Great Lakes Water Research Articles

Use of collaborative funding to implement the Remedial Action Plan for the St. Louis River Area of Concern, Minnesota, USA

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, collaborative funding by some of the nation’s leading tycoons led to development of Duluth, Minnesota and the surrounding area. This included Andrew Carnegie, Jay Cooke, Andrew Mellon, J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, to name a few. This tremendous period of growth and expansion included major industrial developments, including grain, lumber, iron mining, manufacturing, rail, shipping and shipbuilding, and associated development of the frontier. Although critical to the development of a vital community, these activities took a toll through unchecked alteration of natural habitat and contamination of St. Louis River estuary sediments. These adverse legacy impacts, which occurred well before the establishment of our current environmental regulatory framework, became well recognized in 1985 when the International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board identified the St. Louis River as an Area of Concern requiring the development and implementation of a remedial action plan to restore all impaired beneficial uses. This commitment to Remedial Action Plans was then codified in the 1987 Protocol to the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The initial Stage 1 Remedial Action Plans for the St Louis River Area of Concern was completed in 1992 with the initial Stage 2 Remedial Action Plan completed in 1995, followed by periodic updates through 2012. However, these updates did not have budgets and action timelines necessary to secure the financial commitments to implement identified actions. Establishment of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in 2010 led to the 2013 Remedial Action Plan update (i.e. Stage 2 Remedial Action Plan) that included a business plan that identified specific actions, timelines, and budget estimates. Minnesota began implementing recommendations utilizing collaborative funding through a partnership approach. Ninety-nine percent of the actions identified in the Remedial Action Plan have been completed or are currently underway. Funding needs and sources have been clearly identified and the project is on track to complete major actions by 2020 and remove all beneficial use impairments and delist as an Area of Concern, dependent upon confirmation of use restoration, by 2025.

Symmetry and solitude: Status and lessons learned from binational Areas of Concern

Areas of Concern are geographically distinct areas within the waters of the Great Lakes that are contaminated to the extent that they were originally identified by the International Joint Commission’s Water Quality Board and later codified in the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement as areas requiring remedial actions. Five of the 43 Areas of Concern are binational (Canada, USA), and are located on every river or connecting channel that drains a Great Lake. Implementing an ecosystem approach, as called for in the Agreement, presents unique challenges for binational Areas of Concern due to multiple jurisdictions and communities, and hence greater institutional, program and participatory complexity. Our review of progress in each of the binational Areas of Concern suggests that a binational and ecosystem-oriented approach is underway in the St. Marys, St. Clair and Detroit River Areas of Concern, while the Niagara River and St. Lawrence River Areas of Concern are proceeding on decidedly more independent domestic tracks. Our case study analysis of the Detroit River and St. Lawrence River Areas of Concern suggest that well developed and formal governance frameworks, the establishment of informal networks, and maintaining flexibility within a science-focused approach create conditions better suited to a binational, ecosystem-oriented means of remediation.

Eutrophication in three Canadian Areas of Concern: Phytoplankton and major nutrient interactions

The Bay of Quinte, Hamilton Harbour and Toronto Harbour are all coastal regions of Lake Ontario that have experienced eutrophication and all have been designated as ‘Areas of Concern’ under the terms of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. An assessment of the phytoplankton communities in relation to nutrient (P,N,Si) regimes was undertaken during 2015 (Bay of Quinte) and 2016 (Hamilton Harbour and Toronto Harbour) in order to compare and contrast the dynamics of eutrophication in the three ecosystems. Bay of Quinte was found to be phosphorus and silica enriched, but nitrogen limited which resulted in a phytoplankton community dominated by both filamentous diatoms and diazotrophic (N–fixing) cyanobacteria. Hamiton Harbour was phosphorus and nitrogen enriched, but silica depleted with a community dominated by small and large phytoflagellates in addition to experiencing cyanobacteria blooms. Toronto Harbour, by contrast, showed only moderate phosphorus enrichment and no nitrogen limitation, but some silica depletion; phytoplankton was dominated by smaller flagellates and pennate diatoms. Our findings suggest that while phosphorus was a key factor causing cultural eutrophication, other nutrients including nitrogen and silica also had important roles in determining the biomass and composition of the algal standing crop. Future management activities need to consider how the interactions of phosphorus with other nutrients (nitrogen, silica) affect the dynamics of the phytoplankton community in order to promote the recovery of eutrophic ecosystems.

