The size of the ships which go through the Welland Canal

ees the economic importance of the Great Lakes water-
® the country’s economy.

ilusy

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®aches on the Great Lakes are now almost unusable.

F POLLUTION and misman-
I agement continue on the

Great Lakes it may be only
a few years before this fresh
water system is the world’s
largest and most expensive cess-
pool.

This warning comes from D.
G. Hahn, member of Parliament
for Broadview constituency in
Toronto.

Already, more than a fifth of
Lake Erie, with an area of 2,000
square miles, is so polluted that
neither fish nor normal marine
vegetation can live there.

Industrial pollution is conti-
nuing afd -growing. Cities are
pumping raw sewage into the
lakes. Ships from all parts of
the world are dumping raw
sewage, engine-room wastes and
garbage into these waters. Algae
are spreading.

Unless drastic measures are
adopted and enforced pollution

will render-unfit for human con- _

sumption what had once been
the “world’s ‘most .. magnificent
supply of fresh water.

This is the warning that has
come from many sources -~ en-
gineers, scientists, civic officials
—and is reiterated in a brief
presented by the Communist
Party to a recent public hearing
of the International Joint Com-
mission.

The IJC is an. official, Cana-
dian-United States body which
regulates matters concerning
lakes and rivers common to
both countries.

The Communist Party’s brief,
prepared by Tim Buck, national
chairman of the party, was pre-
sented to the IJC hearing on
May 3.

Buck discusses two major
problems of the Great Lakes.
Both these problems are con-
nected and they cannot be solv-
ed separately. The first is that
of regulation of the water sup-

Or pure pleasure

“you can't do without clean water

fing Ontario's rivers and streams offer summer fun; but as a result of pollution, some of the

ply. The second problem is pol-
lution.

“Our main contention in this
submission,” says Buck, “is to
the effect that the decisive need
in the Great Lakes basin is con-
trol and regulation.” This should
include a “‘clearly-defined plan”
based on “the problems and best
interests of the Great Lakes
basin as a whole and of the
communities adjacent to or de-
pendent upon it.”

A, regulatory authority, as
proposed by the party, should
represent Canada and the U.S.
“Only a joint body can control

-and regulate effectively all the

factors which affect the purity
of the water, its level, the rate
of flow through connecting
channels, flood controls, naviga-
tion, water pollution, and con-
servation of fish and wildlife.”

If a joint authority is not es-
tablished, the Communist Party

_would propose at least a Cana-

dian authority. “to stop the de-

‘terieration of -conditions within

that patt of the Great Lakes
basin that: is under Canadian
control.” :

Buck describes the fluctations
in the levels of the Great Lakes
in 1964 and says the low lake
levels had “catastrophic ef-
fects,” causing “hardship to
many workers and their families
through loss of wages,” finan-
cial loss to shipping, water
shortages in some municipal-
ities and resort areas.

He says: “People were alarm-
ed; some of them were incensed.
Municipal authorities, commun-
ity meetings, and local organiza-
tions demanded governmental
action.”

On the other hand, in 1952-
53, billions of dollars had been
lost as a result of very high
levels on the lakes.

An argument used by some
persons to minimize the urgent
necessity for control and regul-
ation is the suggestion that the
effect of man-made factors on
lake levels is quite small by
comparison with variations due
to natural causes, such as the
amount of annual rainfall.

To be guided by this concept
would be to “compound the
neglect which has brought the
Great Lakes basin to the pre-
sent crisis.” If such statements
are intended to emphasize that
the volume of water flowing
into and out of the Great Lakes
naturally is much greater than
amounts diverted into the Lakes
by man-made works, then they
side-step the real problem.

The man-made factors, meas-
ured against the “fluctuating
and relatively delicate balance”,
are very important, says Buck,
and “can and should be made
decisive.”

He points out, for example,
that serious fluctations in the
level of Lake Huron in recent
years followed the deepening,
by six feet, of the channel in
the St. Clair River, through
which Lake Huron’s water es-
capes.

In addition, Chicago pumps 2
billion gallons per hour of
water out of Lake Michigan.
After it is used this water is
dumped into the channel flowing
into the Mississippi River and
eventually into the Gulf of
Mexico.

“A policy based firmly on the
long-term need of the Great
Lakes would require that Chi-
cago repurify that water and re-

turn it to Lake Michigan,” says
Buck. “Eventually this will have
to be required of all municipal-
ities and industries which take
water from the lakes for sanita-
tion or industrial use.”

In the meantime, works must
be constructed promptly to con-
trol and regulate the flow from
Lake Huron through the St.
Clair River.

As far as pollution is concern-
ed, “all the factors which enter
into the poisoning of the waters
of the Great Lakes are control-
lable, but for control to be ef-
fective it must be universal
throughout the Great Lakes
basin and it must apply to ail
alike.”

Finance Minister Gordon’s of-
fer of tax concessions to indus-
tries which establish treatment
or disposal equipment to stop
polluting the lakes “shows re-
cognition of the problem, but it
does not come to grips. with it.”

Buck insists that “muniicpal- ~
ities must -be stopped from“

pimping raw sewage ‘trito the <-

lakes or allowing effluvient to
Tun inte the lakes. Industries
must be forbidden to dispose of
industrial waste by dumping or
pumping it into the lakes. Pure
water, fit for human consump-
tion everywhere in the Great
Lakes, must be the object of a
properly constituted Great
Lakes authority.”

The Communist brief to the
IJC does not exclude the possi-
bility of diversion of rivers to
replenish the water supply in
the lakes.

But if diversion takes place,
it warns, “it will be Canadian
waters that are diverted, it will
be in Canada that the balance
of nature is disrupted and pos-
sible future development jeopar-
dized.”

A decision on diversion can
only be made properly “along
with control and coordinated
regulation.” Emphasis on diver-
sion “tends to actually divert
interest away from the urgent
necessity of control.”

On the Parsons Plan, propos-
ing in effect to use the Great
Lakes as a channel through
which to divert 37 million acre
feet of water per year to parts
of the U.S.; “the attitude of this
submission is that the interest
of the Great Lakes basin must
not be subordinated to any such
plans.”

Buck notes that press reports
quote Resources Minister Ar-
thur Laing as telling a Canada-
U.S. conference that the at-
tempt to establish the concept
that water is a continental re-
source must be rejected.

“We hope the press. reports
are correct and that the spokes-
man for our federal government
at that conference did reject
that concept.”

Buck concludes: “Canada
needs her fresh water — for
agriculture, for power, for ‘in-
dustry and above all because it
is the indispensable prerequisite
for the continued growth of our
Cities and towns, of Canada’s
population.

“When there are 50 million
Canadians in our country and
water has been brought to the
prairie provinces in abundance,
all our splendid resources will
not be too much, The fresh
water with which our country is
so richly endowed is Canada’s
ultimate resource and must be
conserved and util'zed as such.”

June 4, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5