Great Lakes: A Comprehensive Strategy and Monitoring System Are  
Needed to Achieve Restoration Goals (21-MAY-04, GAO-04-782T).	 
                                                                 
The five Great Lakes, which comprise the largest system of	 
freshwater in the world, are threatened on many environmental	 
fronts. To address the extent of progress made in restoring the  
Great Lakes Basin, which includes the lakes and surrounding area,
GAO (1) identified the federal and state environmental programs  
operating in the basin and funding devoted to them, (2) evaluated
the restoration strategies used and how they are coordinated, and
(3) assessed overall environmental progress made in the basin	 
restoration effort.						 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-04-782T					        
    ACCNO:   A10173						        
  TITLE:     Great Lakes: A Comprehensive Strategy and Monitoring     
System Are Needed to Achieve Restoration Goals			 
     DATE:   05/21/2004
 SUBJECT:    Strategy 				        
                                                                 

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GAO-04-782T

United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT GREAT LAKES

Friday, May 21, 2004

A Comprehensive Strategy and Monitoring System Are Needed to Achieve Restoration
                                     Goals

Statement of John B. Stephenson, Director Natural Resources and Environment

GAO-04-782T

Highlights of GAO-04-782T, a testimony before Subcommittee on Water
Resources and Environment, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
House of Representatives

The five Great Lakes, which comprise the largest system of freshwater in
the world, are threatened on many environmental fronts. To address the
extent of progress made in restoring the Great Lakes Basin, which includes
the lakes and surrounding area, GAO (1) identified the federal and state
environmental programs operating in the basin and funding devoted to them,
(2) evaluated the restoration strategies used and how they are
coordinated, and (3) assessed overall environmental progress made in the
basin restoration effort.

GAO recommended in its April 2003 report that the Administrator,
Environmental Protection Agency

o  	ensure that the Great Lakes National Program Office fulfills its
coordination responsibilities and develop an overarching Great Lakes
strategy; and

o  	develop environmental indicators and a monitoring system for the Great
Lakes Basin that can be used to measure overall restoration progress.

EPA generally agreed with GAO's conclusions that better planning,
coordination, monitoring and the development of indicators are needed, and
stated it would provide a formal response to the report recommendations at
a later date. As of May 2004, it has not yet provided this response.

May 21, 2004

GREAT LAKES

A Comprehensive Strategy and Monitoring System Are Needed To Achieve Restoration
Goals

There are 148 federal and 51 state programs funding environmental
restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these programs
are nationwide or statewide programs that do not specifically focus on the
Great Lakes. However, GAO identified 33 federal Great Lakes specific
programs, and 17 additional unique Great Lakes specific programs funded by
states. Although Great Lakes funding is not routinely tracked for many of
these programs, we identified a total of about $3.6 billion in
basin-specific projects for fiscal years 1992 through 2001.

Several disparate Great Lakes environmental strategies are being used at
the binational, federal, and state levels. Currently, these strategies are
not coordinated in a way that ensures effective use of limited resources.
Without such coordination it is difficult to determine the overall
progress of restoration efforts. The Water Quality Act of 1987 charged
EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office with the responsibility for
coordinating federal actions for improving Great Lakes' water quality;
however, the office has not fully exercised this authority to this point.

With available information, current environmental indicators do not allow
a comprehensive assessment of restoration progress in the Great Lakes.
Current indicators rely on limited quantitative data and subjective
judgments to determine whether conditions are improving, such as whether
fish are safe to eat. The ultimate success of an ongoing binational effort
to develop a set of overall indicators for the Great Lakes is uncertain
because it relies on the resources voluntarily provided by several
organizations. Further, no date for completing a final list of indicators
has been established.

Great Lakes: Largest Body of Freshwater in the World

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-782T.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact John B. Stephenson at (202)
512-3841 or [email protected].

