Another informative article. With a question of 'What are we going to do about it?" Hard to talk about protecting the china shop when there's a bull intent in entering. Our tools of written persuasion and public advocacy, of building consensus through a democratic process, seem inadequate when someone can put out an A-I-generated reel on social media that shows a false narrative and thousands accept it without question as it reinforces what they want to believe, when our governmental leaders can make proclamations that are contrary to facts and actual evidence without blinking an eye, and when more and more of our fellow citizens embrace the 'might makes right' ethos and dehumanizing rhetoric and actions.
Here’s hoping that water policy decisions can be based on ecosystem-centered water issues and not other considerations. Disputes over such things as boundaries, tariffs, commitments to NATO and other matters should be addressed and resolved between the nations without holding natural systems hostage to unrelated economic and political disputes.
So right, Tom. As Dave points out, while the 1909 BWT, IJC, Water Quality Agreement between Canada and US (ecosystem directed), the Compact provide landmark improvements in protection, the Trump or any Administration can find ways to terminate, weaken, or simply ignore these protections for, as you note, purely economic and political reasons. If Trump authoritarianism can do what it’s done to cities, immigrants, and Venezuela for such reasons, these Great Lakes protections won’t stop him. Ironically, with the Trump administration it works both ways. DOJ and State Department just ran over the Great Lakes and paramount sovereign ownership interests and rights of Michigan and states to protect these waters under the public trust doctrine, by filing a brief with the federal district court in Grand Rapids. The brief argued a 1977 oil pipe line Treaty and federal law prohibited the State from revoking the easement interest in the Straits to prevent catastrophic harm from the unacceptably high risk of a Line 5 failure. The Treaty however did not subordinate the State’s absolute title and public trust rights and duties in its sovereign constitutionally granted tithe to the Straits bottomlands. In fact, the treaty recognized the pipeline is subject to approvals by states. And federal laws restrict states from enacting pipeline regulations that conflict with federal regulatory standard that have nothing to do with a state’s authority to revoke an easement where necessary to comply with its duties to prevent harm, not wait until it happens, based on the public trust doctrine and its title to the Straits.
I recently finished Louise Penny’s mystery The Black Wolf, which explores in fiction the issues re water for Canada and US.
Another informative article. With a question of 'What are we going to do about it?" Hard to talk about protecting the china shop when there's a bull intent in entering. Our tools of written persuasion and public advocacy, of building consensus through a democratic process, seem inadequate when someone can put out an A-I-generated reel on social media that shows a false narrative and thousands accept it without question as it reinforces what they want to believe, when our governmental leaders can make proclamations that are contrary to facts and actual evidence without blinking an eye, and when more and more of our fellow citizens embrace the 'might makes right' ethos and dehumanizing rhetoric and actions.
Here’s hoping that water policy decisions can be based on ecosystem-centered water issues and not other considerations. Disputes over such things as boundaries, tariffs, commitments to NATO and other matters should be addressed and resolved between the nations without holding natural systems hostage to unrelated economic and political disputes.
So right, Tom. As Dave points out, while the 1909 BWT, IJC, Water Quality Agreement between Canada and US (ecosystem directed), the Compact provide landmark improvements in protection, the Trump or any Administration can find ways to terminate, weaken, or simply ignore these protections for, as you note, purely economic and political reasons. If Trump authoritarianism can do what it’s done to cities, immigrants, and Venezuela for such reasons, these Great Lakes protections won’t stop him. Ironically, with the Trump administration it works both ways. DOJ and State Department just ran over the Great Lakes and paramount sovereign ownership interests and rights of Michigan and states to protect these waters under the public trust doctrine, by filing a brief with the federal district court in Grand Rapids. The brief argued a 1977 oil pipe line Treaty and federal law prohibited the State from revoking the easement interest in the Straits to prevent catastrophic harm from the unacceptably high risk of a Line 5 failure. The Treaty however did not subordinate the State’s absolute title and public trust rights and duties in its sovereign constitutionally granted tithe to the Straits bottomlands. In fact, the treaty recognized the pipeline is subject to approvals by states. And federal laws restrict states from enacting pipeline regulations that conflict with federal regulatory standard that have nothing to do with a state’s authority to revoke an easement where necessary to comply with its duties to prevent harm, not wait until it happens, based on the public trust doctrine and its title to the Straits.
Thanks, Dave, for continuing to ask these hard questions in these awful times.