Great Lakes Cleanup: Boon or Boondoggle?

Great Lake
Photo:textilesdiva, Creative Commons, Flickr
A recent study by the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank, shows that the Upper Midwest would reap enormous economic benefits from a proposed cleanup of the Great Lakes.
Trumpeting the cause, the local rag adds that cleaning up the Lakes could drive property values and tourism upward, and provide as much as $300 million for Duluth, a harbor city. Others cities that would benefit include Detroit ($3.7 billion) and Chicago ($13.3 billion).

This most recent round of cleanup talks started in 2005 when government agencies, businesses, environmental leaders and tribal governments decided to collaborate, and asked the Brooking Institution to evaluate the benefits. In a series of two reports, Brookings scholars first assessed the likely benefits to specific industries, including tourism and commercial fishing, and then issued a second report citing the probable increase in property values.

Brookings scholars added that the economic benefits would only apply if key federal, state and local legislation aligned themselves with the stated objectives. S791, the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Act (also known as National Aquatic Invasive Species Act), was introduced by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) on March 7, 2007. S791 is a watered-down version of previous bills, HR5100 and S2545, introduced in 2006, which languished for lack of interest, a less than surprising occurrence in the Bush administration whose enthusiasm for environmental initiatives falls somewhere between slim and none. The current bill deals primarily with invasive species, mercury contamination, and setting up a watchdog group to oversee the Lakes, and would provide about $25 billion to these ends.

The Lakes, which for decades have been plagued with human and industrial wastes and an influx of exotic species like sea lamprey and zebra mussel, were at one time so polluted they were on the verge of ecological collapse. Then, in 1972, people and politicians started paying attention to the deteriorating state of the Lakes, with Congress passing the Clean Water Act and the U.S. and Canada collaborating on the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

Together, these lakes contain one fifth of the world’s fresh water supply and provide drinking water to more than 23 million people. Even though conditions have improved, and regulations have limited effluent discharge dramatically, The Great Lakes watershed continues to show persistent bioaccumulations of toxic PCBs, chlordane, mercury, and dioxin.

Invasive sea lamprey populations are under control, but zebra mussels, which wipe out native mussel species and pose risks to swimmers with their sharp shells, have continued to increase. In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted that no native mussels remained in Lake St. Clair. In Michigan, 11 out of 31 inland lakes have significant zebra mussel populations.

The very word "cleanup" has earned a dubious reputation, thanks to Superfund failures of the last few decades. These cleanups, as directed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), supervised by polluting corporations, and run by corrupt and inefficient government contractors, usually do little more than clean out the taxpayer’s pockets.

The Superfund, created by Congress in response to the Love Canal disaster, is charged with remediating the thousands of toxic dump sites dotting the nation’s landscape. The polluters, usually multinational corporations, are supposed to assume part of the costs, but usually seek legal recourse to minimize or eliminate their liability, often with the cooperation of the courts. In fact, 36 to 60 cents of every Superfund dollar ends up in the pockets of lawyers and their peripheral sycophants.

Under Bush, Superfund progress has further declined by 50 percent, most of it due to lack of funding. The Superfund gets its money from taxes. One of these taxes, on oil and chemical companies, has not been renewed since 1995 thanks to Republican influence in Congress. Superfund reserves, which once stood at $4 billion, have declined precipitously. Between 2000 and 2005, the fund ran $1.75 billion short, and most programs fell by the wayside. Legislation designed to make polluters pick up the tab has also failed, with these same Republicans demonstrating their bias toward business and their complete disregard of the average American.

Superfund cleanup is wasteful, inefficient and dominated by corruption. Government contractors have used Superfunds to pay for Christmas parties, office plants, sports tickets, even calls to pornographic 900 numbers. The technologies used are ineffective and unnecessarily costly, first because the EPA applies environmental standards never meant for waste sites, and second because it insists on applying these technologies across the board even where conditions warrant rethinking the process or using improved processes.

Lastly, Superfund remediation is slow. Over its 30-year history, less than one percent of the 1,300 sites have been taken off the list as fully remediated. More important, however, is the effect Superfund status has on regional economies. Site designation makes it hard to get business loans, and people buying property within the site are, often unwittingly, buying Superfund liability and taking on Super Taxes. Since its inception, the Superfund has gobbled up $30 billion in public funding, and almost as much private money. The contention that Superfund status will increase property values in Detroit or Chicago is in direct contravention to historical record. Superfund sites are, by their very nature, economically disenfranchised.

Great Lake
Photo:Stuck in Customs, Creative Commons, Flickr

The other option is no clean up and that’s not any better. As recently as March of 2008, federal officials were asking the Institute of Medicine to take sides in a dispute over whether residents of the Great Lakes area are at greater risk for health problems; specifically breast cancer, and infant mortality. The dispute arose from a study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (part of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services) which showed a statistical rise in deaths from breast, colon and lung cancer in 12 of the 26 Great Lakes areas surveyed, and higher levels of infant mortality in 21 of the areas, as well as low birth weight and premature births.

The difficulty is, the pollutants responsible for these statistics were spread in the first part of the last millennium (1930-1970), and have since so become so incorporated in the water and soil that nothing short of draining the lakes and dredging its banks would eliminate all the toxins. Declaring Superfund status now is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

Our local talking heads, and the mainstream media, persist in seeing Great Lakes Superfund status as some kind of boon to local economies. The opposite is likely to occur. Government money has a strange habit of slipping into the pockets of the very corporations and people responsible for the problems, at least under Bush, so Superfund status is no guarantee that Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin residents will see a bump in their paychecks or the value of their homes. Even if they do, they’re sure to see another, year-end, tax bill for an equal or greater amount. The government is very good at giving with one hand while taking with the other, a technique they perfected in the latter half of the 19th century when they stole Native American lands for a few blankets, beads, and barrels of rotten pork.

Disclosure: I don’t own stock in any company that might benefit from S791.


Site Disclaimer