Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement Team
Chair
John Jackson
Interested in this team? Contact the chair through our Get Involved form
What we're working on
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) requires the governments to periodically review “the operation and effectiveness” of the Agreement and possibly make changes in the Agreement and its implementation.
The federal governments are starting a review of the 2012 GLWQA aiming to see whether changes should be made in the GLWQA or in the implementation of the Agreement. GLEN has submitted two letters, one on the process for the review, another on issues to be reviewed.
This is our opportunity to engage in that review and rally people across the basin to strengthen the Agreement. The GLWQA Team will be working for the next several months to transform the Agreement into a situation where all decisions are based on embracing precautionary and preventative strategies, regeneration and resilience, to have strong benchmarks, to add more effective accountability mechanisms, provide for meaningful public involvement, and incorporate environmental justice principles.
Join us as we detail the changes we want in the Agreement and in its implementation mechanisms.
The case for a stronger, more accountable Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
Over the past fifty years, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) between the federal governments of Canada and the United States has played an important role in setting the agenda for Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River protection. Its purpose is to provide a framework for cooperation across the border on issues like areas of concern, lakewide management, chemicals of mutual concern, nutrients, aquatic invasive species, habitat and species, groundwater, climate change impacts, and science.
The GLWQA commits the governments to follow essential guiding principles such as prevention and precaution. zero discharge, precautionary approach, anti-degradation, polluters pay, public engagement, and science-based management. To read the Agreement go to https://binational.net/agreement/.
Many activists from community organizations, regional and national groups and transboundary organizations have worked for 50 years or more to strengthen the Agreement and its implementation. GLEN’s GLWQA Team continues that work at the transboundary, ecoregion-wide level.
Unfortunately, governments have often failed the Great Lakes and their inhabitants. They have taken an incremental approach towards addressing complex environmental problems. But incrementalism has failed to protect the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence ecoregion. We are working to lead us from incrementalism to innovative approaches that lead us down a new path.
To see GLEN’s assessment of progress under the GLWQA – accomplishments, limitations and disappointments, and our assessment of aspirations and opportunities – see The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement at Fifty. For a summary of the document see Highlights.