The Great Lakes are where we live, work and play. Chicagoans from all communities stream to Lake Michigan to go picnicking, swim, play soccer and Frisbee, fish, boat, kayak and play on the beaches. Lake Michigan is our lodestar — ask Chicagoans which way is east, and we point to the lake. We all love Lake Michigan, and all Midwesterners love the Great Lakes.
That’s why in our politically polarized nation, protecting the Great Lakes is bipartisan and nonpartisan. There’s no partisan divide on the beaches among Democratic and Republican Frisbee throwers, and everyone wants safe water for drinking and swimming.
When then-President Donald Trump’s budgets zeroed out funding for the successful Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the thunderstorm of opposition from both Republican and Democratic public officials thumped his myopic approach. Congress restored funding, and the overwhelming public and political support for the Great Lakes trumped Trump.
But we can’t take our Great Lakes for granted. Longtime Chicagoans recall foamy contaminated Lake Michigan water, cursed alewives cluttering beaches and raw industrial sewage discharged into the lake. Because of the Clean Water Act and other effective policies, Lake Michigan is thankfully cleaner and more enjoyable for all.
The Great Lakes, however, face new challenges. More extreme fluctuations in water levels driven by climate change, combined with more intense storm winds whipping up heavy waves, are battering and eroding beaches, lakeshore buildings and bluffs. Toxic algae outbreaks from cyanobacteria contaminate water supplies, harm fisheries and make swimming yucky in the shallow water bays near Toledo, Ohio; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Saginaw, Michigan. Last winter’s diminishing ice cover affects the lakes’ ecology.
Here are five key action steps to protect our Great Lakes:
1. Protect our Lake Michigan shoreline. Chicago’s lakefront is a gem of parks, beaches, walking and bike paths, recreational sports fields, and nature sanctuaries. Let’s keep it clean and safe, and keep improving accessibility and public facilities to make it better. Equally important: Let’s follow the Hippocratic oath of “do no harm” — don’t screw up the lakefront. An example: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposes to site and build a 25-foot-high “facility” for toxic dredged wastes along the Lake Michigan shoreline on Chicago’s Southeast Side immediately north of Calumet Park. That misguided proposal should be stopped, and the Corps should devote its engineering expertise to better alternatives. Chicago’s lakefront is for people and parks, not toxic waste dumps.
2. Adapt to rising waters that threaten shoreline buildings. Climate change is creating more extreme fluctuations in Great Lakes water levels, with higher highs and lower lows. We must rethink and adapt shoreline infrastructure to be more resilient. The Environmental Law & Policy Center’s “Rising Waters Report” shows that our region’s 200-plus shoreline communities have already spent $878 million in the past few years repairing damages from extreme weather events. Let’s reassess the readiness of shoreline-area buildings — some with hazardous materials — to withstand higher waters and heavy waves. Can they withstand the pounding? Safety first.
3. Hold polluters accountable if they contaminate Lake Michigan. A few summers ago, Cleveland-Cliffs’ steel mill in Burns Harbor, Indiana, discharged excessive amounts of ammonia and cyanide into Lake Michigan, killing thousands of fish, raising safe drinking water concerns and closing Indiana Dunes National Park beaches on an August weekend. The Environmental Law & Policy Center’s citizen enforcement lawsuit and, later, federal action resulted in $3 million in penalties and improved equipment and practices. Other recent environmental enforcement lawsuits have been brought against U.S. Steel’s mill and BP’s Whiting oil refinery for pollution along the lakefront. The penalties must be high enough to disincentivize future pollution violations. Better yet, reduce pollution and don’t do it in the lake.
4. Reduce agricultural phosphorus runoff pollution that causes toxic algae outbreaks. The Chicago region stepped up with policies and better practices to reduce phosphorus from detergents, fertilizers and other sources from getting into Lake Michigan. The brown foamy contaminated lake water is mostly past. The policies banning phosphates in detergents are working, and new Clean Water Act permit limits require the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to remove phosphorus from wastewater discharges. By contrast, too many Great Lakes shallow water bays are increasingly plagued by toxic algae outbreaks. Western Lake Erie is unfortunately the poster child for annual severe toxic algae outbreaks, and there’s no disputing the cause. According to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, about 90% of the phosphorus entering Lake Erie near Toledo is caused by agricultural runoff pollution — mostly excess fertilizers from large crop fields and manure from concentrated animal feeding operations that confine thousands of hogs, cows and chickens in tight cages. The manure and fertilizers run off into the Maumee River basin’s local waterways and flow into Lake Erie. The result: impaired waters almost every summer. The same problem harms Green Bay, Saginaw Bay and, increasingly, Lake Superior bays.
What’s needed? Enforceable regulatory standards requiring these industrial agricultural polluters to clean up their operations and reduce pollution that impairs Great Lakes water quality, threatens safe water supplies, harms fisheries and aquatic ecosystems, and prevents enjoyable boating, swimming and fishing for millions of people.
5. Keep sewage out of Lake Michigan. Stormwater runoff pollution of oils and crud drain into the sewer system during heavy rainstorms and sometimes overflow the treatment system, causing contaminated lake waters and closed beach swimming. Green infrastructure absorbing and reducing floodwaters and the separating of storm and sewage water are necessary to keep Lake Michigan clean. That’s an investment in a cleaner and safer water future.
This Earth Day, let’s celebrate the progress and also recognize the necessary policy actions and hard work to be good stewards protecting our Great Lakes for use and enjoyment by all.
Howard Learner is executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the Midwest’s leading environmental legal advocacy and sustainability innovation organization.
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