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

We are pleased to be here today to discuss our work on environmental
restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. The Great Lakes represent
the largest system of freshwater in the world and a natural resource that
is threatened on many environmental fronts. To protect this resource and
to address common water quality problems, the United States and Canada
entered into the bilateral Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) in
1972. However, today, more than 3 decades since the original agreement,
beaches are frequently closed to swimmers due to pollution, fish are
unsafe to eat for high risk individuals, and raw sewage is still being
dumped into the lakes. Recently discovered conditions such as the
reemergence in Lake Erie of a "dead zone"-an area that has no dissolved
oxygen and therefore cannot support aquatic life-have renewed concerns
about the overall ecological health of the Great Lakes.

Progress has been made on a number of significant fronts, including
controlling the nonnative sea lamprey, reducing the water's phosphorus
content, and improving fish populations, but much more remains to be
accomplished before the overall goals of the agreement can be met. Several
recently released reports, including ours, have questioned whether the
current environmental activities in the Great Lakes being funded by
numerous organizations and various programs have resulted in significant
restoration progress in the basin, or even if they are adequate to fulfill
the U.S. commitments under the Agreement. In 2002, we reported that the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) needed to take action to improve its
oversight for cleaning up specifically designated contaminated areas.1

My testimony today is based on our April 2003 report2 prepared at the
request of 14 members of Congress' Great Lakes Task Force. Specifically,
GAO was asked to (1) identify the federal and state environmental programs
operating in the Great Lakes Basin and the funding being devoted to them,
(2) evaluate how the restoration strategies are used and

1See U.S. General Accounting Office, Great Lakes: EPA Needs to Define
Organizational Responsibilities Better for Effective Oversight and Cleanup
of Contaminated Areas,

GAO-02-563 (Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2002).

2See U.S. General Accounting Office, Great Lakes: An Overall Strategy and
Indicators for Measuring Progress Are Needed to Better Achieve Restoration
Goals, GAO-03-515 (Washington, D.C.: April 30, 2003).

coordinated, and (3) assess overall environmental progress made in the
basin restoration efforts thus far.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, we found the following:

o  	There are 148 federal and 51 state programs funding environmental
restoration activities in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these are
nationwide or statewide programs that do not specifically focus on the
Great Lakes, but do fund projects that contribute to basin cleanup. We
could not determine the total Great Lakes-specific funding contributions
from these programs because funds are not typically tracked for specific
areas like the basin. However, based on partial information available from
11 federal agencies and seven of the eight Great Lakes states, we
determined for these nationwide or statewide programs that at least $1.8
billion in federal funding, and $461.3 million in state funding went to
basinrelated projects in fiscal years 1992 through 2001. The remaining
programs, 33 federal and 17 state, which focus specifically on restoration
activities in the Great Lakes Basin, spent about $387 million and $956
million, respectively, in fiscal years 1992 through 2001.

o  	The numerous restoration programs operating in the Great Lakes Basin
employ a variety of environmental strategies at the binational, federal,
and state levels to address specific environmental problems, but there is
no overarching plan for coordinating these disparate strategies and
program activities into a coherent approach for attaining overall basin
restoration goals. Without such a plan for the basin, it is difficult to
determine overall progress and ensure that limited resources are being
effectively utilized. Other large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts,
such as the ones for the Chesapeake Bay and the South Florida ecosystem,
have demonstrated the importance of having a comprehensive strategic plan
with clearly articulated goals, objectives, and criteria for measuring
success and a decision-making body for weighing the merits of, and
prioritizing funding for, proposed cleanup and restoration projects.

o  	The absence of a unified Great Lakes restoration effort stems, in
part, from the lack of an effective, authoritative organizational entity
for planning, monitoring, and establishing funding priorities. The Water
Quality Act of 1987 charged EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office
(GLNPO), with the responsibility for coordinating federal actions for
improving Great Lakes' water quality. However, GLNPO has not fully
exercised this authority. For example, it has not entered into agreements
with other agency organizations regarding their restoration
responsibilities as required by the Clean Water Act.

o  	Additionally, the lack of consistent, reliable information and
measurement indicators makes it impossible to comprehensively assess
restoration progress in the Great Lakes Basin. While the Great Lakes Water
Quality Agreement long ago called for the development and implementation
of a monitoring system, this requirement has not yet been met.
Furthermore, any effort to develop indicators must rely on limited
quantitative data and subjective judgments to determine whether conditions
are improving. In 1996, a binational effort was initiated to develop a set
of overall indicators for the Great Lakes through a series of biennial
conferences, but the ultimate success of this effort, which relies on the
volunteer contributions of several organizations, is uncertain.

