Great Lakes
A Coordinated Strategic Plan and Monitoring System Are Needed to Achieve Restoration Goals Gao ID: GAO-03-999T July 16, 2003The five Great Lakes, which comprise the largest system of freshwater in the world, are threatened on many environmental fronts. To address the extent of progress made in restoring the Great Lakes Basin, which includes the lakes and surrounding area, GAO (1) identified the federal and state environmental programs operating in the basin and the funding devoted to them, (2) evaluated the restoration strategies used and how they are coordinated, and (3) assessed overall environmental progress made in the basin restoration effort.
There are 148 federal and 51 state programs funding environmental restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these programs are nationwide or statewide programs that do not specifically focus on the Great Lakes. However, several programs specifically address environmental conditions in the Great Lakes. GAO identified 33 federal Great Lakes specific programs, and states funded 17 additional unique Great Lakes specific programs. Although Great Lakes funding is not routinely tracked for many of these programs, we identified a total of about $3.7 billion in basin-specific projects for fiscal years 1992 through 2001. GAO identified several Great Lakes environmental strategies being used at the binational, federal, and state levels. These strategies are not coordinated or unified in a fashion comparable to other large restoration projects, such as the South Florida ecosystem. Without an overarching plan for these strategies, it is difficult to determine overall progress. The Water Quality Act of 1987 charged EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office with the responsibility for coordinating federal actions for improving the Great Lakes' water quality, however, it has not fully exercised this authority to this point. With available information, it is not possible to comprehensively assess restoration progress in the Great Lakes. Current indicators rely on limited quantitative data and subjective judgments to determine whether conditions are improving, such as whether fish are safe to eat. The ultimate success of an ongoing binational effort to develop a set of overall indicators for the Great Lakes is uncertain because it relies on the resources voluntarily provided by several organizations. Further, no date for completing a final list of indicators has been established.
GAO-03-999T, Great Lakes: A Coordinated Strategic Plan and Monitoring System Are Needed to Achieve Restoration Goals
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Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the
Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia, Committee on
Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Wednesday, July 16, 2003:
Great Lakes:
A Coordinated Strategic Plan and Monitoring System Are Needed to
Achieve Restoration Goals:
Statement of John B. Stephenson, Director Natural Resources and
Environment:
GAO-03-999T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-999T, a report to the Subcommittee on Oversight
of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of
Columbia, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs
Why GAO Did This Study:
The five Great Lakes, which comprise the largest system of freshwater
in the world, are threatened on many environmental fronts. To address
the extent of progress made in restoring the Great Lakes Basin, which
includes the lakes and surrounding area, GAO (1) identified the
federal and state environmental programs operating in the basin and
the funding devoted to them, (2) evaluated the restoration strategies
used and how they are coordinated, and (3) assessed overall
environmental progress made in the basin restoration effort.
What GAO Found:
There are 148 federal and 51 state programs funding environmental
restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these
programs are nationwide or statewide programs that do not specifically
focus on the Great Lakes. However, several programs specifically
address environmental conditions in the Great Lakes. GAO identified 33
federal Great Lakes specific programs, and states funded 17 additional
unique Great Lakes specific programs. Although Great Lakes funding is
not routinely tracked for many of these programs, we identified a
total of about $3.7 billion in basin-specific projects for fiscal
years 1992 through 2001.
GAO identified several Great Lakes environmental strategies being used
at the binational, federal, and state levels. These strategies are not
coordinated or unified in a fashion comparable to other large
restoration projects, such as the South Florida ecosystem. Without an
overarching plan for these strategies, it is difficult to determine
overall progress. The Water Quality Act of 1987 charged EPA‘s Great
Lakes National Program Office with the responsibility for coordinating
federal actions for improving the Great Lakes‘ water quality, however,
it has not fully exercised this authority to this point.
