Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control
Washington, D,C. 2020]
THE SECOND BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE
Murray Stein
Chief Enforcement Branch
Presented at the United Action for Clear Water Conference of
the United Automobile Workers, November 6, 1965, Detroit
Michigan
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For both the United States and Canada, one of the most lucky
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consequences of the ice age was the formation of the Great Lakes.
. As the giant glaciers "began to recede and the temperatures rose,
about 18,000 years ago, the first small finger lakes appeared
where the southern edges of the Great Lakes are nox^. As the
glaciers shrank further northward, the Lakes grew to their present
size. They are the largest area of fresh water in the world, and
they have undoubtedly been the single most important factor in the
development of the region around them. Were it not for the Great
Lakes, this region would probably have developed as a primarily
agricultural economy. Instead the Great Lakes region, for both
the United States and Canada, supports an industrialized, multi-
^ faceted economy. In both countries the Great Lakes regions have
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;^ made an invaluable contribution to the national economies, and
both retain a tremendous growth potential.
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\C Civilizations are conditioned by natural resources, but not
completely predetermined by them. Not all countries are as rich
as their natural resources could make them. In some cases men
have exploited what the earth has given them; in others they
have let the earth lie fallow. In the early history of the
Great Lakes region the Indians did not change their mode of
existence by harnessing the talents of the Lakes. The Indians
fished the Lakes, used them for drinking water and transporta-
t
tion, and left the Lakes much as they had found them. The
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potential of the Great Lakes lay waiting, and their beauty remained
undisturbed.
The Europeans in their expansions westward seized the Great
Lakes region as quickly as they could. In l6l5 Samuel de Champlain
first ventured onto Lake Huron; 55 years later France owned the
entire St. Lawrence River-Great Lakes region. Wo sooner had she
staked out her claim than she had to defend it against others
equally conscious of its economic value. French gunboats were
cruising the Lakes from 1678 on. After a hundred years of skirm-
ishes between French, British, and Indians for control of the
Lakes and their lands, the British gained ownership in 1863. Such
was the value of the region that after the United States gained
control of the area by the treaty of 1783, Great Britain attempted
again, in the War of l8l2, to retake it.
Until the War of 1812 the Great Lakes had been a promise;
afterwards they paid off. The introduction of steamboats and the
American version of the "industrial revolution" transformed the
Lakes into highways of commerce and industry. Reduced shipping
costs and the availablity of clear, cheap water stimulated pro-
duction of every kind. When the Erie Canal was finished there
was a water route from the Atlantic to the center of America,
and its consequences were felt throughout the entire nation. The
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Great Lakes created the copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula of
Lake Superior. The Lakes built the great open-pit iron mines in
the Mesabi, Marquette, Gogebic, vermilion, Menominee, and Cuyuna
ranges. They created the markets for the grain of the mid-west
and the timber of the old northwest; they transported millions of
tons of coal and stone; they supplied seemingly endless quantities
of process and cooling water for a diversified manufacturing economy.
By the 1920s, annual shipping on the Great Lakes, even though
open for only 7-1/2 to 8 months of the year, exceeded the combined
total tonnages of the Panama and Suez Canals for the entire year.
Also by the 1920s, Great Lakes commerce exceeded tha annual foreign
trade of the entire United States from any of its ocean ports. The
Detroit River is possibly the most heavily used of the Great Lakes
connecting channels since it joins the western Lakes, sources of raw
materials, with Lake Erie, the site of heavy industry and manufactur-
ing. In 1962, 150 different types of cargo, totalling 100,039,108
tons, travelled up and down the Detroit River.
The use of Great Lakes water for industrial processes has reached
equally huge proportions. From Lake Erie alone, industries today
take ^.7 billion gallons of water daily, including 3-85 billion used
for power production. The municipalities along Lake Erie take 6l9
million gallons a day. Multiply these figures by water usage on the
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other four Irxes and t_>e magnitude of our dependence on tnis
fresh vater takes en its true proportions.
Massive exploitation of water resources has created an economy
of extraordinary productivity. The two largest cities of Canada,
Toronto and Montreal, are in the Lakes' basin. Two of the five
largest cities in the U. S. are on the Great Lakes. The five
states of the Western Great Lakes area (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Ohio, and Wisconsin) account for 29/'a of the national index of value-
added-"by-manufacture in 1962. There is prospect for continued ex-
pansion of industry and prosperity in the Great Lakes region. Pro-
duction in the Detroit area, measured in terms of value-added-by-
manufacture, could well increase from about $5.8 billion in 1960
to approximately $13 billion in 1980. Population likewise may climb
to 5.5 million in the Detroit area by 1980.
