EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt is convening a "Great Lakes collaborative" in Chicago on December 3. Good idea -- if it isn't window dressing for more environmental rollbacks. The environmental community has sent him the following pointed suggestion.
November 29, 2004
Administrator Michael Leavitt
Environmental Protection Agency
Dear Administrator Leavitt:
As you know, our organizations are dedicated to restoring and protecting the environmental quality and economic viability of the Great Lakes. With that goal in mind, we are writing in advance of the December 3 meeting of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration to recommend a set of values to guide the future of this process.
We commend you for launching the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative. This is an exciting initiative, and just what the Great Lakes need at this time: a high-level, high-profile, rapid planning process that will bring all the Great Lakes restoration priorities into the same coordinated effort while creating momentum for the national actions that must follow. We appreciate the thoughtful and decisive way you have designed the Collaborative in consultation with the states, mayors and tribes, and we look forward to participating on December 3 and beyond.
The draft Framework for the Collaborative is helpful in laying out that process and describing it to the public. However, it is vague on the larger tasks we face in undertaking Great Lakes restoration – the “values” needed to guide the process. Those values might be described as Participation, Funding, Coordination, and Results. Unless those values are explicitly addressed, their absence might endanger the success of the entire enterprise.
Public Participation: We know that ensuring full participation by the interested public is a priority for you; indeed, we appreciate that you met informally with many of our organizations to get input on the design of this collaborative process. We are pleased to see that the Framework provides for extensive public participation within the Strategy Groups, which will be critical in the development of their recommendations.
The vital piece that is missing is a way for the public – especially the member-driven ENGOs who have been committed to the Great Lakes for decades – to be involved within the existing timeframe of the process. This means:
• having a seat at (or being able to observe) the Members’ Table and Executive Committee;
• better defining the process, after the draft recommendations are released, that will ensure that the public’s reaction is considered and incorporated into final recommendations;
• that the process be transparent, with reports of Strategy Group meetings available (via the internet and other means) to the general public on a timely basis.
Fully engaging the public in this collaboration is critical to its success. Without their buy-in and support, the product of this Collaboration will not have the credibility or political momentum to spark national action.
New Funding: The Collaborative process is one of several important Great Lakes initiatives currently underway. The Collaborative should call for new funding, not a reshuffling of existing resources.
Visible Coordination: The Collaborative needs to ensure that its new policy recommendations coordinate with other, preexisting Great Lakes restoration policy efforts, including the initiatives adopted as part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement review, the Great Lakes Annex, and the Oceans’ Commission. Without such coordination, we will send mixed (and even conflicting) messages to the national audiences we must persuade to undertake a Great Lakes restoration initiative.
Concrete, Measurable Results: We are pleased that the Collaborative is appropriately designed to produce a product – strategies – within a reasonably short time frame. But those strategies are only the first step. Those strategies need to lead to real results for the Great Lakes. We strongly believe that in designing the strategies, each Strategy Team needs to have the same objectives from the outset: the improvements we all want for the lakes. We suggest that all of the Strategy Teams design their plans with objectives like the following in mind:
• The beaches must be clean enough for swimming.
• The fish must be safe to eat.
• The water must be clean enough to drink.
• The shorelines must be restored and protected so that there is a substantial net gain in coastal wetlands and habitat.
• Populations of valued fish and wildlife must be abundant, diverse, self-sustaining, and healthy.
It is essential that the Collaborative measure its success by these results, not just by the plans it produces.
The Pledge
To that end, we submit for your consideration a second pledge for participants in the Collaborative. We noted that you asked all the participants to sign a pledge when registering for the Collaborative. That pledge focused on the process – providing constructive participation in the Collaborative – and not on the content or result.
Below are the concrete results we will work toward in the Collaborative process. We welcome others to join us by signing this pledge to restore and protect the Great Lakes.
We, participants in the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative, pledge to use the Collaborative recommendations and process to:
• Establish a public engaged in Restoration and empowered to participate;
• Carry out measurable ecological improvements in the short and long term;
• Obtain substantial, additional funding and policies to support those improvements; and
• Ensure that the Great Lakes beaches are safe for swimming, the fish are safe to eat, the water is safe to drink, and the Great Lakes ecosystem is safe for those with no voice.
We look forward to hearing from you about the proposals in this letter, and to seeing you on December 3.