With available information, it is not possible to comprehensively
assess restoration progress in the Great Lakes. Current indicators
rely on limited quantitative data and subjective judgments to
determine whether conditions are improving, such as whether fish are
safe to eat. The ultimate success of an ongoing binational effort to
develop a set of overall indicators for the Great Lakes is uncertain
because it relies on the resources voluntarily provided by several
organizations. Further, no date for completing a final list of
indicators has been established.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommended in its April 2003 report that the Administrator,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
* ensure that the Great Lakes National Program Office fulfills its
coordination responsibilities and develop an overarching Great Lakes
strategy; and
* develop environmental indicators and a monitoring system for the
Great Lakes Basin that can be used to measure overall restoration
progress.
EPA generally agreed with GAO‘s conclusions that better planning,
coordination, monitoring and the development of indicators are needed,
and stated it would provide the Congress, GAO, and the Office of
Management and Budget with a formal response to the report
recommendations at a later date.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-515.
To view the full report, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact John Stephenson at (202)
512-3841, or John Wanska at (312) 220-7628.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We are pleased to be here today to discuss our work on environmental
restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. As you know, the Great
Lakes represent the largest system of freshwater in the world and a
natural resource that is threatened on many environmental fronts. To
protect this resource and to address common water quality problems, the
United States and Canada entered into the bilateral Great Lakes Water
Quality Agreement (GLWQA) in 1972. However, today, more than three
decades after the original agreement was signed, beaches are frequently
closed to swimmers due to pollution, fish are unsafe for high risk
individuals to eat, and raw sewage is still being dumped into the
lakes.
Progress has been made on a number of significant fronts, including
controlling the nonnative sea lamprey, reducing the water's phosphorus
content, and improving fish populations, but much more remains to be
accomplished before the overall goals of the agreement can be met.
Several recently released reports, including ours, have questioned
whether the current environmental activities in the Great Lakes being
funded by numerous organizations and various programs have resulted in
significant restoration progress in the basin, or even whether they are
adequate to fulfill the United States commitments under the agreement.
In 2002, we reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
needed to take action to improve its oversight for cleaning up
specifically designated contaminated areas.[Footnote 1]
My testimony today is based on our April 2003 report, which was
prepared at the request of 14 members of Congress' Great Lakes Task
Force. Specifically, GAO was asked to (1) identify the federal and
state environmental programs operating in the Great Lakes Basin and the
funding being devoted to them, (2) evaluate how the restoration
strategies are used and coordinated, and (3) assess overall
environmental progress made in the basin restoration efforts thus far.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, we found the following:
* There are 148 federal and 51 state programs funding environmental
restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these are
nationwide or statewide programs that do not specifically focus on the
Great Lakes, but do fund projects that help clean up the basin. We
could not determine the total Great Lakes specific funding
contributions from these programs, because funds are not typically
tracked for specific areas such as the basin. However, based on partial
information available from 11 federal agencies and 7 of the 8 Great
Lakes states, we determined that at least $1.8 billion in federal
funding and $461.3 million in state funding went to basin-related
projects in fiscal years 1992 through 2001. In addition, there were 33
federal programs focused specifically on the Great Lakes Basin, for
which about $387 million was spent in fiscal years 1992 through 2001,
and the states funded 17 additional Great Lakes specific programs, for
which about $956 million was expended during the same general time
period.
* The numerous restoration programs operating in the Great Lakes Basin
employ a variety of environmental strategies at the binational,
federal, and state levels to address specific environmental problems,
but there is no overarching plan for coordinating these disparate
strategies and program activities into a coherent approach for
attaining overall basin restoration goals. Without such a plan for the
basin, it is difficult to determine overall progress and ensure that
limited resources are being used effectively. Other large-scale
ecosystem restoration efforts, such as those for the Chesapeake Bay and
the South Florida ecosystem, have demonstrated the importance of having
a comprehensive strategic plan with clearly articulated goals,
objectives, and criteria for measuring success and a decision-making
body for weighing the merits of, and prioritizing funding for, proposed
cleanup and restoration projects.