Revisiting governance principles for effective Remedial Action Plan implementation and capacity building

The creation of Remedial Action Plans for the Great Lakes Areas of Concern was an experiment in addressing anthropogenic stress on human and nonhuman uses of the nearshore zones, invoking new governance paradigms. This article examines how positive governance attributes and negative governance deficits can benefit from an adaptive governance approach. More specifically, it explores best practises in governance for environmental management and suggests a framework in which Areas of Concern approaches can achieve adaptive capacity. This research also aims to identify gaps in current governance arrangements in the ongoing effort to regenerate excellence in the Areas of Concern, with a view forward to nearshore governance frameworks under both Annex 1 and Annex 2 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement Protocol of 2012.

Remedies for improving Great Lakes Remedial Action Plans: A Policy Delphi study

Remedial Action Plans continue to be the principal program to operationalize an ecosystem approach to the restoration of degraded locations across the Laurentian Great Lakes called Areas of Concern. Initiated in 1985, the progress of Remedial Action Plans on balance has been slow and disappointing. The Remedial Action Plan program has been continued following revisions to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 2012 despite very little systematic inspection of its strengths and limitations. Further, the 2012 Agreement calls for a “nearshore framework” with no clarity on the process for understanding place-based governance methods as developed under these Remedial Action Plans. In this context, we conducted a three-round anonymous online Policy Delphi study involving several dozen experts in the development and implementation of Remedial Action Plans from across the Great Lakes basin within government, industry, academia and civil society. Round 1 collected their direct knowledge of the strengths and limitations of Remedial Action Plans. We distilled that knowledge and asked study participants in Round 2 to further reflect on what worked and what did not work in their experience as Remedial Action Plan practitioners. We found an expected diversity of opinion on what ails the program in Round 2, but an unexpected consensus on the desire to move forward with seven governance options that emerged and were ranked by participants in Round 3. Rankings also indicated a consensus that the options were somewhat feasible and likely to succeed as enhancements to the current governance of Remedial Action Plans. Importantly, the results relate to both the structure and attributes of these collaborative processes, and we therefore stress the need to focus on the predominant tendencies and characteristics that underline Remedial Action Plan processes. These findings will have broad significance for evolving place-based nearshore restoration strategies in the Great Lakes and elsewhere as such programs are initiated.

Life after delisting: The Collingwood Harbour story

The authors of Annex 2 in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement recognized that the federal governments needed to cooperate with state and provincial governments, and ensure the public is consulted throughout the development and implementation of the Remedial Action Plans. This article demonstrates how public involvement in Remedial Action Plans is much more than consultation, that it enables participatory decision-making and capacity building. The story of the completion of the Collingwood Harbour Remedial Action Plan and its subsequent legacy in the form of the Environment Network, illustrates that with the proper effort directed to citizen engagement and public ownership of this process, a legacy of entrepreneurial innovation can be achieved that builds the capacity to sustain environmental recovery in support of enhancing the community and the economy.

An expanded fish-based index of biotic integrity for Great Lakes coastal wetlands

Biotic indicators are useful for assessing ecosystem health because the structure of resident communities generally reflects abiotic conditions integrated over time. We used fish data collected over 5 years for 470 Great Lakes coastal wetlands to develop multi-metric indices of biotic integrity (IBI). Sampling and IBI development were stratified by vegetation type within each wetland to account for differences in physical habitat. Metrics were evaluated against numerous indices of anthropogenic disturbance derived from water quality and surrounding land-cover variables. Separate datasets were used for IBI development and testing. IBIs were composed of 10–11 metrics for each of four vegetation types (bulrush, cattail, water lily, and submersed aquatic vegetation). Scores of all IBIs correlated well with disturbance indices using the development data, and the accuracy of our IBIs was validated using the testing data. Our fish IBIs can be used to prioritize wetland protection and restoration efforts across the Great Lakes basin. The IBIs will also be useful in monitoring programs mandated by the Agreement between Canada and the United States of America on Great Lakes Water Quality, such as for assessing Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs) in Great Lakes Areas of Concern, and in other ecosystem management programs in Canada and the USA.

