|
Remarks by George Kuper, President,
Council of Great Lakes IndustriesBefore the International Joint Commission's (IJC) Science Advisory Board Parties Implementation Workgroup's Workshop regarding revisions to Annex I
21 March 2001 Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to provide some industry prospective to the issue of revising Annex I of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement(WQA).
Industry, as represented by Council of Great Lakes Industries, has looked at the appropriateness of opening the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and its Annexes in the past. We reviewed the issues carefully in 1997 and then again in 1999. Following both reviews we concluded that the principles of the Agreement should be reaffirmed but that the Agreement and its Annexes should not be reopened. However, industry has once again revisited the issue in 2001 and we believe it is now appropriate to revise Annex I.
There is little argument that Annex I is out of date. A number of the standards and the attainment target dates in the Annex were reached and surpassed long ago. For example, current mercury levels in Lake Michigan are three orders of magnitude better than the WQA Annex 1 specific objectives for mercury. However, fish consumption advisories remain. Many recently promulgated regulations and standards are more stringent that those specified in the Annex. The science is better and the outcomes necessary to meet the Agreement's goals are better understood.
Our reasons for changing our position on revising Annex 1 lie in our belief that all stakeholders have learned a lot about the issues in the past few years. As you all know, CGLI has been a very active partner in the Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy. Through our work in the BNTS we have a much clearer picture of the state of PBT releases to the lakes, the progress that has been made toward virtually eliminating the BNTS substances and what needs to be accomplished to meet the targets and timetables of the Strategy.
We have worked closely on the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC) and its efforts to develop indicators for the Great Lakes basin. We have learned what it takes to make an ecosystem assessment and track the progress towards restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem as called for in the Article II Purpose statement in the Agreement. We have learned the relative importance of environmental stressors and that the presence of the stressors themselves also changes over time.
Our insight on basin issues is further improved by industry's continuing work on international environmental policy negotiations regarding PBTs. There, we have learned some very important lessons that we believe must be kept in mind when addressing the revision of Annex I. These include:
The focus must be on the doable because absolutes are impossible to achieve;
Some substances cannot be absolutely eliminated such as dioxins and furans; and,
There is no such thing as zero.
With all that we have learned and continue to learn about responding to water quality protection needs in the region, we support the following improvements to Annex I.
- Specific numbers need to be removed from Annex I. Specific numbers in a policy document like those currently tightly cemented by the statement of specific objectives of Annex I are not useful because they quickly become dated. As scientific knowledge expands and technological improvements are made, specific numbers change, their context changes, and they become less meaningful. Therefore, we propose that these numbers be replaced with a directive to utilize the SOLEC indicators as the monitoring protocol and outcome based measures which define the specific objectives of the Agreement. We believe that use of the SOLEC indicators suite is consistent with Article V of the Agreement that establishes parameters for monitoring progress towards the efforts to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the water of the Great Lakes Basin ecosystem. SOLEC intend that these indicators, which have been scientifically vetted over the past four years, will be updated biennially. The suite of SOLEC indicators will provide an ecosystem-based roadmap for the parties to continue to monitor, track, and improve ecosystem restoration progress. Another advantage of using this important SOLEC monitoring and reporting framework is the ability to use the indicators to identify stressors and rank them in terms of their relative impacts on the ecosystem. The scorecard for keeping track of all of this should not be solidified within Agreement nor Annex language, but delegated to the more flexible and dynamic process provided by SOLEC. And, Annex 1 reliance on the SOLEC indicator suite will help commit the Parties to delivering the data to support those indicators.
- We propose the use of a definition of virtual elimination in the Supplement to Annex I. This definition is developed from the Virtual Elimination Task Force Report: Virtual elimination and/or virtually eliminate means an overall strategy, applying to all media and all sources, that requires different approaches - some preventative, some remedial - to control or eliminate different inputs and in situ contamination. Specifically, virtual elimination is defined as achieving an absence of injury, and achieving the goals of restoring and maintaining ecosystem health. And we support an evaluation process that provides that absence of harm be determined using an ecosystem approach. The SOLEC indicators and SOLEC review process provides an opportunity to biennially complete this evaluation.
- Finally, we support a revision to paragraph (b) of Supplement Section 1 regarding Detection Levels that would deal with this important matter and the definition of zero discharge. This revision would read: "Substances not detected and determined to be "absent" as specified in this paragraph will be treated as "zero" for purposes of data analysis and assessment of progress towards virtual elimination." Use of a zero discharge philosophy when applied to these PBTs recognizes that the achievement of absolute zero cannot be attained. "Zero" is therefore equated with "absent" as earlier defined. Revisions to the supplement would permit the ability to address difficult issues relating to virtual elimination and zero discharge that we have worked so hard to understand. The lack of concise definitions has impeded our collective ability to move forward as quickly as we need to on these issues.
We in industry believe that this is indeed the right time to acknowledge what we have learned, review, and revise Annex I. We look forward to working with you to make these important changes happen.
Thank you.
Back
- Home Page
For more information about the Council of Great Lakes Industries and its programs contact: Council of Great Lakes Industries
3600 Green Ct.
PO Box 134006
Ann Arbor, MI 48113-4006
telephone 734-663-1944 * fax 734-663-2424
email: StraderCo@aol.com