* The absence of a unified Great Lakes restoration effort stems, in
part, from the lack of an effective, authoritative organizational
entity for planning, monitoring, and establishing funding priorities.
The Water Quality Act of 1987 charged EPA's Great Lakes National
Program Office (GLNPO) with the responsibility for coordinating federal
actions for improving the Great Lakes' water quality. However, GLNPO
has not fully exercised this authority. For example, it has not entered
into agreements with other agency organizations regarding their
restoration responsibilities, as required by the Clean Water Act.
* Additionally, the lack of consistent, reliable information and
measurement indicators makes it impossible to comprehensively assess
restoration progress in the Great Lakes Basin. While the Great Lakes
Water Quality Agreement long ago called for the development and
implementation of a monitoring system, this requirement has not yet
been met. Furthermore, any effort to develop indicators must rely on
limited quantitative data and subjective judgments to determine whether
conditions are improving. In 1996, a binational effort was initiated to
develop a set of overall indicators for the Great Lakes through a
series of biennial conferences, but the ultimate success of this
effort, which relies on the volunteer contributions of several
organizations, is uncertain at best.
To improve coordination and help ensure that funds are spent
effectively, we recommended that the Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency, (1) charge GLNPO with the responsibility for
developing an overarching Great Lakes strategy with specific goals and
priorities for evaluating and funding alternative projects, (2) submit
a proposal to Congress for funding the plan, and (3) develop
environmental indicators and a monitoring system that can be used to
measure overall restoration progress. EPA generally agreed with our
conclusions but stated that it would provide a formal response to our
recommendations at a later date.
Background:
The Great Lakes Basin is a large area that extends well beyond the five
lakes proper to include their watersheds, tributaries, connecting
channels, and a portion of the St. Lawrence River. The basin
encompasses nearly all of the state of Michigan and parts of Illinois,
Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the
Canadian province of Ontario. The lakes form the largest freshwater
system on earth, accounting for 20 percent of the world's fresh surface
water and over 95 percent of the U.S. fresh surface water supply for
the contiguous 48 states.
Millions of people in the United States and Canada rely on the five
Great Lakes--Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario--as a
principal source of their drinking water, recreation, and economic
livelihood. Over time, industrial, agricultural, and residential
development on lands adjacent to the lakes has seriously degraded the
lakes' water quality, posing threats to human health and the
environment, and forcing restrictions on activities such as swimming
and fish consumption.
To protect the Great Lakes Basin and to address water quality problems,
the governments of the United States and Canada entered into the
bilateral Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972. In the
agreement, the United States and Canada agreed to restore and maintain
the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Great Lakes
Basin. A new agreement with the same name was reached in 1978 and
amended in 1983 and 1987. The agreement prescribes prevention and
cleanup measures to improve environmental conditions in the Great
Lakes. The agreement obligates the International Joint Commission
(IJC), an international body, to assist in and report on the
implementation of the agreement.
The Clean Water Act directs EPA to lead efforts to meet the goals of
the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and establishes GLNPO within
EPA, charging it with, among other things, cooperating with federal,
state, tribal, and international agencies to develop action plans to
carry out the responsibilities of the U.S. under the agreement. GLNPO
is further responsible for coordinating the agency's actions both in
headquarters and in the regions to improve Great Lakes' water quality.
In addition to GLNPO, numerous federal, state, binational, and
nonprofit organizations conduct activities that focus on improving the
overall Great Lakes Basin environment or some specific environmental
issue within the basin.