The Great Lakes have been generous and can continue to be
generous. Until now, their generosity has been met with extreme
ingratitude. ¥e have not treated the Lakes with even the minimum
respect that we might have been expected to show objects of such
beauty. In using them as receptacles for the wastes that our
civilization produces, we have damaged them severely. The game
fish that thrived in Lake Erie are declining. The translucent
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blue water is "being steadily transformed into something thicker
and muddier, occasionally, in Lake Erie, resembling pea soup. The
shores are sometimes lined with debris, often decaying organic
matter.
We have damaged ourselves in this process. The invaluable
recreational potential of Lake Erie has been stymied, and both
commercial and sports fishing depressed. The water supplies of
several large cities have been vexed with intermittent unpleasant
tastes and odors. There is every reason to believe that the same
problems will appear in the other Lakes in short order if waste
discharges continue at their present rate.
We are approaching a turning point, however. The five Lakes
which have been the foundation of an entire regional economy are
reaching the end of their resistance to wanton abuse. The con-
tinued growth that we can expect will place tremendous demands
on the water supply. 5-5 million people will obviously need
much more water than the 3-9 million people that were here in
I960. Less obvious, perhaps, is the volume of increased in-
dustrial water needs. In 1960 industry used k-6% of the water
of the United States, compared to Q% used by the public at
large. Furthermore, much of the industry along the Great Lakes
was located there because it required especially great quantities
of water in the first place. Increase in industrial water needs
in the Great Lakes area will probably be greater than the national
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average. The chemical industry, for example, used approximately
677 "billion gallons of water in the Great Lakes region in 1959J
economists estimate that it may require 1950 "billion gallons a
year by 1980, practically tripling its requirements. The pulp
and paper industry in the Great Lakes region used 293 "billion
gallons in 1959, and may need 507 billion gallons a year by 1980.
The continued growth of this region is going to depend
principally on our ability to supply these staggering volumes of
water for industrial and municipal use. Are we going to have the
water available and will it be of usable quality?
A quick glance at the condition of Lake Erie today, and at the
disturbing trends in some other areas of the Great Lakes, suggests
that failure is imminent. Pollution is encroaching on Lakes Michigan
and Ontario. Lake Erie is polluted practically in its entirety. It
was the first of the Lakes to go, largely because it is the shallowest;
there is less water in it to pollute, and the eutrophication, or aging,
process naturally occurs most rapidly in a shallow lake. The quanti-
ties of wastes poured into the Lake are so immense that we have accel-
erated this natural aging process.
Organic wastes, both from industry and from plain sewage, greatly
increase the quantities of phosphorus and nitrogen and their compounds
in the Lake. These substances are nutrients for many microscopic
forms of plant and animal life, notably alga and phytoplankton. These
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organisms in turn destroy the usefulness of the water for many
other purposes--swimming, boating, water supply, fish propagation.
Inorganic wastes, largely sediment (although we do not as yet have
enough knowledge of the long-term effects of toxic materials dis-
charged to the Lakes), are also destructive. Sediment increases the
turbidity, or suspended matter in the water; this makes the water
opaque, cutting down the quantity of light that penetrates below
the surface. The sediment also settles to the bottom, forming
sludge banks of significant depth, which smother plant and animal
life.
The traditional form of pollution is a steady deterioration
in the quality of the water—in its oxygen content, its bacterial
levels, its color, its acid-alkali balance, its toxic content. In
a river, once we determine to prevent such pollution and provide
adequate treatment for our wastes, the natural flow of the stream
will normally carry out the old pollutional material and renew
the water. In estuary and ocean waters, tidal flow is usually
strong enough to scour out sludge deposits and polluted backwaters.
In a Lake, basically a stagnant body of water, waste materials
remain once they are put in. When combined with the natural tendency
of stagnant waters towards eutrophication, or aging, pollution is
deadly: it threatens to destroy the body of water forever. The end
of the aging process, towards which Lake Erie is moving, is the
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transformation of the entire Lake into a marsh, and eventually
into dry land, as the basin fills up with organic material. This
process is irreversible. It is final. In this geologic era we will
have no second Lake Erie.
Since we cannot have another Lake Erie we have no choice but
to save this one. Two important steps have been taken in this di-
rection. At the request of Governor Swalnson of Michigan, the U. S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1962 initiated an
intensive study of the Michigan waters of Lake Erie and the Detroit
River. After the study was completed, an enforcement conference
was held under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and the
Michigan and Federal conferees unanimously adopted a program of
action to save the Lake. If the Lake were to be cleaned up, the
other States would have to do their part as well, of course, and
Governor Rhodes of Ohio called for another conference to create
a program that would be binding on all five Lake Erie states.
