Saving Seafood

Alaska senators gain support on transboundary mining issues

June 20, 2019 — Senators from the Western U.S. are joining the Alaska congressional delegation to press the issue of Canadian mining practices in transboundary watersheds .

The bipartisan group of six senators — Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Jim Risch, R-Idaho; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Steve Daines, R-Mont.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; and Patty Murray, D-Wash. — sent a letter along with Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan June 13 to British Columbia Premier John Horgan highlighting the steps states and the federal government have taken to monitor transboundary rivers and what they want provincial officials to do in return.

They were compelled to send the correspondence because there weren’t enough delegates to the International Joint Commission from either country to hold its biannual meeting in April, according to the letter.

IJC spokeswoman Sally Cole-Misch said it took roughly a year for President Donald Trump’s three appointees to the commission to be confirmed by the Senate and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed three new Canadian commissioners as soon as the terms of those appointed by his predecessor were completed.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Agency says US, Canada fall short on protecting Great Lakes

November 29, 2017 — TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Despite recent improvements, the U.S. and Canada have a long way to go toward ridding the Great Lakes of pollution that endangers human health and the environment, an advisory agency said Tuesday.

Inadequately treated sewage, industrial chemicals and farm runoff are still flowing into the five lakes that provide drinking water for about 40 million people, the International Joint Commission said in its first checkup report since both nations last updated the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 2012.

The report calls for improving drinking water and sewage treatment facilities, and strengthening clean-water regulations, particularly limits on phosphorus runoff that is largely responsible for explosive growth of harmful algae in Lake Erie. Agencies also should work faster to identify newer types of contamination, such as fire retardant chemicals, and develop strategies for limiting them, the report says.

“While significant progress has been made to restore and protect the lakes, the governments of Canada and the United States and Great Lakes civil society as a whole are living with the costly consequences of past failures to anticipate and prevent environmental problems,” the report says. “By now, it should be clear that prevention makes environmental, economic and common sense.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald