Great Lakes Law

Great Lakes Week in Detroit – IJC Biennial Meeting and more

The International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Biennial Meeting on October 12-14 is anchoring Great Lakes Week Detroit 2011. The Great Lakes Commission and the Healing Our Waters Coalition will also be holding their annual meetings as part of the event, which should draw hundreds of Great Lakes advocates and policy makers to Detroit and the Wayne State University campus. Pursuant to the Canada-US Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the IJC convenes the Biennial... Read more →

Oil and Freshwater Don’t Mix: Transnational Regulation of Drilling in the Great Lakes (with a political twist...)

I’ve just published a short article on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes - Oil and Freshwater Don’t Mix: Transnational Regulation of Drilling in the Great Lakes, 38 Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 303 (2011). The article was presented and published as part of a much larger symposium on the BP Gulf oil blowout and the entire symposium issue is available online. Here’s the abstract: In the wake of the Gulf oil... Read more →

All (Water) Politics Is Local: A Proposal for Resolving Transboundary Water Disputes – Guest Post by Jeff Dornbos

This is the first of two guest posts by Jeffrey Dornbos, an attorney with Warner Norcross & Judd in Holland, Michigan. In addition to his legal background, Jeff also taught environmental science, holds a captain’s license from the U.S. Coast Guard, and is a SCUBA diver. Jeff’s guest posts introduce his two excellent law review articles focusing on management of transboundary water resources - "Capping the Bottle on Uncertainty: Closing the Information Loophole in the... Read more →

Australian law school dean to speak at Wayne Law on protecting whales under international law

Next week, Wayne Law’s Program for International Legal Studies is honored to host a public lecture by Natalie Klein, dean and professor at Macquarie Law School in Sydney, Australia. Dean Klein will be speaking on "Protecting Whales under International Law: Australia's case against Japan before the World Court." The event is on Wednesday, March 23 from 12:15 - 1:30 pm in the law school’s Partrich Auditorium (lunch will be provided). Dean Klein teaches and researches... Read more →

International Joint Commission releases Report on Great Lakes Water Quality, announces next Great Lakes Biennial Meeting at Wayne State University

At a public event yesterday at Wayne State University, the International Joint Commission released its 15th Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality. In its report, the IJC detailed 32 recommendations for action at the federal, state, provincial and local levels of government. (The full report and executive summary are available online.) Most notably, the recommendations focus on the need for the U.S. and Canada to approve a revised Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to... Read more →

Wayne Law, Windsor Law, and the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center launch the first transnational environmental law clinic in North America

Wayne Law and Windsor Law, working in partnership with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, have formally announced the launch of the first transnational environmental law clinic in North America. This is a tremendous accomplish for all the institutions involved and for the region as a whole. The new transnational partnership will allow students from both schools to gain practical experience working on US-Canadian environmental issues such as energy development in the Great Lakes. It... Read more →

Oil and Freshwater Don’t Mix: Transnational Regulation of Drilling in the Great Lakes

I've posted a new article on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes, examining the existing laws and policies and offering some pragmatic recommendations for reform. The article was presented at the symposium “Learning from Disaster: Lessons for the Future from the Gulf of Mexico” hosted by the Environmental Affairs Law Review of Boston College Law School last November. The article is titled "Oil and Freshwater Don’t Mix: Transnational Regulation of Drilling in the... Read more →

Federal district court considers Asian carp case and arguments for temporary closure of Chicago canal locks - guest post by Thom Cmar

As this is being posted, a federal district court in Chicago is hearing arguments by Michigan and four other Great Lakes states to compel the temporary closure of Chicago canal locks to stop the spread of invasive Asian carp. Michigan and the other states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) argue that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago have created a public nuisance by allowing Asian carp to... Read more →

Addressing urban and agricultural runoff pollution in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Urban and agricultural runoff (known legally as non-point pollution) is the most significant source of pollution in the Great Lakes. As the United States and Canada are considering revisions to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, addressing runoff pollution should be a top priority. Carrol Hand, a law student at Tulane, worked with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center to develop a white paper on non-point pollution and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Carrol... Read more →

One win in the courts, one loss on the ground in the fight against invasives in the Great Lakes

There’s been some good news/bad news in the fight against invasive species in the Great Lakes the past few weeks. Let’s get the bad news out of the way first – a 19-pound Asian carp was found near the shore of Lake Michigan, past the navigation lock that the Supreme Court refused to close despite a legal challenge by Michigan and most other Great Lakes states. We knew that Asian carp would inevitably reach the... Read more →

Canadian Feds propose ban on bulk water removals from transboundary waters

Last week, the Canadian federal government proposed legislation to ban bulk water removals from “transboundary waters” – meaning waters that cross the U.S.-Canada boundary. To explain the legislation and how it fits within Canada’s other water protection efforts and challenges, Professor Marcia Valiante of the University of Windsor Faculty of Law generously agreed to author the following the guest post. Prof. Valiante is a leading expert on Canadian environmental law with a special focus on... Read more →

Federal court rules against Bureau of Reclamation in water diversion case citing concerns over invasive species

This guest post is by Nick Schroeck, Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. While Nick was just recently named Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, he has long been the lead attorney on this precedent-setting water diversion case. See my prior post for more background on the dispute and legal issues. The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and the Wayne State Environmental Law Clinic won a legal victory that... Read more →

Public participation and governance under the Great Lakes Water Quality Act

After years of delay, the United States and Canada finally agreed to begin the process of updating the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement last year, with an announcement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in June 2009. Updating the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is long overdue, as many new threats and concerns (invasive species, non-point pollution, toxic and pharmaceutical residues in drinking water, etc.) have emerged since the last revision in 1987. Further, there... Read more →