Great Lakes activities

IJC Orders of Approval in the Great Lakes

Review of the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Order of Approval
The Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Study Board
International Upper Great Lakes Study

Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Great Lakes Biennial Meetings
Review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
Activities under Annex 2 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
 

Review of the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Orders of Approval

The International Joint Commission is reviewing water levels and flows regulation for the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system. After considering public comment on a draft proposal released in March, 2008, Commissioners proposed that a Working Group, composed of senior representatives of the IJC and the governments of Canada, United States, Quebec, Ontario and New York be established to assist in determining the way forward.

The Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Study Board

The Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Study Board has now completed its five-year study which the International Joint Commission (IJC) will use to assess and evaluate the current criteria used for regulating water levels on Lake Ontario and in the St. Lawrence River; the report will be released in the spring. The Study Team engaged by the IJC was a bi-national group of diverse experts from government, academia, native communities, and interest groups representing the geographical, scientific and community concerns of the Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River system.

Review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

In summer 2005, the governments of Canada and the United States asked the International Joint Commission (IJC) to seek the public''s views on how well the GLWQA has worked so far and how effective it has been. The IJC held public meetings in 14 Great Lakes and St. Lawrence cities in the fall and wrapped up its consultations with an innovative Web Dialogue. It also received comments from more than 4000 individuals and organizations by hand, mail, fax, phone, e-mail and online. The IJC has released a report synthesizing the views it heard. See www.ijc.org/glconsultations.

The IJC also provided a Special Report in August 2006 with its advice to the Governments of the United States and Canada on their review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. In preparing the Special Report, the IJC benefitted from the views expressed by experts, stakeholders and members of the public at large during its consultation process in 2005. In large measure, however, the Special Report is based on research, analysis and advice by its standing Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement advisory boards.

On June 13, 2009, at a celebration commemorating the centennial of the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, the governments of the United States and Canada announced that they would renegotiate the Great Lakes Water Qulaity Agreement.

Activities under Annex 2 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Nearly a decade after the revised 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed by Canada and the United States, the two nations agreed that the worst areas would be given priority attention. Subsequently, 43 such areas were designated as Areas of Concern because they contained contaminated sediment, inadequately treated wastewater, nonpoint source pollution, inland contaminated sites or degraded habitat to a greater degree than the rest of the Great Lakes. Twenty-six of these are solely in the United States, 10 are solely in Canada, and five are binational waterways.