Many Federal and State Programs Fund Restoration Activities in the
Great Lakes Basin:
About 200 programs--148 federal and 51 state--fund restoration
activities within the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these programs,
however, involve the localized application of national or state
environmental initiatives and do not specifically focus on basin
concerns. Officials from 11 federal agencies identified 115 of these
broadly scoped federal programs, and officials from seven of the eight
Great Lakes states identified 34 similar state programs. EPA
administers the majority of the federal programs that provide a broad
range of environmental activities involving research, cleanup,
restoration, and pollution prevention. For example, EPA's nationwide
Superfund program funds cleanup activities at contaminated areas
throughout the basin. While these broadly scoped federal and state
programs contribute to basin restoration, program officials do not
track or try to isolate the portion of funding directed toward specific
areas, such as the basin, which makes it difficult to determine their
contributions to total Great Lakes spending. However, basin-specific
information was available on some of these programs. Specifically,
basin-related expenditures for 53 of the 115 broadly scoped federal
programs totaled about $1.8 billion in fiscal years 1992 through 2001.
Expenditures for 14 broadly scoped state-funded programs totaled $461.3
million during approximately the same time period.
Several federal and state programs were specifically designed to focus
on environmental conditions across the Great Lakes Basin. Officials
from seven federal agencies identified 33 Great Lakes specific programs
that had expenditures of $387 million in fiscal years 1992 through
2001. Most of these programs funded a variety of activities, such as
research, cleanup, or pollution prevention. An additional $358 million
was expended for legislatively directed Corps of Engineers projects in
the basin, such as a $93.8 million project to restore Chicago's
shoreline. Officials from seven states reported 17 Great Lakes specific
programs that expended about $956 million in 1992 through 2001, with
Michigan's programs accounting for 96 percent of this amount. State
programs focused on unique state needs, such as Ohio's program to
control shoreline erosion along Lake Erie and Michigan's program to
provide bond funding for environmental activities.
Besides federal and state government agencies, other organizations,
such as foundations, fund a variety of restoration activities in the
Great Lakes Basin by approving grants to nonprofit and other
organizations. Other governmental and nongovernmental organizations
fund restoration activities. For example, individual municipalities,
township governments, counties, and conservation districts are involved
in various restoration activities.
The Lack of a Coordinated, Overarching Strategic Plan Has Impeded
Restoration Efforts:
Restoration of the Great Lakes Basin is a major endeavor involving many
environmental programs and organizations. The magnitude of the area
comprising the basin and the numerous environmental programs operating
within it require the development of one overarching strategy to
address and manage the complexities of restoring the basin's
environmental health. The Great Lakes region cannot hope to
successfully receive support as a national priority without a
comprehensive plan for restoring the Great Lakes. In lieu of such a
plan, organizations at the binational, federal, and state levels have
developed their own strategies for the Great Lakes, which have
inadvertently made the coordination of the various programs operating
in the basin more challenging.
The Great Lakes Basin needs a comprehensive strategy or plan similar to
the plans developed for other large ecosystem restoration efforts, such
as those for the South Florida ecosystem and the Chesapeake Bay. In
South Florida, federal, state, local and tribal organizations joined
forces to participate on a centralized task force formalized in the
Water Resource Development Act of 1996. The strategic plan developed
for the South Florida ecosystem by the task force made substantial
progress in guiding the restoration activities. The plan identifies the
resources needed to achieve restoration and assigns accountability for
specific actions for the extensive restoration effort, estimated to
cost $14.8 billion. The Chesapeake Bay watershed also has an
overarching restoration strategy stemming from a 1983 agreement signed
by Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; the District of Columbia; the
Chesapeake Bay Commission; and EPA. The implementation of this strategy
has resulted in improvements in habitat restoration and aquatic life,
such as increases in bay grasses and in the shad population.
Several organizations have developed strategies for the basin at the
binational, federal, or state levels that address either the entire
basin or the specific problems in the Great Lakes. EPA's Great Lakes
Strategy 2002, developed by a committee of federal and state officials,
is the most recent of these strategies. While this strategy identified
restoration objectives and planned actions by various federal and state
agencies, it is largely a description of existing program activity
relating to basin restoration. State officials told us that the states
had already planned the actions described in it, but that these actions
were contingent on funding for specific environmental programs. The
strategy included a statement that it should not be construed as a
commitment for additional funding or resources, and it did not provide
a basis for prioritizing activities. In addition, we identified other
strategies that addressed particular contaminants, the restoration of
individual lakes, or the cleanup of contaminated areas. Ad hoc
coordination takes place among federal agencies, states, and other
environmental organizations in developing these strategies or when
programmatic activity calls for coordination.