This second pollution control conference was held in August of
this year-, and the conferees, six of them this time, again adopted
an action- program.
The remedial action required to save Lake Erie varies, of
course, according to the specific pollution source and the volume
and type of waste it discharges. In general, the Federal scientists
and investigators believe we will need:
1. Secondary treatment plus adequate disinfection for all municipal
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sewage.
2. The operation of secondary treatment plants in such a manner as
to maximize the reduction of phosphorus in the effluent.
3. Industrial waste treatment equivalent to that given municipal
wastes.
4. Combined storm and sanitary sewers must be prohibited in all new
sewer construction,, and methods must "be found and implemented
for correcting stormwater overflow where it now exists.
Speed may now "be the most important factor. Every day of delay
makes more remote the possibility of restoring Lake Erie to its earlier
usefulness. Every day of delay means further damage to the other
Great Lakes. The Federal Government has the power to force corrective
action where the pollution damage is interstate. But the Federal
water pollution control program is designed, as it should be, as a
cooperative State-local-Federal program. If we are required to take
legal action to get towns and industries to put in the necessary
treatment facilities, the procedure becomes costly and time-consuming.
In that kind of case we are all the losers.
Cooperative action is the only hope for a rapid solution to
the problem. In my many years with the water pollution control
program I have found that our greatest ally in the struggle for
clean water is the expressed opinion of the people. I do not think
we can fairly expect industries to be eager to build expensive waste
treatment facilities which they do not consider to be productive
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capital investments. Wor do I thirds we can expect city officials to
rush to commit city funds or raise taxes to build municipal waste
treatment works unless they are sure of strong popular support. If
the United Auto Workers merely saw to it that its membership was
converted to the cause of clean water, much would "be accomplished
already. 1,200,000 people cannot "be ignored. If the UAW can use
its immense prestige and influence to win other converts to the cause
of clean water, still more would toe accomplished.
When I was a young man in the 1930s, my imagination was captured
by the UAW organizing campaigns and the audacity of its sit-down strikes.
Our country has changed since those days, and so have your problems
and the nature of your struggles. The issues which lay behind the old-
fashioned "bread-and-butter" fights are now broader and more complex.
The water pollution issue has the peculiarity of being both a national,
nonpartisan, long-range concern and a "bread-and-butter" issue of the
greatest immediacy to union members.
Clean water in the Great Lakes would provide one of the best
fringe benefits yet designed—ample free recreational opportunities
close to home. Many of us cannot afford to fly to Florida or Cali-
fornia twice a year for swimming, water-skiing, boating, or simple
relaxation for our families. A vacation-land on Lake Erie could be
worth quite a pay raise.
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Throughout the world, water is a key rav material for basic
industry. In this region there is an especially high proportion
of water-using industries. As the Great Lakes go, so goes industry
in this region. All the iron anu. coal in the ground and all the
demand that this great economy can muster will not produce steel
without water. The possible decline of industry is the most "basic,
"bread-and-butter" issue for any union.
If our industries are going to be kept moving and growing, we
are going to have to evolve more intelligent water policies and
practices. Such action will be a matter of survival for a sophis-
ticated economy such as ours. This nation is not accustomed to long-
range planning in the handling of its resources. But without the
clean fresh water supplied by the Great Lakes our economy, your
jobs, and even the positions of the United States and Canada as
world powers may be adversely affected.
We may not be a nation of great experience in planning and manag-
ing our resources, but neither are we suicidal or stingy. It is just
a matter of awakening our spirit. On projects that have caught the
popular imagination, no amount is too much for us to spend, for we
are a wealthy country. I have seen brave men, excited by space
travel and anxious to spend billions of dollars on it, struck timid
by the millions of dollars that clean water costs. Bravery in these
matters can be restored by increased public concern with the task of
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preserving our waters.
We won the first battle of Lake Erie in 1813. We are now facing
a second battle of Lake Erie. The battleground is far larger than
the Lake, and the stakes are even greater than they were in 1813. We
won the first battle quickly. The second one may be harder and will
take longer. The wholehearted support of the UAW in this Second
Battle of Lake Erie could help us win it much more quickly. I know
that support will be forthcoming.
r1"-- " : Tf'vV?1 Protectioa Agency
!_;; ..---"- '''9 Library v
?CO Couth Bsssfcorn Street
c:^.cr ;/;D Illi
inois 606Q1
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