I have changed my paper topic to H.R.54 (Great Lakes Water Protection Act) which seeks to "amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to establish a deadline for restricting sewage dumping into the Great Lakes and to fund programs and activities for improving wastewater discharges into the Great Lakes." I am particularly interested in this bill since grew up near Lake Michigan and I am moving to the Cleveland area which is near Lake Erie this summer.
1. What components of your policy issue are most relevant for Cohen’s “Values” Framework?
According to Cohen sewage has been being dumped into our waterways since the United States began and it has been found that sewage and other pollutants negatively affect its fragile ecosystem, including its aquatic food chains and fish populations. As of 2006, an average of around 24 billion gallons of untreated sewage had overflowed into the Great Lakes every year. One report that analyzed municipal sewage treatment and discharges into the Great Lakes basin of 20 Canadian and American cities, blantantly said “We need to stop treating the Great Lakes like a toilet”. The issue my policy bring ups is more about what we don’t value rather than what we do value. The Great Lakes contains 9/10th of the freshwater in the United States and supplies significant amounts of our water usage in the U.S. and Canada. We have been viewing the abundance of fresh water this region of the country has to offer as a convenience to be at our disposal instead of viewing it at a resource to be prized and protected. Hopefully our values will change now that we recognize the fragile nature of the Great Lakes and treat them with respect instead of pillaging them for economic gain and convenience.
2. What components of your policy issue are relevant for Cohen’s “Political” Framework?
On January 6th of this year the Great Lakes Water Protection Act was referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and then to the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. This bill is just one of many that seeks to protect the Great Lakes. It grew out from an Obama campaign promise that proposed a $5 billion trust fund, phased out over 10 years, for Great Lakes cleanup. The promise also included designating a coordinator to oversee Great Lakes programs and to amplify efforts against invasive species which is not included within this particular bill. This bill does, however, seek to establish a Great Lakes Cleanup Fund from which amounts shall be provided for improving wastewater discharges.
The campaign promise and subsequent bill are in part a response to the growing number of interest groups regarding Great Lake Protection. One such coalition, Healing Our Waters (HOW), is the product of several environmental groups and foundations coming together in 2005 for the purpose of creating public awareness and rallying support for Great Lakes avocation. Competing interest groups siding with industry initiatives are likely to play up research that reports the environmental contamination in the Great Lakes claims the data is inadequate to prove the pollution poses a threat to human health. Although the pollutants these interest groups are interested in are not necessarily sewage sludge, their efforts could undermine other efforts regarding sewage contamination as well.
3. What components of your policy issue are most relevant for Cohen’s “Science and Technology” Framework?
The bill states that publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) cannot intentionally divert waste streams to bypass any portion of the treatment facility if the diversion results in a discharge into the Great Lakes. This brings up two questions. Why are treatment facilities bypassing parts of the treatment facilities? The answer to this is that some treatment plants have not installed adequate back-up equipment when the equipment is down due to normal downtime periods or during preventive maintenance. Secondly, does the technology exist to create appropriate treatment facilities that can prevent harmful discharges such as into the Great Lakes? If not, can it be created? The technology does exist, and like Cohen explained regarding gas tank leaks, the problem is not so much in the engineering aspects, but rather within the management aspects. This bill provides a good framework for motivating local governments to improve their management processes in order to bring attention to the sewage treatment problem and come up with an adequate solution.
Another aspect of the policy regarding science and technology is not just the technology required to treat sewage appropriately but science is also required to understand if sewage dumping into the Great Lakes is harmful at all. Research has gone both ways. Some studies show that sewage and other pollutants have been harmful. Others show that they do not pose a serious threat to human health. Results of these studies play a large role in supporting different political viewpoints.
4. What components of your policy issue are most relevant for Cohen’s “Policy Design” Framework?
The Great Lakes Water Protection Act amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (22 U.S.C. 1342) so it already relies on much of the framework of the previous Act. There are additional components from the Great Lakes bill that add to this policy design framework, however. If the act is passed funds would become available “to the Great Lakes States for programs and activities for improving wastewater discharges into the Great Lakes, including habitat protection and wetland restoration.” These funds would come from violations of Section 402 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The compliance date the bill sets for the stipulations in the Act (dumping sewage into the Great Lakes) is January 1, 2029. After that date there is to be an increase in the maximum civil penalty - $100,000 per day for each day the violation occurs.
5. What components of your policy issue are most relevant for Cohen’s “Management” Framework?
Management along with value are the most important roles in this legislation. The Great Lakes Water Protection Act calls for a deadline because the technology exists, the management/organizational structures are in place, they just need to be implemented correctly to treat sewage in the appropriate way. The reasons why sewage is being dumped into the Great Lakes is because of the lack of value we place on them and the management issues surrounding sewage disposal. This bill creates a serious motivation for sewage treatment plants to literally clean up their act and provides the funding necessary to purchase necessary technology and build additional roles required to oversee correct treatment.
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