gulf of Mexico. He calls the Pearl -- almost 500 miles long and with its lower course forming part of the Mississippi-Louisiana border -- a “poster child” for healthy rivers.

“It’s the one river that man didn’t mess with down here. We left it natural and it’s doing great.”

To those who suggest developing a storm protection system like that in Holland, Ford says that although the region can learn from the Dutch, the needs aren't comprable because there are too many differences, including protecting a much longer coastline in the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana alone.

Coastal Louisiana needs a comprehensive regional plan, much like that proposed by the CPRA in February 2007, Ford said. Such a plan should ensure that:

• natural barriers are protected and restored;
• residential and commercial developments in wetlands are reduced;
• levees are integrated into the landscape so they don’t harm the ecosystem;
• gaps in the levee protection system are filled; and
• the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers are allowed to flow more naturally.

Since the 2005 hurricanes, people are increasingly suggesting that the natural flow be restored to the Mississippi River, which stretches more than 2,300 miles and receives water from 31 states and two Canadian provinces.

“We’ve got to divert the Mississippi so the sediment stops going off the continental shelf where it does no good, especially when the wetlands desperately need it,” Ford said.

Before humans tried to control the river, he said, floodwaters would flow into the wetlands, depositing much-needed nutrients and sediment. This mud and silt brought stability to the land and created a favorable environment for plants to grow and hold the wetlands in place. 

But when the water was constricted and forced to flow along a specific corridor, land started eroding, native flora and fauna declined, and wetlands started vanishing into open water.

Residents of New Orleans already have learned that rebuilding -- whether it is by nature or man -- doesn’t happen in a few months or even within a year.

Pam Dashiell, a mother and grandmother, is president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, one of two neighborhoods located in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, where the flooding hit especially hard. For her, protecting and restoring the state’s coastal wetlands is an environmental, economic and cultural concern.

“It’s the style, the arts and the heart of this city that draws people here. If we’re not protected from major hurricanes, who is going to want to live here or even visit?” asked Dashiell.

Restoring the region’s natural defense system has become personal for her.

“I had six feet of water inside my house, even though I live three blocks away from the river and my house is raised three feet off the ground.”

After the hurricanes, Dashiell and her grown daughter and granddaughter relocated to St. Louis, Missouri. She returned to her old neighborhood in December 2006 -- but alone. Dashielle’s daughter already had created a new life for herself and her child; she didn’t want to resettle again.

Apparently, many others made the same decision, Dashiell said, as she looked around the eerily quiet streets and shook her head in disbelief. Only 10 percent of the Lower Ninth Ward’s 18,000 residents have returned.

One of the most disturbing signals of the community’s change was evident at its annual neighborhood Christmas party. A not-to-miss event for the past 25 years, the party typically draws 20 to 30 squealing children. In 2006 -- more than a year after the hurricanes -- there was not a single child in attendance, Dashielle said.

And the local elementary school remains closed due to extensive damage.

“My hope is that the neighborhood comes back -- that it is sustainable and beautiful -- and is as populated as it can be,” she said. “My fear is that it won’t.”

While that reality saddens Dashiell, watching NGOs work together after the hurricanes gives her hope, including collaboration between organizations such as GRN and CRCL, which have joined others in calling for complete closure of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), a manmade shipping channel created as a shortcut between the Gulf of Mexico and the city of New Orleans.

“It’s the style, the arts and the heart of this city that draws people here. If we’re not protected from major hurricanes, who is going to want to live here or even visit?"

Pam Dashiell , president, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association

When it was created, the channel was 650 feet wide and 76 miles long, said CRCL’s Ford. Today, due to erosion of the banks, the channel is 2,000 feet wide, which makes it wider and longer than the Panama Canal.

In December 2006, Ford and a team of three other state researchers co-authored “Mister Go Must Go,” a report that was endorsed by St. Bernard Parish (the local governmental unit) and eight environmental organizations.

