"Voinovich's View" - Protecting the Future of the Great Lakes
Having lived on the "North Coast" of America my whole life, I share Ohioans' deep appreciation for the Great Lakes. The Lakes hold one-fifth of the world's fresh water, provide a habitat to countless species of wildlife, are a vital resource for tourism, transportation and recreation and provide drinking water to millions of Americans.
Ohio is truly blessed to have this indispensible resource at its fingertips, but that also means that it's up to Ohio and surrounding states to manage and protect the lakes. As co-chair of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, I am focused on working with the Great Lakes delegation to advance restoration efforts in this critical region.
This week in the Senate I will be introducing Great Lakes Compact legislation, which is a bipartisan agreement among the Great Lakes states to protect these bodies of water through better water management, conservation and public involvement.
More than two years ago, the Great Lakes Governors, in coordination with the Canadian Premiers of Ontario and Quebec, completed negotiations of the eight-state Great LakesSt. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. This agreement will keep the Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes. In the nearly four decades that I have spent working on restoring and protecting the Great Lakes, I have not seen a more comprehensive management strategy, and I have long been pushing for its timely passage in Congress.
In April, I led a letter with the Ohio Delegation urging the Ohio State Senate to support legislation to implement the compact and was very pleased to see that they passed it, joining in the quest to restore and protect the lakes for generations to come.
To become law, the compact must now be ratified by Congress. Thankfully, the Great Lakes states have an excellent history of working together, and all of them recently approved the compact. Last week I led another letter from the Task Force to the Great Lakes Governors, applauding their efforts in enacting compact legislation.
My dedication to preserving the Great Lakes did not start when I became co-chair of the Great Lakes Task Force. In fact, since the beginning of my career, I have dedicated myself to fighting what I have dubbed the "Second Battle of Lake Erie" to reclaim and restore Ohio's Great Lake. I continued this fight as county commissioner, state legislator, lieutenant governor, mayor of Cleveland, governor of Ohio and now as United States senator.
In addition to my position on the Task Force, I serve on the Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure. I truly consider my efforts to preserve and protect Lake Erie and all of the Great Lakes to be among the most significant of my career.
Since coming to the Senate in 1999, I have supported numerous pieces of legislation to protect the Lakes from invasive species like the Asian carp, fight "dead zones" that threaten the Lakes' vibrant plant and animal life and fund vital cleanup of contaminated sediments.
Since January, I have introduced three Great Lakes bills and hosted an environmental roundtable at the University of Toledo Lake Erie Center to discuss Great Lakes restoration.
In 2008, I introduced legislation to require stronger beach water quality testing and public notification standards, clean up contaminated sediments in the Great Lakes within 10 years and limit the use of phosphates in automatic dish detergents.
These bills would keep beachgoers more informed about the safety of their beaches and help to protect aquatic plants and fish in the Great Lakes and other waters.
We have made great progress in cleaning up and protecting the lakes, and we must continue that progress. Preserving the Great Lakes is not only necessary to protect one of our nation's greatest natural resources - but it's also necessary for Ohio's hurting economy. The best way we can do that is by passing and enacting the Great Lakes Compact and keeping the control of the lakes in the hands of the states that surround them and value them the most.