Other Great Lakes strategies address unique environmental problems or
specific geographical areas. For example, a strategy for each lake
addresses the open lake waters through Lakewide Management Plans
(LaMP), which EPA is responsible for developing. Toward this end, EPA
formed working groups for each lake to identify and address restoration
activities. For example, the LaMP for Lake Michigan, issued in 2002,
includes a summary of the lake's ecosystem status and addresses
progress in achieving the goals described in the previous plan, with
examples of significant activities completed and other relevant topics.
However, EPA has not used the LaMPs to assess the overall health of the
ecosystem.
The Binational Executive Committee for the United States and Canada
issued its Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy in 1997 that
established a collaborative process by which EPA and Environment
Canada, in consultation with other federal departments and agencies,
states, tribes and the province of Ontario work toward the virtual
elimination of persistent toxic substances in the Great Lakes. The
strategy was designed to address particular substances that
bioaccumulate in fish or animals and pose a human health risk.
Michigan developed a strategy for environmental cleanup called the
Clean Michigan Initiative. This initiative provides funding for a
variety of environmental, parks, and redevelopment programs. It
includes nine components, including Brownfields redevelopment and
environmental cleanups, nonpoint source pollution control, clean water,
cleanup of contaminated sediments, and pollution prevention. The
initiative is funded by a $675 million general obligation bond and, as
of early 2003, most of the funds had not been distributed.
Although there are many strategies and coordination efforts ongoing, no
one organization coordinates restoration efforts. We found that
extensive strategizing, planning, and coordinating have not resulted in
significant restoration. Thus, the ecosystem remains compromised and
contaminated sediments in the lakes produce health problems, as
reported by the IJC.[Footnote 2]
In addition to the absence of a coordinating agency, federal and state
officials cited a lack of funding commitments as a principal barrier
that impedes restoration progress. Inadequate funding has also
contributed to the failure to restore and protect the Great Lakes,
according to the IJC biennial report on Great Lakes water quality
issued in July 2000.[Footnote 3] The IJC restated this position in a
2002 report, concluding that any progress to restore the Great Lakes
would continue at a slow incremental pace without increased
funding.[Footnote 4] In its 1993 biennial report, the IJC concluded
that remediation of contaminated areas could not be accomplished unless
government officials came to grips with the magnitude of cleanup costs
and started the process of securing the necessary resources.[Footnote
5] Despite this warning, however, as we reported in 2002, EPA reduced
the funding available for ensuring the cleanup of contaminated areas
under the assumption that the states would fill the funding void.
States, however, did not increase their funding, and restoration
progress slowed or stopped altogether.[Footnote 6] Officials for 24 of
33 federal programs and for 3 of 17 state programs reported
insufficient funding for federal and state Great Lakes specific
programs.
The ultimate responsibility for coordinating Great Lakes restoration
programs rests with GLNPO; however, GLNPO has not fully exercised this
authority. Other organizations or committees have been formed to assume
coordination and strategy development roles. The Clean Water Act
provides GLNPO with the authority to fulfill the responsibilities of
the U.S. under the GLWQA. Specifically, the act directs EPA to
coordinate the actions of EPA's headquarters and regional offices aimed
at improving Great Lakes water quality. It also provides GLNPO
authority to coordinate EPA's actions with the actions of other federal
agencies and state and local authorities for obtaining input in
developing water quality strategies and obtaining support in achieving
the objectives of the GLWQA. The act also provides that the EPA
Administrator shall ensure that GLNPO enters into agreements with the
various organizational elements of the agency engaged in Great Lakes
activities and with appropriate state agencies. The agreements should
specifically delineate the duties and responsibilities, time periods
for carrying out duties, and resources committed to these duties. GLNPO
officials stated that they do not enter into formal agreements with
other EPA offices but rather fulfill their responsibilities under the
act by having federal agencies and state officials agree to the
restoration activities contained in the Great Lakes Strategy 2002.
