Great Lakes, Canada
The Canadian government says they hope to clean up four of the 15 most polluted sites on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes by 2010.
Under a proposed agreement, Ontario and Ottawa say they intend to remediate Jackfish Bay and Nipigon Bay in Lake Superior. Wheatley Harbor on Lake Erie and the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall are the other two sites that have been polluted by industrial waste, sewage and agricultural run-off.
The governments have been trying to restore the hot spots to relatively good health since identifying a list of 17 of the most contaminated areas in the mid-1980s. But over nearly two decades of work, they've only made slight progress and have managed to fund the complete cleanup of only two of them, both in Georgian Bay.
About 70 percent of Ontario's population draws its water directly from the Great Lakes or their connecting channels.
March 20, 2007 6:48 AM | Category: Cleanup, Great Lakes