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Chapter IV: The Lake Erie Enforcement Conference
- The University of Akron Press
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although previously the United States had initiated and was now, in the mid-1960s, cooperating with Canada through the International Joint Commission in a study of the pollution problems of the lower Great Lakes, under public pressure the governors of the states in the Lake Erie Basin sought immediate remedial actions to prevent further deterioration of the lake. Their means was a Federal Water Pollution Control Act enforcement conference through which they concluded that eutrophication was the principal problem and agreed to reduce the amounts of phosphorus contributed to the lake by municipal and industrial wastewaters. On March 26, 1965, the day following the disturbing public statements concerning the state of Lake Erie by Northington and Kehr, Ohio’s governor James A. Rhodes called a conference on the pollution of the Great Lakes to be attended by federal officials, the governors of eight states bordering the Great Lakes (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), and officials from the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario.1 The conference was scheduled for April 28, in Cleveland. Two weeks prior to the conference, Newsweek ran an article under the heading “Great Lakes: The Dead Sea.”2 In explaining how “in one sense The Lake Erie Enforcement Conference 54 C H A P T E R I V Lake Erie is dying,” the article used and defined the word “eutrophication,” soon to be familiar to the public concerned with environmental issues. It stated that “To live on Lake Erie is to know the stink of algae and dead fish.l.l.l. Beaches have closed in Michigan, Ohio and New York, boat liveries in Buffalo have failed, U.S. commercial fishing has collapsed. The sparkling blue lake is turning sickly green.” Furthermore, “Parts of Lake Michigan, in Green Bay and off South Chicago, are also dying. But experts say Lake Erie may be only twenty years from suffocation.” The magazine characterized proposed remedies to save the lakes as “bizarre and extravagant .” Regarding Lake Erie, James B. Coulter, chief of water projects for the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS), had suggested “dredging muck from the contaminated river mouths, harvesting thousands of tons of slimy algae from the floor of the dead central basin, and repeatedly harvesting the phosphorus-laden fish in the lake.” Coulter believed that his proposals made him a lonely optimist among the experts, and that to implement them “might cost not just millions, but billions of dollars.” The degraded condition of Lake Erie was becoming known nationally. A League of Women Voters committee studying the state of Lake Erie, from the spring of 1963, would comment in its 1966 report that, in 1965, torrents of words describing the problems of the “aging” lake assailed the eyes and ears of the nation. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, news media publicized previously ignored warnings of conservation groups and other concerned individuals. Television and radio programs featured a “dying” or “dead” Lake Erie. Newspapers conducted “Save Lake Erie” campaigns and ran countless news items, educational features, and editorials on pollution and its dire consequences. A spate of articles in national magazines on water problems usually included reference to Lake Erie as the “giant cesspool” or the “Dead Sea.” In many ways, the report continued, “1965 was the ‘Year of Lake Erie’ as we recognized that even as large a body of water as this lake has limits on the volume of wastes it can assimilate and survive.”3 The conference called by Rhodes was held on May 10 in Cleveland. In addition to Rhodes, Governors George Romney of Michigan and Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York and representatives of the governors of the five other Great Lakes states attended. They heard reports from representatives of federal, state, and local agencies having responsibilities regarding water The Lake Erie Enforcement Conference 55 [54.227.136.157] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:04 GMT) pollution in the Great Lakes Basin. Congressman Richard D. McCarthy, in person, and U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, by letter, both of New York, urged that a governor, or governors, call for a federal enforcement conference .4 The consensus of the conference was that much needed to be done in regard to “the dying lake,” but that the means and financing of reparations remained to be worked out.5 The conferees agreed to meet again on June 15 in Detroit, in conjunction with the scheduled three-day meeting of the federal enforcement conference...