According to the report, the channel changed water-flow patterns because it was cut through a natural ridge that previously had kept saltwater from flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico. With saltwater flowing in, other freshwater marshes and forests were destroyed or degraded.

Consequently, nature’s “speed bumps” were either eliminated or so severely compromised that the height and speed of storm surges were increased, prompting local residents to call the MR-GO channel a “storm surge superhighway.”

If nothing is done to restore Louisiana’s valuable wetlands, the consequences will be devastating, predicts Ford.

“Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were not our worst-case scenarios. Another big hurricane will come. It could be in four years or 40 years, but we need to be ready,” he said.

“Restoration work is expensive, but we’re either going to pay for storm prevention before or we’re going to pay billions for clean up afterward.”

From the arid Southwest to fast-growing metropolitan areas throughout the U.S., demand is growing for clean, fresh water.

For the states and Canadian provinces surrounding the Great Lakes -- which holds nearly 20 percent of the world’s available fresh water -- pressures to divert water have led to a more aggressive stance to conserve and safeguard it.

To that end, eight governors and two Canadian premiers gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in December 2005 to sign agreements pledging unprecedented protection for the Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin.

Capping more than four years of painstaking negotiations, research and public comments, these elected officials signed the Annex 2001 implementing agreements. The agreements ban new water diversions from the basin, with some limited exceptions, and set the stage for improved management of water resources within the region.

"We aren’t just telling other people that they can’t have the water,” said Molly Flanagan, Great Lakes water resources advocate for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). “We are also taking care of our own needs by making sure that we are using water wisely.”

Said Rob Moore, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York in Albany:

“Prior to the agreements, the states lacked a framework to deal with water quantity issues. When you are talking about 10 states and provinces managing a common resource like the Great Lakes differently, that’s a problem. Nothing adequate was in place to stop diversions. The compact uniformly and predictably dictates how water consumption issues are dealt with.”

Flanagan added: “Overall, it is the most fundamental change in water use laws in the region for the past century.”

The Great Lakes Charter, created by the Council of Great Lakes Governors in 1985, established basic principles for protecting the Lakes. However, it provided no legal or legislative authority to act, according to Flanagan. Annex 2001 offered a framework to develop legally binding agreements providing that authority.

After the governors and premiers approved the Annex in 2001, the Council of Great Lakes Governors convened a working group of state and provincial staff to create agreements to put the annex into action. The working group met with local governments, as well as business, agricultural, environmental, shipping and other interests. Consultations were held with tribes and First Nations, and there also were two formal public comment periods.

This four-year effort resulted in two documents:

• the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement, a good-faith pact among the eight Great Lakes states and two provinces; and
• the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, a binding agreement among the eight states that sets specific guidelines for regulating the withdrawal and use of water from the basin.

Using guidelines included in these documents, each state and province is responsible for developing and passing its own water conservation and efficiency programs.

Going forward, much of the focus will be on passage of the compact, in part because of the inherent complexity of ratifying an interstate/intercountry compact. Each of the eight state legislatures must ratify the compact to enact its provisions. Once that has been accomplished, the U.S. Congress also will be asked for its approval, at which point, it will become federal law. In Canada, each province has the authority to amend its own statutes and regulations, so no federal legislation is required.

“The compact -- we hope -- will make a big difference in how the Great Lakes, the tributaries and ground water are managed,” Flanagan said.

“For the first time, the compact recognizes the importance of protecting both surface water and groundwater. It recognizes that the basin is an interconnected system. You can’t take limitless amounts of water out of the ground without having an impact on the waters you see at the surface.”

There have been prior efforts to curb water diversions from the Lakes.

In 2000, recognizing that the Lakes were an important long-term economic asset, the U.S. federal government amended the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 (WRDA) to give any Great Lakes governor veto power over proposals to divert water.

But there were problems with WRDA, Flanagan said.

“It was a power that was given by Congress to the states. It could just as easily be revoked by Congress, leaving the region without any protection,” she said.