To improve coordination and help ensure that funds are effectively spent,
we recommended that the Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency (1)
charge GLNPO with the responsibility for developing an overarching Great
Lakes strategy with specific goals and priorities for evaluating and
funding alternative projects, (2) submit a proposal to Congress for
funding the plan, and (3) develop environmental indicators and a
monitoring system that can be used to measure overall restoration
progress. EPA generally agreed with our conclusions but stated that it
would provide a formal response to our recommendations at a later date.
However, over 1 year has past and EPA has not provided us with its formal
response.

Background 	The Great Lakes Basin is a large area that extends well beyond
the five lakes proper to include their watersheds, tributaries, connecting
channels, and a portion of the St. Lawrence River. The basin encompasses
nearly all of the state of Michigan and parts of Illinois, Indiana,
Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the Canadian
province of Ontario. The lakes form the largest freshwater system on
earth, accounting for 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water and
over 95 percent of the U.S. fresh surface water supply for the contiguous
48 states.

Millions of people in the United States and Canada rely on the five Great
Lakes-Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario-as a principal source
of their drinking water, recreation, and economic livelihood. Over time,
industrial, agricultural, and residential development on lands adjacent to
the lakes have seriously degraded the lakes' water quality, posing threats
to human health and the environment, and forcing restrictions on
activities, such as swimming and fish consumption.

To protect the Great Lakes Basin and to address water quality problems,
the governments of the United States and Canada entered into the bilateral
Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972. In the agreement, the United
States and Canada agreed to restore and maintain the chemical, physical,
and biological integrity of the Great Lakes Basin. A new agreement with
the same name was reached in 1978, and amended in 1983 and 1987. The
agreement prescribes prevention and cleanup measures to improve
environmental conditions in the Great Lakes. The agreement obligates the
International Joint Commission (IJC), an international body, to assist and
to report on the implementation of the agreement.

The Clean Water Act directs EPA to lead efforts to meet the goals of the
Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and establishes GLNPO within EPA,
charging it with, among other things, cooperating with federal, state,
tribal, and international agencies to develop action plans to carry out
the U.S. responsibilities under the agreement. GLNPO is further
responsible for coordinating the agency's actions both in headquarters and
in the regions to improve Great Lakes' water quality. In addition to
GLNPO, numerous federal, state, binational, and nonprofit organizations
conduct activities that focus on improving the overall Great Lakes Basin
environment or some specific environmental issue within the basin.

About 200 programs-148 federal and 51 state-fund restoration activities
within the Great Lakes Basin. Most of these programs, however, involve the
localized application of national or state environmental initiatives and
do not specifically focus on basin concerns. Officials from 11 federal
agencies identified 115 of these broadly scoped federal programs, and
officials from seven of the eight Great Lakes states identified 34 similar
state programs. EPA administers the majority of the federal programs that
provide a broad range of environmental activities involving research,
cleanup, restoration, and pollution prevention. For example, EPA's
nationwide Superfund program funds cleanup activities at contaminated
areas throughout the basin. While these broadly scoped federal and state
programs contribute to basin restoration, program officials do not track
or try to isolate the portion of funding going to specific areas like the
basin, making it difficult to determine their contribution to total Great
Lakes spending. However, basin-specific information was available on some
of these programs. Specifically, basin related expenditures for 53 of the
115 broadly scoped federal programs totaled about $1.8 billion in fiscal
years 1992 through 2001. Expenditures for 14 broadly scoped state funded
programs totaled $461.3 million during approximately the same time period.