However, the strategy does not represent formal agreements to conduct
specific duties and responsibilities with committed resources. EPA's
Office of Inspector General reported the absence of these agreements in
September 1999.[Footnote 7] The report stated that GLNPO did not have
agreements as required by the act and recommended that such agreements
be made to improve working relationships and coordination.
To improve coordination of Great Lakes activities and ensure that
federal dollars are effectively spent, we recommended that the
Administrator, EPA, ensure that GLNPO fulfills its responsibility for
coordinating programs within the Great Lakes Basin; charge GLNPO with
developing, in consultation with the governors of the Great Lakes
states, federal agencies, and other organizations, an overarching
strategy that clearly defines the roles and responsibilities for
coordinating and prioritizing funding for projects; and submit a time-
phased funding requirement proposal to the Congress necessary to
implement the strategy.
The Lack of an Effective Monitoring System Makes it Impossible to
Assess Overall Restoration Progress:
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, as amended in 1987, calls for
establishing a monitoring system to measure restoration progress and
assess the degree to which the United States and Canada are complying
with the goals and objectives of the agreement. However, implementation
of this provision has not progressed to the point that overall
restoration progress can be measured or determined based on
quantitative information. Recent assessments of overall progress, which
rely on a mix of quantitative data and subjective judgments, do not
provide an adequate basis for making an overall assessment. The current
assessment process has emerged from a series of biennial State of the
Lakes Ecosystem Conferences (SOLEC)[Footnote 8] initiated in 1994 for
developing indicators agreed upon by conference participants.
Prior to the 1987 amendments to the GLWQA, the 1978 agreement between
the two countries also contained a requirement for surveillance and
monitoring and for the development of a Great Lakes International
Surveillance Plan. The IJC Water Quality Board was involved in managing
and developing the program until the 1987 amendments gave this
responsibility to the United States and Canada. This change resulted in
a significant reduction in the two countries' support for surveillance
and monitoring. In fact, the organizational structure to implement the
surveillance plan was abandoned in 1990, leaving only one initiative in
place--the International Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN), which
involved a network of 15 air-monitoring stations located throughout the
basin.
With the surveillance and monitoring efforts languishing, IJC
established the Indicators for Evaluation Task Force in 1993 to
identify the appropriate framework to evaluate progress in the Great
Lakes. In 1996, the task force proposed that nine desired measurements
and outcomes be used to develop indicators for measuring progress in
the Great Lakes.
Shortly before the task force began its work, the United States and
Canada had agreed to hold conferences every 2 years to assess the
environmental conditions in the Great Lakes in order to develop
binational reports on environmental conditions to measure progress
under the agreement. Besides assessing environmental conditions, the
conferences were focused on achieving three other objectives, including
providing a forum for communication and networking among stakeholders.
Conference participants included U.S. and Canadian representatives from
federal, state, provincial, and tribal agencies, as well as from other
organizations with environmental restoration or pollution prevention
interests in the Great Lakes Basin. The 1994 SOLEC conference
culminated in a "State of the Great Lakes 1995" report, which provided
an overview of the Great Lakes ecosystem at the end of 1994 and
concluded that overall the aquatic community health was mixed or
improving. This same assessment was echoed in the 1997 state of the
lakes report. Meanwhile the IJC agreed that the nine desired outcome
areas recommended by the task force would help assess overall progress.
It recommended that SOLEC, during the conference in 2000, establish
environmental indicators that would allow the IJC to evaluate what had
been accomplished and what needed to be done for three of the nine
indicators--the public's ability to eat the fish, drink the water, and
swim in the water without any restrictions.