“It also doesn’t include any public participation process, and it is questionable how enforceable it is. If there was a veto vote and a state went ahead and diverted water anyway, it is unclear how that could be dealt with.”

WRDA also could be considered invalid under trade agreements that prohibit discrimination against international commerce, according to Andy Buchsbaum, director of NWF’s Great Lakes Natural Resources Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Great Lakes policymakers were concerned that relaxed restrictions on international commerce might lead to commercial exploitation of the Lakes.

In 1998,

Pristine, sandy beaches and shorelines add to the quality of life for Great lakes residents.

In 2000, as part of its environmental work related to the Great Lakes, the Mott Foundation began making grants to support negotiations leading to the compact. To date, Mott has made 21 grant actions totaling more than $2.1 million for this work.

As policymakers in the states and provinces developed and finalized the compact’s language, Mott funding also helped national, regional and local groups take part in policy discussions, build relationships among water users, and serve in an advisory capacity to the Council of Great Lakes Governors and Canadian premiers.

“The NGO [non-governmental organization] community brought tremendous expertise and a focus on comprehensive ecosystem protection to the table, along with the ability to galvanize public support,” said Noah Hall, who was a chief NGO negotiator for the discussions and now is an environmental law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Cultivating public support is an ongoing challenge, according to Moore, whose organization had been familiarizing decisionmakers, the business community and the public with the need for a new, basinwide water management plan even as the content of the compact was being developed.

“It’s taken a tremendous amount of effort and outreach,” Moore said. “We’ve been working to get local media and environmental organizations ready for the day when our [New York] legislature would take this up.”

That day is near. The New York State Assembly has ratified the compact, and the state Senate could do the same before the end of 2006, making New York the first to ratify the compact.

“Our legislators understand the positive economic and business impacts of the compact,” Moore said. “They understand lots of industries depend on this water and the economic ramifications of water shortages. If they are able to move this big, ambitious policy, it will have a tremendous impact on other states.”

Since 2002, Environmental Advocates of New York (EA) has received $260,000 in Mott funds, partially supporting its programs to educate and engage the public, inform the media of developments regarding the implementation of the compact, and educate opinion leaders about its potential benefits.

As part of its work, EA has developed and disseminated education materials to city councils, town and village boards, planning boards, homeowners associations, and chambers of commerce to encourage broad involvement.

EA also has reached out not only to traditional partners, such as watershed and conservation organizations, but also to nontraditional partners, such as the agricultural and hydropower industries, to help ensure that the implementation document is broadly representative.

Building a consensus view on water management at the state and local levels demands persistence -- and sustained funding -- over a period of years, says Moore.

“Unfortunately, it’s not a sexy story,” he said. “Governments acting before a crisis -- solving problems before they occur -- isn’t newsworthy.”

Since 2002, the Council of Great Lakes Governors has received $250,000 from Mott to convene meetings. Overall, 33 face-to-face sessions and more than 200 conference calls were convened, at which the language of the compact and the agreement was hammered out. A stakeholder advisory committee, which included several Mott grantees, participated in this dialogue.

“Our biggest challenge was -- and is -- bringing diverse interests to a shared vision,” said David Naftzger, executive director of the council. “Our greatest triumph was reaching an agreement -- bringing the legal, political, policy and scientific issues into alignment in the final draft of the compact.”

Under the terms of the compact, each of the states will agree collectively to

Legislators now have the opportunity to protect the waters that are critical to the future of the Great lakes region.

The agreements include several other important provisions.  For example, state and provincial water management programs will be reviewed every five years to make sure standards are being met.  Additionally, efforts will be made to expand the collection of technical data about the health of the Lakes, and states and provinces will share the information in an effort to improve decisionmaking.

State-based organizations will provide policymakers with scientific and legal support as they craft water-management programs that meet or exceed threshold protections agreed upon in the compact.

The next several years will be critical to the successful ratification of the compact.

“The good news is that the years and years of negotiations on the part of each jurisdiction has been marked by the nonpartisan support of governors, and the incredible amount of input and support from various stakeholders,” Flanagan said. “The hope is that the support built over the last five years will translate into success.”

