Great Lakes Areas of Concern

Great Lakes Areas of Concern are designated geographic areas within the Great Lakes Basin that show severe environmental degradation. There are a total of 43 areas of concern within the Great Lakes, 26 being in the United States, 17 in Canada, with five shared by the two countries.

The Great Lakes, the largest system of fresh water lakes in the world, are shared by the United States and Canada. They make up 95% of the surface freshwater in the contiguous United States and have 10,000 miles of coastline (including connecting channels, mainland and islands)—more than the contiguous United States' Pacific and Atlantic coastlines combined. The lakes are a system of transport and shipping, as well as a place of recreation.

An Area of Concern must have at least "one beneficial use impairment which means that it has undergone a change in its chemical, physical, or biological integrity of a water body." These include:

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada more specifically defines Areas of Concern as "geographic areas that fail to meet the general or specific objectives of the agreement where such failure has caused or is likely to cause impairment of beneficial use of the area's ability to support aquatic life." The U.S.-Canada Water Quality Agreement holds the committee and regulations that decide whether an area should be considered an Area of Concern. The goal of the agreement is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes Basin ecosystem through a concerted set of interventions that are targeted at the aforementioned Areas of Concern. Because each waterway has a unique set of characteristics that have contributed to its ecological impairment, a Remedial Action Plan has been developed to identify the causes of impairment which will be used to guide local actions that will restore the individual waterways. The goal of each Remedial Action Plan is to bring about the delisting of the waterway from the list of Areas of Concern

Since its original passage in 1972, the GLWQA has been amended multiple times to include preventative action towards current anthropogenic stressors. In particular, the latest amendment to the agreement was in 2012 where preventative measures were added to address issues that have arisen since the last amendment in 1987. Furthermore, this amendment resulted in the invitation of additional organizations to participate in policy formation and remediation. Primarily run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Great Lakes Committee Members have added indigenous representatives and local public government organizations. Thus, any form of remedial action takes into account the local communities’ perspectives. This governing body is also known as the Binational Executive Committee (BEC), which meets at least twice a year to establish priorities and review progress. Under the GLWQA, various action plans have been established to target specific lakes. For example, the 2012 amendment resulted in the creation of GLWQA Nutrients Annex Subcommittee that will help target the algal bloom in Lake Erie. Overall, the General Lakes Water Agreement is a dynamic piece of legislature that will continue to address every-changing priorities and values.

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