  Many Federal and State Programs Fund Restoration Activities in the Great Lakes
  Basin

Several federal and state programs were specifically designed to focus on
environmental conditions across the Great Lakes Basin. Officials from
seven federal agencies identified 33 Great Lakes-specific programs that
had expenditures of $387 million in fiscal years 1992 through 2001. Most
of these programs funded a variety of activities, such as research,
cleanup, or pollution prevention. An additional $358 million was expended
for legislatively directed Corps of Engineers projects in the basin, such
as a $93.8 million project to restore Chicago's shoreline. Officials from
seven states reported 17 Great Lakes specific programs that expended about
$956 million in 1992 through 2001, with Michigan's programs accounting for
96 percent of this amount. State programs focused on unique state needs,
such as Ohio's program to control shoreline erosion along Lake Erie, and
Michigan's program to provide bond funding for environmental activities.

Besides federal and state government agencies, other organizations, such
as foundations, fund a variety of restoration activities in the Great
Lakes Basin by approving grants to nonprofit and other organizations.
Other governmental and nongovernmental organizations fund restoration
activities. For example, individual municipalities, township governments,
counties, and conservation districts are involved in various restoration
activities.

Restoration of the Great Lakes Basin is a major endeavor involving many
environmental programs and organizations. The magnitude of the area
comprising the basin and the numerous environmental programs operating
within it require the development of one overarching strategy to address
and manage the complex undertaking of restoring the basin's environmental
health. The Great Lakes region cannot hope to successfully receive support
as a national priority without a comprehensive, overarching plan for
restoring the Great Lakes. In lieu of such a plan, organizations at the
binational, federal, and state levels have developed their own strategies
for the Great Lakes, which have inadvertently made the coordination of
various programs operating in the basin more challenging.

The Great Lakes Basin needs a comprehensive strategy or plan similar to
those developed for other large ecosystem restoration efforts, such as the
ones for the South Florida ecosystem and the Chesapeake Bay. In South
Florida, federal, state, local and tribal organizations joined forces to
participate on a centralized task force formalized in the Water Resource
Development Act of 1996. The strategic plan developed for the South

  The Lack of a Coordinated, Overarching Strategic Plan Has Impeded Restoration
  Efforts

Florida ecosystem by the task force made substantial progress in guiding
the restoration activities. The plan identifies the resources needed to
achieve restoration and assigns accountability for specific actions for
the extensive restoration effort estimated to cost $14.8 billion. The
Chesapeake Bay watershed also has an overarching restoration strategy
stemming from a 1983 agreement signed by the states of Maryland, Virginia,
and Pennsylvania; the District of Columbia; the Chesapeake Bay Commission;
and EPA. This agreement was the basis for a program to protect and restore
this ecosystem. The implementation of this strategy has resulted in
improvements in habitat restoration and aquatic life, such as increased
forested buffer zone and shad population.

Several organizations have developed strategies for the basin at the
binational, federal, or state levels that address either the entire basin
or the specific problems in the Great Lakes. EPA's Great Lakes Strategy
2002, developed by a committee of federal and state officials, is the most
recent of these strategies. While this strategy identified restoration
objectives and planned actions by various federal and state agencies, it
is largely a description of existing program activity relating to basin
restoration. State officials told us that the states had already planned
the actions described in it, but that these actions were contingent on
funding for specific environmental programs. The strategy included a
statement that it should not be construed as a commitment for additional
funding or resources, and it did not provide a basis for prioritizing
activities. In addition, we identified other strategies that addressed
particular contaminants, restoration of individual lakes, or cleanup of
contaminated areas. Ad hoc coordination takes place among federal
agencies, states, and other environmental organizations in developing
these strategies or when programmatic activity calls for coordination.