To Helen Taylor, one of the answers to Michigan’s economic challenges is clear: protect the state’s world-class lands and associated natural resources.

In a state where tourism generated $18.8 billion in revenue in 2006, accounting for $1.1 billion in state and local taxes and supporting more than 200,000 jobs statewide, that might seem obvious. But the importance of the state’s natural resources often is overlooked in the continuing search for economic growth strategies.

Students can learn on land protected by the Northern Great Lake Forest Project.Taylor, state director for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), says Michigan’s economic development agenda must include reforms not only in taxes and other business climate factors, but also in the state’s approach to the very assets on which some of its economic drivers -- tourism, agriculture and timber -- depend.

“Our natural assets drive our culture and quality of life. We often forget about the importance of investments in those,” she said.

“We also need to consider our work as an investment in our ‘brand,’ which in Michigan includes our forests, water and shoreline, and these huge Great Lakes.”

With the assistance of the Mott Foundation, TNC and many colleagues in the land conservation community are brokering historic agreements to protect more of the state’s land base and keep it viable for tourism as well as other industries, including forest products and farming.

Since 2000, Mott’s support has been pivotal in two monumental land deals that typify conservation of “working lands.” At the same time, the Foundation has helped expand the capacity of smaller land conservancies, and supported grantees that educate policymakers and the public on the significant role that land conservation can play in the state’s economy.

Land deals

Since 2004, Mott has made grants totaling $10 million to TNC for the $58-million Northern Great Lakes Forest Project. This public-private partnership --including TNC, the State of Michigan, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, the U.S. Forest Service, the Forestland Group, foundations and private individuals -- protects 271,338 acres of hardwood forest and picturesque waters ranging across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

TNC owns outright more than 23,000 acres within the Two Hearted River watershed.

The rest of the land -- 248,000 acres -- will continue to be owned by the Forestland Group and remain on local tax rolls. However, these lands will be restricted for future development and use under a permanent conservation easement that allows sustainable forestry to continue while protecting the biological integrity of the land and water, and guaranteeing public recreation access.

Tina Hall, TNC’s director of conservation programs in Michigan, says the deal had its roots in concern over the continuing subdivision and fragmentation of Upper Peninsula land.

“A stable wood source coming out of the U.P. is no longer a given. This easement will assure small mills, value-added forest products companies and others that some of the wood source is guaranteed in perpetuity.

“The same argument goes for the recreation value of the property. It’s guaranteed into the future and not dependent on future landowners’ decisions.”

In another large conservation agreement, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC) received from Mott three grants totaling $7.75 million, plus a $6.15-million, interest-free loan toward the purchase of more than 5,800 acres of farms, forests and grasslands and two miles of Great Lakes shoreline dunes near Arcadia in the northwest Lower Peninsula.

“The Great Lakes are Michigan’s most magnificent natural resource and one of our greatest economic assets,” said Megan Olds, communications director for the GTRLC. “As we transform our state’s manufacturing-dependent economy, it makes sense to invest in our best and most distinctive assets.”

Brian Putney is one of the landowners now farming on land protected by the conservancy. After purchasing approximately 250 acres of farmland from the conservancy, which holds a conservation easement preventing further development, Putney now has 1,200 acres producing apples, cherries and beef. The conservancy’s first round of farmland sales resulted in 1,119 acres going to local farmers with permanent easement restrictions.

Putney, a third-generation farmer, hopes his two daughters and son, and other young people, will have the opportunity to go into agriculture if they want to.

“The biggest accomplishment of land deals like this is that they preserve large chunks of agricultural land. It’s very important to us in this day and age. We get encroached on by development all the time. This removes that threat and frees us up to farm the way we need to.”

New tools in the toolbox  

Protecting land resources as an economic development strategy also involves building the strength and sophistication of the growing number of land conservancies, which are nonprofit organizations that identify important lands and work with owners to ensure their stewardship.