Radar quantifies migrant concentration and Dawn reorientation at a Great Lakes shoreline

BackgroundMillions of flying migrants encounter the Great Lakes and other large water bodies on long-distance flights each spring and fall, but quantitative data regarding how they traverse these obstacles are limited. Shorelines are known areas of migrant concentration due to the ecological barrier effect, but details on the magnitude of this concentration and the flight behaviors causing it are largely unknown and difficult to quantify. Mobile avian radar can provide a unique view of how birds and bats move across landscapes by tracking thousands of individual migrants moving through a sample volume that extends multiple kilometers in radius.ResultsDuring the spring of 2014 we used two avian radar units to compare migration patterns at shoreline (1.5 km from the shore) and inland (20 km from the shore) sites along the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan in the north-central US. We found shoreline activity to be 27% greater than inland activity over all time periods, and 132% greater during the hour surrounding dawn. An analysis of flight directions found that migrants flew to the north and northwest during dusk and night, with many heading out over the lake, but shifted direction towards the east at dawn, as those flying over water reoriented towards land. This shift in direction, which was most intense at the shoreline, may contribute to the higher concentrations of migrants observed at shorelines in this study and others.ConclusionsThese findings help confirm and quantify the phenomenon of nocturnal migrant reorientation at dawn, and also stress the functional importance of coastal regions for aerial migrants. The high use of coasts by migrants highlights the importance of conserving shoreline stopover habitat, which often competes with anthropogenic uses. We suggest using a high degree of caution when assessing potential impacts from development in these sensitive environments, and encourage protection of these high-use areas.

Commentary: Integrating non-targeted and targeted chemical screening in Great Lakes fish monitoring programs

Abstract The Great Lakes are a vital resource for drinking water and recreation and provide a major fishery for millions of people. As part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the US and Canadian governments have been charged with the protection of this system. Persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBTs) contaminants were found to be affecting the lake water quality as early as the late 1960s, and various programs sponsored by the US and Canada have been created to monitor PBTs such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). These programs have refined measurement techniques to quantify trace level contaminants using a targeted analytical approach. However, new PBTs are being detected in the environment, and the traditional targeted methodology is inadequate for understanding the complex chemical mixture affecting Great Lakes wildlife. Fortunately, new analytical technologies are emerging that allow for comprehensive screening of PBTs beyond targeted methods. The current commentary presents an outline of a new framework for contemporary monitoring programs. The goal is to facilitate the compilation of legacy, emerging PBT, and archive PBT signatures by utilizing the basic practices of traditional targeted analysis. This example focuses on fish monitoring programs, and how they are ideally suited for legacy monitoring as well as data-driven discovery of new chemicals of concern.

Life after Dreissena: The decline of exotic suspension feeder may have significant impacts on lake ecosystems.

It is well documented that the introduction of dreissenid bivalves in eutrophic lakes is usually associated with decreases in turbidity and total phosphorus concentrations in the water column, concomitant increases in water clarity, as well as other physical changes to habitat that may have cascading effects on other species in the invaded waterbody. In contrast, there is a paucity of data on the ecological ramifications of the elimination or decline of dreissenids due to pollution, bottom hypoxia, or other mechanisms. Using data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office's Long-Term Biology and Water Quality Monitoring Programs, we analyzed the impacts of the hypoxia-induced declines in Dreissena densities in the central basin of Lake Erie on major water chemistry and physical parameters. Our analysis revealed that the decline in Dreissena density in the central basin was concomitant with a decrease in spring dissolved silica concentrations and an increase in total phosphorus and near bottom turbidity not seen in the western or eastern basins. In contrast, opposite patterns in water quality were observed in the eastern basin, which was characterized by a high and relatively stable Dreissena population. We are the first to report that dreissenid-related shifts in water quality of invaded waterbodies are reversible by documenting that the sharp decline of Dreissena in the central basin of Lake Erie was concomitant with a shift from clear to turbid water.

U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office monitoring of the Laurentian Great Lakes: Insights from 40 years of data collection

Abstract The U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) implements long-term monitoring programs to assess Great Lakes ecosystem status and trends for many interrelated ecosystem components, including offshore water quality as well as offshore phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthos; chemical contaminants in air, sediments, and predator fish; hypoxia in Lake Erie's central basin; and coastal wetland health. These programs are conducted in fulfillment of Clean Water Act mandates and Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement commitments. This special issue presents findings from GLNPO's Great Lakes Biology Monitoring Program, Great Lakes Water Quality Monitoring Program, Lake Erie Dissolved Oxygen Monitoring Program, Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network, Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program, and Great Lakes Sediment Surveillance Program. These GLNPO programs have generated temporal and spatial datasets for all five Great Lakes that form the basis for assessment of the state of these lakes, including trends in nutrients, key biological indicators, and contaminants in air, sediments and fish. These datasets are used by researchers and managers across the Great Lakes basin for investigating physical, chemical and biological drivers of ongoing ecosystem changes; some of these analyses are presented in this special issue, along with discussion of new methods and approaches for monitoring.