Other Great Lakes strategies address unique environmental problems or
specific geographical areas. For example, a strategy for each lake
addresses the open lake waters through Lakewide Management Plans (LaMP),
which EPA is responsible for developing. Toward this end, EPA formed
working groups for each lake to identify and address restoration
activities. For example, the LaMP for Lake Michigan, issued in 2002,
includes a summary of the lake's ecosystem status and addresses progress
in achieving the goals described in the previous plan, with examples of
significant activities completed and other relevant topics. However, EPA
has not used the LaMPs to assess the overall health of the ecosystem.

The Binational Executive Committee for the United States and Canada issued
its Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy in 1997 that established

a collaborative process by which EPA and Environment Canada, in
consultation with other federal departments and agencies, states, the
province of Ontario, and tribes, work toward the goal of the virtual
elimination of persistent toxic substances in the Great Lakes. The
strategy was designed to address particular substances that bioaccumulate
in fish or animals and pose a human health risk.

Michigan developed a strategy for environmental cleanup called the Clean
Michigan Initiative. This initiative provides funding for a variety of
environmental, parks, and redevelopment programs. It includes nine
components, including Brownfields redevelopment and environmental
cleanups, nonpoint source pollution control, clean water, cleanup of
contaminated sediments, and pollution prevention. The initiative is funded
by a $675 million general obligation bond and as of early 2003; most of
the funds had not been distributed.

Although there are many strategies and coordination efforts ongoing, no
one organization coordinates restoration efforts. We found that extensive
strategizing, planning, and coordinating have not resulted in significant
restoration. Thus, the ecosystem remains compromised and contaminated
sediments in the lakes produce health problems, as reported by the IJC.3

In addition to the absence of a coordinating agency, federal and state
officials cited a lack of funding commitments as a principal barrier
impeding restoration progress. Inadequate funding has also contributed to
the failure to restore and protect the Great Lakes, according to the IJC
biennial report on Great Lakes water quality issued in July 2000.4 The IJC
restated this position in a 2002 report, concluding that any progress to
restore the Great Lakes would continue at a slow incremental pace without
increased funding.5 In its 1993 biennial report, the IJC concluded that
remediation of contaminated areas could not be accomplished unless
government officials came to grips with the magnitude of cleanup costs and
started the process of securing the necessary resources.6 Despite this
warning, however, as we reported in 2002, EPA reduced the funding
available for ensuring the cleanup of contaminated areas under the

3See IJC, Tenth Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality, (June 29,
2000). 4See IJC, Tenth Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality, (June
29, 2000). 5See IJC, Eleventh Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water
Quality, (Sept. 12, 2002). 6See IJC, Seventh Biennial Report on Great
Lakes Water Quality, (Dec. 15, 1993).

assumption that the states would fill the funding void. States, however,
did not increase their funding, and restoration progress slowed or stopped
altogether.7 Officials for 24 of 33 federal programs and for 3 of 17 state
programs reported insufficient funding for federal and state Great Lakes
specific programs.

Ultimate responsibility for coordinating Great Lakes restoration programs
rests with GLNPO; however, GLNPO has not fully exercised this authority.
Other organizations or committees have formed to assume coordination and
strategy development roles. The Clean Water Act provides GLNPO with the
authority to fulfill the U.S. responsibilities under the GLWQA.
Specifically, the act directs EPA to coordinate the actions of EPA's
headquarters and regional offices aimed at improving Great Lakes water
quality. It also provides GLNPO authority to coordinate EPA's actions with
the actions of other federal agencies and state and local authorities for
obtaining input in developing water quality strategies and obtaining
support in achieving the objectives of the GLWQA. The act also provides
that the EPA Administrator shall ensure that GLNPO enters into agreements
with the various organizational elements of the agency engaged in Great
Lakes activities and with appropriate state agencies. The agreements
should specifically delineate the duties and responsibilities, time
periods for carrying out duties, and resources committed to these duties.
GLNPO officials stated that they do not enter into formal agreements with
other EPA offices, but rather fulfill their responsibilities under the act
by having federal agencies and state officials agree to the restoration
activities contained in the Great Lakes Strategy 2002. However, the
strategy does not represent formal agreements to conduct specific duties
and responsibilities with committed resources. EPA's Office of Inspector
General reported the absence of these agreements in September 1999.8 The
report stated that GLNPO did not have agreements as required by the act
and recommended that such agreements be made to improve working
relationships and coordination.

