Two major Great Lakes proposals are being pushed ahead this week.
Today, a Great Lakes cleanup plan that lacks significant new money.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/dec05/376936.asp
President Bush made a big splash in the Great Lakes region in the middle of the last presidential campaign when he announced a new effort to restore the world's largest freshwater system.
And there likely will be no grand Great Lakes restoration plan coming from the Bush administration, at least not one on the scale longed for - if not expected - by the political leaders, conservationists, tribes and scientists Leavitt brought together to participate in the drawn-out regional effort to design a blueprint for Great Lakes restoration.
On Monday, leaders of the group Leavitt convened, called the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration, will release their Great Lakes restoration plan in Chicago.
A draft of the plan released this summer called for about $20 billion worth of federal, state and local programs over the next 15 years, but already the federal agency leaders who make up the Great Lakes Interagency Task Force are distancing themselves from that group's recommendations.
Specifically, the task force is saying no new federal dollars should be committed to the lakes.
Tomorrow, a Great Lakes water conservation compact.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/dec05/377082.asp
The Great Lakes governors are expected to sign a new set of rules Tuesday tightening diversions from the world's largest freshwater system. But the ceremony might signal only the beginning, not the end, of the fight over the future of who controls the Great Lakes.
If all eight governors do sign the new rules during the two-day meeting at the Pfister Hotel - and while this is likely, there is no guarantee that they will - those rules must still be approved by each of the eight Great Lakes state legislatures. Then Congress must sign off on the eight-state agreement, known as a compact.
A "no" vote from any governor, legislature or Congress could undo the four years of work that has already gone into writing new rules intended to ensure the Great Lakes aren't diminished - or drained - to benefit areas outside the region.
But even if the effort is ultimately successful, nobody is predicting how long the process will take.
Posted by Dave at December 12, 2005 08:03 AM