A brief history of the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office's water quality survey

Abstract The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) water quality survey (WQS) constitutes the longest-running, most extensive monitoring of water quality and the lower trophic level biota of the Laurentian Great Lakes, and has been instrumental in tracking shifts in nutrients and the lower food web over the past several decades. The initial impetus for regular monitoring of the Great Lakes was provided by the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) which asked the parties to develop monitoring and surveillance programs to ensure compliance with the goals of the agreement. The resulting monitoring plan, eventually known as the Great Lakes International Surveillance Plan (GLISP), envisioned a nine-year rotation of intensive surveys of the five lakes. A broadening of the scope of the GLWQA in 1978 and the completion of the first nine-year cycle of sampling, prompted reappraisals of the GLISP. During this pause, and using knowledge gained from GLISP, GLNPO initiated an annual WQS with the narrower focus of tracking water quality changes and plankton communities in the offshore waters of the lakes. Beginning in 1983 with lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, the WQS added Lake Ontario in 1986 and Lake Superior in 1992, evolving into its current form in which all five lakes are sampled twice a year. The WQS is unique in that all five lakes are sampled by one agency, using one vessel and one principal laboratory for each parameter group, and represents an invaluable resource for managing and understanding the Great Lakes.

Perspectives on Water Resources among Anishinaabe and Non‐Native Residents of the Great Lakes Region

AbstractClimate change and human population growth could reduce household water availability in the historically water‐rich Great Lakes region. It is critical to understand human‐water relationships in advance of policy actions that could result from reduced water supplies. Research on household water conservation typically occurs in a reactionary nature, in settings that are already water‐stressed. Furthermore, few studies involve Native American perspectives on this important topic. We used semi‐structured interviews to assess residents' perspectives of Great Lakes water resources and views on household conservation, involving distinct samples of Native American and non‐Native residents. Although interviewees deeply value the region's water resources, few practice household conservation or plan to do so in the future. Few perceive others in the region as conserving water. Beliefs about water‐related problems are focused more on water quality than supply. Native American interviewees expressed deeper spiritual values toward water than non‐Native interviewees. Findings can help inform policy and outreach strategies and provide a rich foundation for follow‐up quantitative research testing the Theory of Planned Behavior's ability to explain household conservation intentions in the Great Lakes region.

Barriers to Effective Eutrophication Governance: A Comparison of the Baltic Sea and North American Great Lakes

The Baltic Sea and the North American Great Lakes are two transboundary watersheds that are at risk from similar environmental stressors including nutrient enrichment, hydrologic modifications, chemicals of emerging concern, and the overarching stressor of climate change. Although located in different geographical regions of the world, both watersheds are governed in a multilevel governance setting with many layers of decision makers including global, national, governmental, regional, municipal, and community levels. Despite governance innovations, such as the Helsinki Convention in 1974 and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972 and their updated versions, both transboundary waters are under increasing stress from eutrophication. There are provisions in both the Helsinki Convention and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement for nutrient abatement measures, yet algal blooms abound in both waters, especially after precipitation events. This paper looks at the governance processes in both transboundary ecosystems, with the aim of highlighting governance barriers to eutrophication mitigation using four analytical lenses. A comparison of the two systems and the governance barriers shows that similar and unique challenges are faced in both regions, and the choice of analytical lens affects the perception of barriers and implementation actions. This is useful for policymakers in planning intervention strategies to tackle the stressor of nutrient enrichment in both regions.

Environmental regime effectiveness and the North American Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Scholars and practitioners around the globe are grappling with how to improve the effectiveness of complex, transboundary, and multilevel environmental regimes. International environmental agreements (IEAs) have been around for decades yet achievements and outcomes have not met expectations. While international relations scholars have primarily focused on the effectiveness of agreements between states, public policy scholars have been interested in outcomes at a variety of scales including international, national, sub-national, and local across various environmental policy domains and at the instrument and program levels. This article presents findings from a case study of environmental regime effectiveness that uses a modified version of the Oslo-Postdam solution to assess the effectiveness of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a long-standing, bilateral international environmental agreement between Canada and the USA. The findings indicate that there is a need to more broadly define international environmental agreements in complex transboundary systems to include both formal and informal regime features and multilevel governance efforts and to focus on specific policy goals and ecological outcomes associated with IEAs. This case also illustrates the potential to modify the Oslo-Postdam approach by combining expert assessment and data collection methods with traditional policy analysis and program evaluation methods in assessments of environmental regime effectiveness.