To improve coordination of Great Lakes activities and ensure that federal
dollars are effectively spent, we recommended that the Administrator,

7See U.S. General Accounting Office, Great Lakes: EPA Needs to Define
Organizational Responsibilities Better for Effective Oversight and Cleanup
of Contaminated Areas,

GAO-02-563 (Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2002).

8See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA's Great Lakes Program,
EPA/OIG Rept. 99P00212 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 1, 1999).

  The Lack of an Effective Monitoring System Makes it Impossible to Assess
  Overall Restoration Progress

EPA, ensure that GLNPO fulfills its responsibility for coordinating
programs within the Great Lakes Basin; charge GLNPO with developing, in
consultation with the governors of the Great Lakes states, federal
agencies, and other organizations, an overarching strategy that, clearly
defines the roles and responsibilities for coordinating and prioritizing
funding for projects; and submit a time-phased funding requirement
proposal to the Congress necessary to implement the strategy.

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, as amended in 1987, calls for
establishing a monitoring system to measure restoration progress and
assess the degree that the United States and Canada are complying with the
goals and objectives of the agreement. However, implementation of this
provision has not progressed to the point that overall restoration
progress can be measured or determined based on quantitative information.
Recent assessments of overall progress, which rely on a mix of
quantitative data and subjective judgments, do not provide an adequate
basis for making an overall assessment. The current assessment process has
emerged from a series of biennial State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conferences
(SOLEC)9 initiated in 1994 for developing indicators agreed upon by
conference participants.

Prior to the 1987 amendments to the GLWQA, the 1978 agreement between the
two countries also contained a requirement for surveillance and monitoring
and for the development of a Great Lakes International Surveillance Plan.
The IJC Water Quality Board was involved in managing and developing the
program until the 1987 amendments placed this responsibility on the United
States and Canada. This change resulted in a significant reduction in the
two countries' support for surveillance and monitoring. In fact, the
organizational structure to implement the surveillance plan was abandoned
in 1990, leaving only one initiative in place-the International
Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN), a network of 15 air-monitoring
stations located throughout the basin.

With the surveillance and monitoring efforts languishing, IJC established
the Indicators for Evaluation Task Force in 1993 to identify the
appropriate framework to evaluate progress in the Great Lakes. In 1996,
the task force proposed that nine desired measurements and outcomes be
used to develop indicators for measuring progress in the Great Lakes.

9SOLEC is co-chaired by representatives from the U.S. EPA and Environment
Canada.

Shortly before the task force began its work, the United States and Canada
had agreed to hold conferences every 2 years to assess the environmental
conditions in the Great Lakes in order to develop binational reports on
the environmental conditions to measure progress under the agreement.
Besides assessing environmental conditions the conferences were focused on
achieving three other objectives, including providing a forum for
communication and networking among stakeholders. Conference participants
included U.S. and Canadian representatives from federal, state,
provincial, and tribal agencies, as well as other organizations with
environmental restoration or pollution prevention interests in the Great
Lakes Basin. The 1994 SOLEC conference culminated in a "State of the Great
Lakes 1995" report, which provided an overview of the Great Lakes
ecosystem at the end of 1994 and concluded that overall the aquatic
community health was mixed or improving. The same assessment was echoed in
the 1997 state of the lakes report. Meanwhile the IJC agreed that the nine
desired outcome areas recommended by the task force would help assess
overall progress. It recommended that SOLEC, during the conference in
2000, establish environmental indicators that would allow the IJC to
evaluate what had been accomplished and what needed to be done for three
of the nine indicators-the public's ability to eat the fish, drink the
water, and swim in the water without any restrictions.