However, the indicators developed through the SOLEC process and the
accomplishments reported by federal and state program managers do not
provide an adequate basis for making an overall assessment for Great
Lakes restoration progress. The SOLEC process is ongoing, and the
indicators that are still being developed are not generally supported
by sufficient underlying data for making progress assessments. The
number of indicators considered during the SOLEC conferences has been
pared down from more than 850 indicators in 1998 to 80 indicators in
2000, although data was available for only 33 of them.
After the SOLEC 2000 conference, IJC staff assessed the indicators
supported by data that measured the desired outcomes of swimmability,
drinkability, and the edibility of fish in the Great Lakes.[Footnote 9]
Overall, the IJC commended SOLEC's quick response that brought together
information regarding the outcomes and SOLEC's ongoing efforts. The
IJC, however, recognized that sufficient data were not being collected
throughout the Great Lakes Basin and that the methods of collection,
the data collection time frames, the lack of uniform protocols, and the
incompatible nature of some data jeopardized their use as indicators.
Specifically, for the desired outcome of swimmability, the IJC
concurred that it was not always safe to swim at certain beaches but
noted that progress for this desired outcome was limited because
beaches were sampled by local jurisdictions without uniform sampling or
reporting methods. At the 2002 SOLEC conference, the number of
indicators assessed by conference participants increased from 33 to 45.
The IJC expressed concern that there are too many indicators,
insufficient supporting backup data, and a lack of commitment and
funding from EPA to implement and make operational the agreed upon
SOLEC baseline data collection and monitoring techniques. The IJC
recommended in its last biennial report that any new indicators should
be developed only where resources are sufficient to access
scientifically valid and reliable information.
The ultimate successful development and assessment of indicators for
the Great Lakes through the SOLEC process are uncertain because
insufficient resources have been committed to the process, no plan
provides completion dates for indicator development and implementation,
and no entity is coordinating the data collection. Even though the
SOLEC process has successfully engaged a wide range of binational
parties in developing indicators, the resources devoted to this process
are largely provided on a voluntary basis without firm commitments to
continue in the future. GLNPO officials described the SOLEC process as
a professional, collaborative process dependent on the voluntary
participation of officials from federal and state agencies, academic
institutions, and other organizations attending SOLEC and developing
information on specific indicators. Because SOLEC is a voluntary
process, the indicator data resides in a diverse number of sources with
limited control by SOLEC organizers. GLNPO officials stated that EPA
has neither the authority nor the responsibility to direct the data
collection activities of federal, state, and local agencies as they
relate to the surveillance and monitoring of technical data elements
that are needed to develop, implement, and assess Great Lakes
environmental indicators. Efforts are underway for the various federal
and state agencies to take ownership for collecting and reporting data
outputs from their respective areas of responsibility and for SOLEC to
be sustained and implemented; each indicator must have a sponsor.
However, any breakdown in submitting this information would leave a gap
in the SOLEC indicator process.
EPA supports the development of environmental indicators as evidenced
by the fact that, since 1994, GLNPO has provided about $100,000
annually to sponsor the SOLEC conferences. Additionally, GLNPO spends
over $4 million per year to collect surveillance data for its open-lake
water quality monitoring program, which also provides supporting data
for some of the indicators addressed by SOLEC. A significant portion of
these funds, however, supports the operation of GLNPO's research
vessel, the Lake Guardian, an offshore supply vessel converted for use
as a research vessel. GLNPO also supports activities that are linked or
otherwise feed information into the SOLEC process, including the
following:
* collecting information on plankton and benthic communities in the
Great Lakes for open water indicator development;
* sampling various chemicals in the open-lake waters, such as
phosphorus for the total phosphorus indicator;
* monitoring fish contaminants in the open waters, directly supporting
the indicator for contaminants in whole fish and a separate monitoring
effort for contaminants in popular sport fish species that supports the
indicator for chemical contaminants in edible fish tissue; and:
* operating 15 air-monitoring stations with Environment Canada
comprising the IADN that provides information for establishing trends
in concentrations of certain chemicals and loadings of chemicals into
the lakes. EPA uses information from the network to take actions to
control the chemicals and track progress toward environmental goals.