A surrogate regression approach for computing continuous loads for the tributary nutrient and sediment monitoring program on the Great Lakes

Abstract Water quality (WQ) in many Great Lake tributaries has been degraded (increased nutrient and sediment concentrations) due to changes in their watersheds, resulting in downstream eutrophication. As part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, specific goals were established for loading of specific constituents (e.g., phosphorus). In 2010, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative was launched to identify problem areas, accelerate restoration efforts, and track their progress. In 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey established a monitoring program on 30 tributaries to the lakes, representing ~ 46% of the U.S. draining area and the spectrum of land uses. Discrete measurements of nutrients and suspended sediment, and continuous measurements of flow and WQ surrogates (turbidity, temperature, specific conductance, pH, and dissolved oxygen) are being collected in these tributaries to document their WQ and estimate continuous (5-min) loading. To estimate loadings, two regression models were developed for each constituent for each site: one using continuous flow and a seasonality factor; and one using flow, seasonality, and continuous surrogates. Variables included in the final models for each constituent were chosen from the explanatory variables that worked “best” for all sites. In computing loads, when continuous surrogate data were unavailable for short periods, loads were computed using the flow and seasonality models. Prediction intervals for all loads were calculated using results from both models. These results provide a better understanding of short-term variability and long-term changes in loading affecting the environmental health of the Great Lakes than traditional regression techniques that employ only flow and seasonality parameters.

Comparing Governance and Local Engagement in the St. Marys River Area of Concern

ABSTRACTUnder the 1987 revisions to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the United States, Areas of Concern (AOC) were designated around the Great Lakes to target the remediation of environmental impairments. Local governments have the potential to play an important role in Great Lakes restoration and protection efforts in AOCs, though the scope of their engagement in remediation efforts is not fully understood. This case study investigates the St. Marys River AOC, which spans the border between Canada and the United States. Through the theoretical lens of the ecology of games, the case study explores the strategic choices of local governments to engage in environmental policy networks in Canada and the United States. The case illustrates the importance of intergovernmental aid and collaborative institutions for ongoing environmental remediation efforts and cross-border coordination.

Great Lakes Water Authority’s Unique Approach to Asset Management Governance

Great Lakes Water Authority’s Unique Approach to Asset Management Governance

Impact of Land Use Activities in the Maumee River Watershed on Harmful Algal Blooms in Lake Erie

One of the focal events motivating the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 was the decline of water quality in Lake Erie, which was originally linked to insufficient treatment of wastewater in some of the biggest adjacent urban centers. The passing of the CWA and the adoption of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in the early 1970s contributed to the quick improvement of water quality in the two ensuing decades, but the 1990s saw the return of water quality problems, indicated by the return of algal blooms to Western Lake Erie. Algal blooms typically occur when excess nutrients are produced by mixture of agricultural and urban practices, and they may threaten ecological stability and public health for millions dependent on the lake for drinking water, tourism, and fisheries. In this case study, we explore the relationship between human behavior and water quality impairments that lead to harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB), and in particular, the Maumee River Watershed. The case is designed to be taught in eight class meetings to an audience of upper-level undergraduate students, and has been tested in the classroom in consecutive semesters starting in the fall of 2015.

SATELLITE OBSERVED WATER QUALITY CHANGES IN THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES DUE TO INVASIVE SPECIES, ANTHROPOGENIC FORCING, AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Abstract. Long time series of ocean and land color satellite data can be used to measure Laurentian Great Lakes water quality parameters including chlorophyll, suspended minerals, harmful algal blooms (HABs), photic zone and primary productivity on weekly, monthly and annual observational intervals. The observed changes in these water quality parameters over time are a direct result of the introduction of invasive species such as the Dreissena mussels as well as anthropogenic forcing and climate change. Time series of the above mentioned water quality parameters have been generated based on a range of satellite sensors, starting with Landsat in the 1970s and continuing to the present with MODIS and VIIRS. These time series have documented the effect the mussels have had on increased water clarity by decreasing the chlorophyll concentrations. Primary productivity has declined in the lakes due to the decrease in algae. The increased water clarity due to the mussels has also led to an increase in submerged aquatic vegetation. Comparing water quality metrics in Lake Superior to the lower lakes is insightful because Lake Superior is the largest and most northern of the five Great Lakes and to date has not been affected by the invasive mussels and can thus be considered a control. In contrast, Lake Erie, the most southern and shallow of the Laurentian Great Lakes, is heavily influenced by agricultural practices (i.e., nutrient runoff) and climate change, which directly influence the annual extent of HABs in the Western Basin of that lake.