However, the indicators developed through the SOLEC process and the
accomplishments reported by federal and state program managers do not
provide an adequate basis for making an overall assessment for Great Lakes
restoration progress. The SOLEC process is ongoing and the indicators
still being developed are not generally supported by sufficient underlying
data for making progress assessments. The number of indicators considered
during the SOLEC conferences has been pared down from more than 850
indicators in 1998 to 80 indicators in 2000, although data were available
for only 33 of them.

After the SOLEC 2000 conference, IJC staff assessed the indicators
supported by data that measured the desired outcomes of swimmability,
drinkability, and the edibility of fish in the Great Lakes.10 Overall, the
IJC commended SOLEC's quick response that brought together information
regarding the outcomes and SOLEC's ongoing efforts. The IJC, however,
recognized that sufficient data were not being collected throughout the
Great Lakes Basin and that the methods of collection, the data collection

10See IJC, Eleventh Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality, (Sept.
12, 2002).

time frames, the lack of uniform protocols, and the incompatible nature of
some data jeopardized their use as indicators. Specifically, for the
desired outcome of swimmability, the IJC concurred that it was not always
safe to swim at certain beaches, but noted that progress for this desired
outcome was limited because beaches were sampled by local jurisdictions
without uniform sampling or reporting methods. At the 2002 SOLEC
conference, the number of indicators assessed by conference participants
increased from 33 to 45. The IJC expressed concern that there are too many
indicators, insufficient supporting backup data, and a lack of commitment
and funding from EPA to implement and make operational the agreed upon
SOLEC baseline data collection and monitoring techniques. The IJC
recommended in its last biennial report in September 2002 that any new
indicators should be developed only where resources are sufficient to
access scientifically valid and reliable information. The information from
the 2002 SOLEC conference culminated in the "State of the Great Lakes
2003" report, which concluded that the chemical, physical, and biological
integrity of the basin is mixed based on assessments of 43 indicators.
This conclusion was based on five positive signs of recovery, such as
persistent toxic substances are continuing to decline, and seven negative
signs, such as phosphorous levels are increasing in Lake Erie.

The ultimate successful development and assessment of indicators for the
Great Lakes through the SOLEC process are uncertain because insufficient
resources have been committed to the process, no plan provides completion
dates for indicator development and implementation, and no entity is
coordinating the data collection. Even though the SOLEC process has
successfully engaged a wide range of binational parties in developing
indicators, the resources devoted to this process are largely provided on
a volunteer basis without firm commitments to continue in the future.
GLNPO officials described the SOLEC process as a professional,
collaborative process dependent on the voluntary participation of
officials from federal and state agencies, academic institutions, and
other organizations attending SOLEC and developing information on specific
indicators. Because SOLEC is a voluntary process, the indicator data
resides in a diverse number of sources with limited control by SOLEC
organizers. GLNPO officials stated that EPA does not have either the
authority or the responsibility to direct the data collection activities
of federal, state, and local agencies as they relate to surveillance and
monitoring of technical data elements that are needed to develop,
implement, and assess Great Lakes environmental indicators. Efforts are
underway for the various federal and state agencies to take ownership for
collecting and reporting data outputs from their respective areas of
responsibility and for SOLEC to be sustained and implemented; each

indicator must have a sponsor. However, any breakdown in submission of
this information would leave a gap in the SOLEC indicator process.

