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The Great Lakes/Baltic Sea Partnership Program
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The environmental objective of the Great Lakes/Baltic Sea Partnership is to improve the water quality of the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea by sharing information, expertise, and management approaches. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has received financial support to establish the Partnership to work with the Baltic Sea countries to address environmental problems and their solutions that are common to both bodies of water. The two principal areas of cooperation identified are multilateral watershed management and an expert fellowship and exchange program. The fellowship and exchange program will focus on the problems of persistent toxic substances, the invasion of exotic species, and the specific impacts of these on the Baltic Sea and Great Lakes ecosystems.
Although the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea differ in that the former is a freshwater ecosystem and the latter a saline one, the two water bodies have a great deal in common. Both are vast watersheds affected by large human populations and diverse use patterns, and both are controlled by a variety of different governmental entities. The two water bodies also share many of the same risks to human health and the environment. These common environmental threats include: pollution from toxic chemicals, including pesticides; eutrophication and oxygen depletion (resulting, in part, from nutrient runoff from agricultural lands); runoff from urban waste sites; deposition of atmospheric pollution; loss of habitat; and the introduction of exotic species.
Under the Great Lakes/Baltic Sea Partnership, the U.S. proposes to draw on the longstanding Great Lakes binational initiatives of the U.S. and Canada as a model to protect environmental quality and public health. In addition, the Partnership will continue U.S. EPA's history of environmental cooperation programs in the Baltic Sea region, which began in the early 1990s. This cooperation has witnessed significant improvements in the management, collection, and dissemination of environmental data by the Baltic States, as well as in aiding their response to environmental problems. U.S. EPA looks forward to a mutually beneficial Partnership that will reduce the risks to environmental and human health in the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea regions.
Proposed participants in the Partnership are the United States, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Germany, the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the governments of the Great Lakes States. Canadian involvement will include Environment Canada's Ontario Region Office/Great Lakes and Corporate Affairs in Toronto. The United States' involvement will be led by the Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) through its Office of International Activities, its Regional Office in Chicago, Illinois (EPA Region 5), and the Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) in coordination with the U.S. Department of State's Environmental HUB in Copenhagen, Denmark. U.S. EPA will seek to involve many academic and scientific institutions, non-governmental organizations, and private sector entities in the Partnership.
The Great Lakes/ Baltic Sea Partnership has four principal goals:
Through the Partnership, the U.S. proposes to address three important environmental issues: the persistence of toxic substances, invasions of exotic species, and effective management of a multilateral watershed. These will be addressed by means of two major activities, a fellowship and exchange program and a multinational watershed management project.
A. Fellowship and Exchange Program
The Fellowship and Exchange Program proposes to support the visit of scientists and government officials from the Baltic Sea countries to the Great Lakes region to study and conduct a technical exchange on research with a variety of scientists and professionals in U.S. and Canadian governmental agencies, U.S. State governments, non-governmental organizations, and academic and scientific institutions. The U.S. proposes six months as an appropriate time frame for each fellowship. During the first six-month period, the U.S. would host a total of two to three fellows from the three Baltic States. In the future, the U.S. envisions hosting up to five fellows from the Baltic States and three from other Baltic Sea countries. Fellows from the U.S. would visit the Baltic Sea countries to become familiar with their environmental research. The fellowship and exchange program is expected to last for a minimum of three years.The Baltic Sea fellows should benefit in particular from gaining in-depth knowledge of programs in the Great Lakes region on the following issues: enhanced monitoring and information networks; remediation of contaminated sediments; habitat protection and enhancement; redevelopment of contaminated sites; and bilateral U.S.-Canada coordination under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
The U.S. is optimistic that scientists from both regions will benefit from sharing research on the common problems of persistent toxic substances and exotic species. The scientists will be expected to collaborate with one another in developing new models and new research protocols, with the overall goal of finding new solutions to environmental problems.
i. Persistent Toxic Substances
The Partnership would promote technical transfer and dissemination of data, through which the Great Lakes and Baltic Sea communities could significantly contribute to the reduction of toxic substances and to improved understanding of the threats they pose to human health and the natural environment. Joint areas of scientific inquiry on persistent toxic substances could include identification and inventory of toxic substances, analysis of mechanisms to prevent and control toxic pollution, and identification of cost-effective options to achieve this reduction in the level of toxic substances in the environment.Persistent toxic substances threaten both the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea. In 1997 the U.S. and Canada reaffirmed their commitment to "virtually eliminate" persistent toxic substances from the Great Lakes ecosystem when they signed the Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy (BNS). The BNS sets forth a series of joint actions to develop and implement a comprehensive binational program to lessen the use of persistent toxic chemicals and to limit their release to human and natural environments. In the Great Lakes, public concern has been growing about emerging health effects associated with some of these substances, including learning disabilities and reproductive and hormonal disruption. These chemicals also have a significant negative impact on economic sectors such as the fishing industry.
Many of the primary persistent toxics identified in the Strategy, including mercury, PCBs and dioxin, also threaten the Baltic Sea. Half of the world's chlor-alkali production facilities using mercury cells appear to be located upwind of the Baltic Sea watershed. As in North America, mercury levels in small watershed fisheries in Nordic countries appear to be rising. Levels of PCBs and dioxin are also of concern to both watersheds because of their ability to disrupt human endocrine system functions. Because European and North American use patterns of some suspected endocrine disrupters differ, it is believed that enhanced scientific cooperation could enable scientists to compare the differing uses and impacts of PCBs and dioxin on the environment and on human health.
ii. Exotic Species Invasion
In the Great Lakes, invasions of exotic species have not been effectively prevented. Because many of the exotic species in the Great Lakes ecosystem have also found their way to the Baltic Sea -- probably through similar paths such as ship ballast water -- Great Lakes and Baltic Sea scientists stand to benefit from sharing experiences and data and by collaborating on research projects and efforts to develop new technologies. This increased collaboration can also serve as the basis for an "early warning system" to detect the presence of new exotic species. Information on new invasions and probable means of introduction should be shared immediately to prevent additional infestations. The U.S. hopes to develop potential solutions that will prevent new exotic species invasions and control or reduce existing populations of exotic species in the two water bodies.