In November 2001, EPA committed to an agencywide initiative to develop
environmental indicators for addressing the agency's nationwide
environmental conditions, stating that "indicators help measure the
state of our air, water and land resources and the pressures placed on
them, and the resulting effects on ecological and human health."
However, this initiative does not specifically relate to the Great
Lakes. The short-term goal for this initiative is to develop
information that will indicate current nationwide environmental
conditions and to help EPA make sound decisions on what needs to be
done. The long-term goal is to bring together national, regional,
state, and tribal indicator efforts to describe the condition of
critical environmental areas and human health concerns.
Program officials frequently cite output data as measures of success
rather than actual program accomplishments in improving environmental
conditions in the basin. As a rule, program output data describe
activities, such as projects funded, and are of limited value in
determining environmental progress. For example, in reporting the
accomplishments for Michigan's Great Lakes Protection Fund, officials
noted that the program had funded 125 research projects over an 11-year
period and publicized its project results at an annual forum and on a
Web site. Similarly, the Lake Ontario Atlantic Salmon Reintroduction
Program administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and
Wildlife Service listed under its accomplishments the completion of a
pilot study and technical assistance provided to a Native American
tribe.
Of the 50 federal and state programs created specifically to address
conditions in the basin, 27 reported accomplishments in terms of
outputs, such as reports or studies prepared or presentations made to
groups. Because research and capacity building programs largely support
other activities, it is particularly difficult to relate reported
program accomplishments to outcomes. The federal and state
environmental program officials who responded to our evaluation
generally provided output data or, as reported for 15 programs,
reported that the accomplishments had not been measured for the
programs.
Only eight of the federal or state Great Lakes specific programs
reported outcome information, much of which generally described how
effective the programs' activities or actions had been in improving
environmental conditions. For example, EPA's Region II program for
reducing toxic chemical inputs into the Niagara River, which connects
Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, reported reductions in priority toxics from
1986 through 2002 from ambient water quality monitoring. Other
significant outcomes reported as accomplishments for the Great Lakes
included (1) reducing phosphorus loadings by waste treatment plants and
limiting phosphorus use in household detergents; (2) prohibiting the
release of some toxicants into the Great Lakes, and reducing to an
acceptable level the amount of some other toxicants that could be
input; (3) effectively reducing the sea lamprey population in several
invasive species-infested watersheds; and (4) restocking the fish-
depleted populations in some watersheds.
To fulfill the need for a monitoring system called for in the GLWQA and
to ensure that the limited funds available are optimally spent, we
recommended that the Administrator, EPA, in coordination with Canadian
officials and as part of an overarching Great Lakes strategy, (1)
develop environmental indicators and a monitoring system for the Great
Lakes Basin that can be used to measure overall restoration progress
and (2) require that these indicators be used to evaluate, prioritize,
and make funding decisions on the merits of alternative restoration
projects.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
answer any questions that you or other members of the Subcommittee may
have at this time.
For further information, please contact John B. Stephenson at (202)
512-3841. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony were
Willie Bailey, Karen Keegan, Rosemary Torres-Lerma, Jonathan McMurray,
Margaret Reese, and John Wanska.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Great Lakes: EPA Needs to
Define Organizational Responsibilities Better for Effective Oversight
and Cleanup of Contaminated Areas, GAO-02-563 (Washington, D.C.: May
17, 2002).
[2] See IJC, Tenth Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality (June
29, 2000).
[3] See IJC Tenth Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality (June
29, 2000).
[4] See IJC, Eleventh Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality
(Sept. 12, 2002).
[5] See IJC, Seventh Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality (Dec.
15, 1993).
[6] See GAO-02-563.
[7] See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA's Great Lakes
Program, EPA/OIG Rept. 99P00212 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 1, 1999).
[8] SOLEC is co-chaired by representatives from the U.S. EPA and
Environment Canada.
[9] See IJC, Eleventh Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality
(Sept. 12, 2002).
