Abstract
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) of 1972, revised in 1978 and amended by protocol in 1987, is essentially a pollution control and elimination tool. This is because chemical impacts on the lakes were the issues best understood when it was developed and signed in 1972. The extensive list of threats to the health of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem we now recognize calls into question whether the Great Lakes regime has been shaped to deliver relevant programs and policies. The multitude of stresses on the Great Lakes ecosystem will not be new to JGLR readers. Great Lakes scientists continue to grow their understanding of the extensive set of ecosystem threats that span the loss of species and spaces, climate change, new chemicals of concern, emerging and more virulent pathogens, aging infrastructure, impacts of land use on the receiving waters, invasive species, atmospheric deposition, and more. It is the Great Lakes scientific community that continues to unravel the complex interactions of multiple stressors on this very important place. To help advance the appreciation that scientific excellence is imperative for Great Lakes renewal, the IJC will be issuing its second biennial award for scientific excellence in June 2005. Please participate in our call for nominations for the IJC Biennial Award for Great Lakes Science ( www.ijc.org). The science/policy interface is of fundamental importance if we are to achieve a sustainable Great Lakes basin ecosystem. Successfully navigating the interface is no simple matter. It is generally so that policymakers are not well versed in the sciences. It is also generally so that many scientists are unfamiliar with the process of formulating and implementing public policy. As a result, there is an inherent
Published Version
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