Michigan

Great Lakes: Truly Great - and We're Fighting to Keep 'Em That Way

Great Lakes taken by NASA satellite Aqua 09-17-2003The Great Lakes:

  • Encircle Michigan, the Great Lakes State.
  • Contain 95% of the available surface freshwater in the United States.
  • Contain 18% of the world's available surface freshwater.
  • Are large enough to cover the 48 contiguous states to a depth of 9.5 feet.
  • Contain 6 quadrillion (6,000,000,000,000,000) gallons of water.
  • Are the backbone of major job-producing industries including sport fishing, boating, and tourism.
  • Supply drinking water to more than 30 million U.S. and Canadian citizens.
  • Are bordered by eight states and two Canadian provinces.
  • Are the largest freshwater ecosystem in the world.

The Great Lakes are also threatened:

  • By more than 170 aquatic invasive species.
  • By millions of gallons of raw sewage dumped every year from municipal sewage plants.
  • By hundreds of toxic chemicals.
  • By special interests that want to claim ownership of and sell the waters of the lakes for private profit.

Clean Water Action is working to protect the wonder of the Great Lakes for this and future generations.

Stopping Water Raids and Conserving Water

The Great Lakes contain an amazing nearly one-fifth of the world's available surface fresh water. That makes them a critical part of our quality of life in Michigan - and also a tempting target for water-scarce regions of the U.S. and overseas. Clean Water Action is working to protect the Great Lakes from the threat of water raids, diversions and exports.

Water conservation in Michigan is a key to defending the Great Lakes. Michigan cannot seriously argue against water exports if it is wasting Great Lakes water. Water use has already caused harm in some areas of Michigan, drying up adjacent drinking water wells and lowering levels of sensitive wetlands and streams.

In 2006, Michigan's Legislature passed the first meaningful water conservation law in the state's 170-year history. Although a step forward, the law contains glaring loopholes that Clean Water Action is working to close:

  • We must protect all of our lakes and streams from the harmful effects of major water withdrawals. Current law protects only those streams where trout populations may be harmed.
  • We must bar the export of large volumes of Great Lakes water in any sized container. Current law allows unlimited export of Great Lakes water as long as it occurs in containers less than 5.7 gallons in volume.

Clean Water Action has been a leading voice in working to pass and strengthen laws to defend the Great Lakes. In 2007, we're continuing the fight.

Did you know that:

  • Since 1900, Chicago has been diverting large amounts of Lake Michigan water into the Mississippi River system?
  • In 1998, an Ontario company proposed shipping 50 tanker vessels per year of Lake Superior water to Asia?
  • In 2007, Nestle Waters North American is proposing to divert and sell for profit springs that feed the headwaters of two Michigan trout streams?
Restoring and Protecting the Lakes

In the last 30 years, billions of taxpayer and private dollars have been spent to clean up the Great Lakes. In some ways, the Lakes are far healthier than they were in the early 1970s. Phosphorus pollution is down more than 70 percent in many rivers. PCB and DDT levels have declined dramatically.

But scientists and advocates are concerned that other trends are worsening. There are hundreds of days of beach closings each year on the Great Lakes because of sewage. Toxic chemicals not banned in the 1970s and 1980s are showing up at alarming levels in Great Lakes fish and wildlife, and in human blood and breast milk. Key habitats - coastal wetlands and floodplains - are being destroyed and converted to development.

Because the threats are many, the answer must be more than a problem-by-problem approach. In 2004, responding to the concerns of citizens across the Great Lakes, the Bush Administration declared the Lakes "a national treasure" and set in motion a process for development of a Great Lakes restoration plan.

Unveiled in December 2005, the plan calls for more than $20 billion in funding for Great Lakes restoration over five years, including money to:

  • Upgrade sewer systems and treatment plants to keep more sewage out of the Lakes and their tributaries.
  • Install buffer strips along farmland adjacent to Great Lakes tributaries to intercept and reduce fertilizer, waste and pesticide pollution.
  • Clean up contaminated bays and harbors.
  • Stop new invasive species from entering the system, and control existing invaders.

Unfortunately, since the plan was released, little new funding has been sought by the President or appropriated by Congress to put the plan into action. Clean Water Action is working in 2007 with the public and members of Michigan's Legislature and Congressional delegation to win new state and federal funding to restore the health of the Great Lakes.

More information:

The broad-based Healing Our Waters Coalition, consisting of dozens of Great Lakes organizations and thousands of citizens, seeks restoration of the Lakes.

Aquatic Invasive Species

Invasive non-native species, unfortunately, are nothing new to the Great Lakes. Scientists estimate more than 170 such species have entered the Lakes in the last 200 years.

What is new is the accelerating rate of invasions. On average, a new non-native species enters the Lakes every eight months. Some of the recent invaders include:

  • Zebra mussels, which hitchhiked in the ballast water of an oceangoing vessel until arriving in Lake St. Clair in 1986.
  • Quagga mussels, also carried by ballast water, and now infesting huge reaches of the lower four Great Lakes.
  • The round-nosed goby, another "stowaway" in ballast water.

And there are more knocking at the door. Concern currently focuses on three species of Asian carp in the Illinois River, which is connected artificially to Lake Michigan via the Chicago diversion. These huge nonnative fish can grow to 100 pounds and consume up to 40% of their body weight per day. They are considered a serious threat to the fish and food chain of the Great Lakes.

Clean Water Action is working with many allies to stop the invasions:

  • We have joined the call for immediate funding by the Congress of an electric barrier in the Illinois River to lessen the threat of invasion by the Asian carp.
  • We supported and are working to defend Michigan's nationally-significant law requiring ocean vessels docking here to treat their ballast water to increase the likelihood of destroying non-native organisms.
  • We are joining forces with the Great Lakes community to call for action by Congress to set a Great Lakes or national standard for treatment of ballast water by all ocean going vessels entering the system.