The community of Michigan land conservancies grew from 29 in 1997 to more than 40 in 2008. And the combined acreage they protect has nearly tripled, from 46,294 to more than 125,000 (not including the Northern Great Lakes Forest Project).

This is part of the protected Lake Michigan shoreline near Arcadia.Because of such rapid growth, Mott has made strategic grants to help these conservancies develop the tools they need to do their jobs.

In 2001 the Foundation pledged $7.5 million to the Conservation Fund to capitalize the Great Lakes Revolving Loan Fund. The revolving fund provides up-front money that small land trusts can use to acquire critical lands when they come on the market.

Since the fund’s establishment, it has made possible the acquisition of eight major Michigan tracts of land, including an addition to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the scenic tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula.

“Because we recognize that tourism is a key industry for the state, protecting the Great Lakes dunes is absolutely critical to attracting visitors,” said Peg Kohring, the Conservation Fund’s Midwest director.

Mott also has supported the Michigan Dune Alliance project, which has linked several conservancies along the Lake Michigan shore through a strategic plan to protect and manage key properties.

Tom Bailey, executive director of the Little Traverse Conservancy in Petoskey, says government actions are no longer enough to conserve sufficient land to power the state’s economic comeback.

“The days of conservation and resource management as solely the responsibility of government are long gone. There’s an increasingly important role for the private and philanthropic sector in conservation.”

Public education and policy

Mott grantmaking also includes support for organizations educating policymakers and the public about land conservation as an economic asset for the state.

One such grantee is the Lansing-based Heart of the Lakes Center for Land Conservation Policy, created in 2004. The center promotes policies that facilitate land conservation. In part because of the center’s education work, state lawmakers revised property tax law in 2006 to remove a “pop-up” tax on the transfer of land if the parcel is under a permanent conservation easement.

Heart of the Lakes also has launched a communications campaign to make lawmakers and opinion leaders aware that natural resources are important to the traditional and new industries the state needs to retain and attract new workers and residents. In late 2007, the center released three studies on the economic impact of Michigan’s natural resources, including one about the impact of tourism on local communities.

“Businesses think in terms of return on investment in their growth strategies,” said Rachel Kuntzsch, Heart of the Lakes executive director.

“To thrive in changing economic times, Michigan leaders must recognize the return on investment that a strong and healthy natural resource base has on our economic prosperity.” 

Organizational capacity building

Mott also has provided support to train staff and develop the resources of land conservancies across Michigan.

A prime agent in enhancing the capacity of these conservancies, not only in Michigan but also nationally, is the Land Trust Alliance (LTA), whose trainings and programs encourage more landowners to protect their land, help conservation leaders be more effective at saving land and build strong organizations that can be counted on to protect land in perpetuity.

One grant made to the alliance helped galvanize the Lake Superior Land Trust Partnership, which brought together about 20 conservancies to identify, and work to protect, some of the most outstanding lands and waters feeding the world’s largest lake by surface area.

“Each of these land trusts was feeling isolated on its own,” said Renee Kivikko, former Midwest director of the alliance. “But this initiative made all the difference in garnering the expertise and creating the relationships needed to implement a strategy for the future of the region.”

One indicator of the partnership’s success, she said, is that state departments of natural resources call on it for various fields of expertise.

The Keweenaw Conservancy, based in Houghton, is a member of the partnership.

Its executive director, Evan McDonald, says the increased sophistication made possible by the partnership has contributed to recent successes and current projects, including a new effort to protect, through a conservation easement, a prime hunting and fishing area along the Pilgrim River.

The link between land conservation and economic growth, McDonald says, couldn’t be clearer.

“The character of our region is one of the things that attracts tourists as well as new residents. The clean air, water and outdoor recreational opportunities, as well as the look and feel of the place, bring people here and keep people here.

“We also have quite a few high-tech companies that formed here, and they picked this place to live in part because of the quality of life. These are high-paying jobs for our community.”

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