Ecosystem Approach to Cleaning Up Great Lakes Basin Proposed

Abstract

Late last month Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner announced innovative ecosystem approach [for] the cleanup, control, and prevention of pollution in the Great Lakes Basin. The proposed approach, called the Great Lakes Water Quality Guidance, will, according to EPA, establish scientifically based controls on toxic pollutants that will, for the first time, ensure the consistent protection of humans, wildlife, and aquatic life throughout the basin. The guidance, also for the first time, will allow increased discharges of a chemical into a water body, if such an increase can be shown to be socially and economically necessary for an area. However, in no instance could water quality be degraded below the level necessary to support existing uses. And the guidance spells out the procedures to be used in setting discharge limits for a specific facility. What's remarkable about the proposed guidance, Browner says, is the process that led ...