Feature: The frustrating task of updating the Great Lakes water quality agreement
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Updating this 30-year-old U.S.-Canada agreement is a slow and unwieldy process, but it's important for agriculture to be involved
by SUSAN MANN
Alliston-area potato and cash crop farmer Chris Kowalski gets frustrated sometimes with the almost glacial pace of progress at government talks to update the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
You can hear it in his voice when he talks about how the advisory panel he sits on spent almost half of their first meeting more than a year ago discussing procedural matters. Canadian negotiators from Environment Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade consult the 17-member panel, made up of representatives from many different sectors, including cottagers, shipping, petroleum, environmental groups, anglers and hunters, two First Nations bands and farmers.
"You say something and then the whole group gets to comment on it and then you wait," he says, noting that government officials tell them at the next meeting if their comments will be included in the package being sent to the government.
But Kowalski figures its better he's there representing agriculture than for the sector to be without a voice at the table. He's the representative for AGCare (Agricultural Groups Concerned About Resources and the Environment). There are also representatives from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Ontario Farm Animal Council.
It's important for farmers to be on the panel because, at one meeting, a proposal was floated to include crop inputs as hazardous waste, to which Kowalski objected. "At the next meeting, they came back and said they weren't going to put the two together."
Canada and the United States signed the first Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972. In it, the two countries made a commitment to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem. The original agreement was revised in 1978 and amended by protocol in 1987, according to a website maintained jointly by Environment Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In 2007, the U.S. and Canadian governments did a comprehensive public review of the current agreement's operation and effectiveness. Nutrient run-off from agricultural lands was identified as one of 10 areas posing challenges for the Great Lakes basin now and into the future. In the revised agreement, there could be limits put on fertilizer and crop protection product applications. Irrigation practices and water taking permits could also be affected.
Kowalski says farmers' irrigation and water permit practices, along with the possibility of limits on crop protection product applications, are in the review documents but the advisory panel hasn't discussed them yet.
As part of the review, Canadian and American officials concluded that, while there were many successes, the agreement is outdated and unable to address current threats to Great Lakes water quality.
In 2009, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the two countries would begin negotiations to amend the agreement. Those negotiations started in January 2010.
What limits on crop protection and fertilizers could be in store for agriculture as part of this agreement? Environment Canada isn't saying. Spokesman Mark Johnson says by email that the current negotiations are confidential. "We cannot comment in this regard."
Johnson writes in the email that the department also can't comment on any other farming matters that might be in the new agreement until negotiations are completed. Canadian and American officials anticipate concluding negotiations this fall.
But Kowalski would be surprised if they are done by then. "After the first meeting (in April 2010), I thought there's not a snowball's chance in hell they're going to be signing this thing by December (2011)."
Kowalski says negotiations have been extended through 2012. BF