B. Multilateral Watershed Management
Both the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea have benefited from over 25 years of binational and multinational environmental cooperation. In the Great Lakes region, the U.S. and Canada have cooperated under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. In the Baltic Sea region, the Helsinki Commission has been the conduit for cooperation. Through the Great Lakes/ Baltic Sea Partnership, experiences and watershed management approaches will be shared and new projects will be proposed to enhance watershed protection and improve management techniques.In Lithuania, EPA's QUAL2 mass balance model has already been adapted to the Nemunas River mainstream, running between Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast. EPA would like to enhance Lithuania's use of the model on this river. During the recent USAID funded Qual 2 Workshop, technology transfer assistance to apply the model to the mainstream of the Dauguva River in Latvia was requested. Under this request, U.S. EPA personnel will demonstrate sampling, monitoring, and computer skills to Latvian and Lithuanian personnel, conduct one or more workshops, and transfer equipment to Latvia and Lithuania. Work on the Dauguva River could be undertaken as a tri-lateral technology transfer exercise or it could be expanded to a multi-lateral basis. Expansion would enable the building of the newly-revised Latvian surface water quality monitoring strategy. Because both watersheds involve Russia and Belarus, the work lends itself to a multilateral approach.
The U.S. EPA hopes to work with all interested countries to develop effective networks to monitor pollutant loadings in transboundary water bodies and watersheds. Establishing communication channels that allow national governments to rapidly notify other governments sharing the same watershed of accidental pollutant releases also will be valuable. For example, the early warning system that recently was installed on the Daugava River by the Latvian government could be improved by linking it to monitoring stations upstream, which are closer to potential sources of chemical releases.
The U.S. requests that countries be prepared to discuss and respond critically to the above proposal for a Great Lakes/ Baltic Sea Partnership. In particular, we ask that the Parties consider and discuss the following issues regarding management, timing, and project foci associated with the various components of the Partnership:
A. Partnership Projects
Issue 1: Partnership Management
While individual activities and projects will have their own implementation structures, a mechanism for reviewing priorities and providing oversight for the overall Partnership program needs to be developed. Both watersheds are associated with multilateral institutions: The Baltic Sea with the Helsinki Commission, and annual Baltic Country and donor organization meetings; and the Great Lakes Watershed with the International Joint Commission's Great Lakes Water Quality Board, the Great Lakes Commission, and others. In the United States, the State of the Lakes Conferences, held every two years, could also potentially serve as a forum for these institutions in the U.S.
Issue 2: Participants in Partnership Management
It is important to designate a number of participants to be involved in managing the Partnership. These participants could include the lead implementing ministries for each country, respective participating umbrella organizations, and umbrella NGO organizations such as Great Lakes United and Coalition Clean Baltic.
B. Fellowship and Exchange Program
Issue 1: Focus Topics for the Fellowship Exchange Program
Topics to be addressed by the Partnership should be of common concern for watershed management and should serve as a platform for building transboundary governance in the Baltics. Recognizing that there may be other topics to be explored for designation as priority areas, the United States proposes focusing on persistent toxic pollutants, exotic species, and transboundary watershed management as the priority Fellowship Exchange program areas.
C. Exotic Species
Issue 1: Identifying common problems to be addressed by the scientific community.
It is necessary to identify the range of common problems associated with the invasion of exotic species in both ecosystems. This could be accomplished by holding workshops for specialists from the respective watersheds or by assembling panels of experts to prepare a white paper for review by specialists in the respective countries.
Issue 2: Coordinating investigations by the shipping and environmental communities on methods to prevent new invasions of exotic species
It is necessary to identify parallel shipping and fishery management organizations in the two regions to better coordinate the investigations of the shipping and environmental communities into preventing new invasions of exotic species. In particular, it is important to identify organizations in the Baltic region that could join forces with the U.S. EPA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Issue 3: Information Exchange
To facilitate information exchange, the sister information networks, GLIN and BALLERINA, could be configured to post relevant articles and data. Other suggestions in the area of information exchange are welcome.
D. Reduction/Virtual Elimination of Toxic Substances
Issue 1: Identifying common contaminants of concern to both watersheds.
The need to identify and agree on contaminants of common concern to the Great Lakes and Baltic Sea watersheds is significant. The most critical common pollutants are generally understood to be mercury, PCBs , and dioxin, but others could also be addressed through the Partnership.
Issue 2: Establishing a cooperative framework
It is necessary to establish a framework for cooperation to reduce toxic substances in the Great Lakes and Baltic Sea ecosystems. Such a framework could be established through traditional mechanisms such as workshops and technical exchanges. Newer approaches could also be used, including electronic bulletin boards on relevant research and technology to address sources and reservoirs of the toxic substances in the two ecosystems.E. Transboundary Watershed Management
Issue 1: Project Management
A mechanism to manage the Transboundary Watershed project needs to be developed. The U.S. suggests a management approach with two levels: (1) a Policy Committee co-chaired by Ministry representatives with Country-level representation and NGO participation; and (2) an Implementation Committee with representation based on technical committee chairs. Donors would participate at the Policy level and offer some guidance to the Implementation Committee.
This proposal will serve as a basis for discussion at the meeting in Riga, Latvia in November 1998.
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