Lake Ontario ~ a natural world-class ecosystem

When you look from this angle, L. Ontario's inspiring blue waters and unusual surrounding topography remain one of the world's most valuable freshwaters, as are all the Great Lakes.  Take a look at 2013 Canadian award-winning documentary, Watermark, a beautifully-filmed and researched take on today's freshwater.

Living on the south shore of L. Ontario, I've come to see that with so many competing and overlapping agencies, the conversation needs to take in more information usefully. One way is to analyze the lake's "Water-Energy Nexus." 

Along with measuring our "water footprint," we are looking from many different perspectives to see the Great Lakes' basins from the angle of watersheds.   

We can no longer rely on old environmental-politics, but have to re-design the process by which we make decisions.  Lawsuits regarding 'water withdrawal' brought by the Sierra Club and others are always going to be part of the process as the technical, legal environment is highly complex and deserves this kind of action. In NYS, the legal battles over the Adirondacks are legendary.

Ever subject to criticism, the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation is trying to keep the public informed: http://www.dec.ny.gov/enb/enb.html but its power appears to be eroded by over-arching laws and agencies. 

But over the past 50 years, increasing federal, state, provincial, international, local and micro-level agencies, laws, and actions have struggled to keep up with changes in industry, agriculture, tourism, sports, development, and hydro, nuclear, coal-burning, natural gas and other power-generation stations. 

The job is not done. Development and open space . . . management and restoration . . . water withdrawal and replacement are continuous. Citizens are now able to become conversant and aware and with that must take this new vocabulary and perspective to our governmental officials.