EPA supports the development of environmental indicators as evidenced by
the fact that, since 1994, GLNPO has provided about $100,000 annually to
sponsor the SOLEC conferences. Additionally, GLNPO spends over $4 million
per year to collect surveillance data for its open-lake water quality
monitoring program, which also provides supporting data for some of the
indicators addressed by SOLEC. A significant portion of these funds,
however, supports the operation of GLNPO's research vessel, the Lake
Guardian, an offshore supply vessel converted for use as a research
vessel. GLNPO also supports activities that are linked or otherwise feed
information into the SOLEC process, including the following:

o  	collecting information on plankton and benthic communities in the
Great Lakes for open water indicator development;

o  	sampling various chemicals in the open-lake waters, such as phosphorus
for the total phosphorus indicator;

o  	monitoring fish contaminants in the open waters, directly supporting
the indicator for contaminants in whole fish and a separate monitoring
effort for contaminants in popular sport fish species that supports the
indicator for chemical contaminants in edible fish tissue; and

o  	operating 15 air-monitoring stations with Environment Canada
comprising the IADN that provides information for establishing trends in
concentrations of certain chemicals and loadings of chemicals into the
lakes. EPA uses information from the network to take actions to control
the chemicals and track progress toward environmental goals.

To better coordinate monitoring activities GLNPO and Environment Canada
began developing a web-based inventory of monitoring activities in the
Great Lakes Basin. The first workshop on developing this system was held
in January 2002. Once development of this system is complete,
organizations conducting monitoring activities will be requested to
provide descriptive information about these monitoring activities and
contact points for obtaining specific monitoring data. We are currently
conducting a review for 20 members of Congress serving on the Great Lakes
Task Force that further examines monitoring activities in the Great Lakes
Basin. In this review we hope to identify some of the major challenges to
developing a Great Lakes Basin monitoring system.

Program officials frequently cite output data as measures of success
rather than actual program accomplishments in improving environmental
conditions in the basin. As a rule, program output data describe
activities, such as projects funded, and are of limited value in
determining environmental progress. For example, in reporting the
accomplishments for Michigan's Great Lakes Protection Fund, officials
noted that the program had funded 125 research projects over an 11-year
period and publicized its project results at an annual forum and on a Web
site. Similarly, the Lake Ontario Atlantic Salmon Reintroduction Program
administered by the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service
listed under its accomplishments the completion of a pilot study and
technical assistance provided to a Native American tribe.

Of the 50 federal and state programs created specifically to address
conditions in the basin, 27 reported accomplishments in terms of outputs,
such as reports or studies prepared or presentations made to groups.
Because research and capacity building programs largely support other
activities, it is particularly difficult to relate reported program
accomplishments to outcomes. The federal and state environmental program
officials responding to our evaluation generally provided output data or,
as reported for 15 programs, reported that the accomplishments had not
been measured for the programs.

Only eight of the federal or state Great Lakes-specific programs reported
outcome information, much of which generally described how effective the
programs' activity or action had been in improving environmental
conditions. For example, EPA's Region II program for reducing toxic
chemical inputs into the Niagara River, which connects Lake Erie to Lake
Ontario, reported reductions in priority toxics from 1986 through 2002
from ambient water quality monitoring. Other significant outcomes reported
as accomplishments for the Great Lakes included (1) reducing phosphorus
loadings by waste treatment plants and limiting phosphorus use in
household detergents; (2) prohibiting the release of some toxicants into
the Great Lakes, and reducing to an acceptable level the amount of some
other toxicants that could be input; (3) effectively reducing the sea
lamprey population in several invasive species infested watersheds; and
(4) restocking the fish-depleted populations in some watersheds.

To fulfill the need for a monitoring system called for in the GLWQA and to
ensure that the limited funds available are optimally spent, we
recommended that the Administrator, EPA, in coordination with Canadian
officials and as part of an overarching Great Lakes strategy, (1) develop
environmental indicators and a monitoring system for the Great Lakes

Basin that can be used to measure overall restoration progress and (2)
require that these indicators be used to evaluate, prioritize, and make
funding decisions on the merits of alternative restoration projects.

Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
answer any questions that you or other members of the Subcommittee may
have at this time.

Contacts and Staff For further information, please contact John B.
Stephenson at

Acknowledgements 	(202) 512-3841. Individuals making key contributions to
this testimony were Willie Bailey, Greg Carroll, Karen Keegan, Jonathan
McMurray, and John Wanska.

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