(Toledo, OH) There's a new program being launched to monitor the effectiveness of Great Lakes protection efforts.
With all the attention focused on the toxic algae problem in the western basin of Lake Erie, tracking the success of clean-up efforts will be important. So the Great Lakes Commission and The Nature Conservancy are leading an initiative to monitor established goals and ways to measure progress toward achieving them.
Those goals include protecting drinking water sources from excessive nutrients and emerging contaminants; making sure public water systems have up-to-date management and spill prevention systems; and building regional agreements on strategies to protect source waters.
The hope is to find local success stories to use as examples for other communities. The Blue Accounting Initiative came out of a 2013 conference of governors and premiers from the Great Lakes region’s states and Canadian provinces.