Growing up in a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan, local beach access in town meant walking a narrow path around a wastewater treatment plant. To this day, whenever anyone asks me to go fishing or out for a lake swim, my immediate Pavlovian response is some variation on the following: “Yuck”, “Hell no” or “You want me to grow a third eye?”

Given the environmental problems Madison’s lakes have been going through, I’m pretty sure that my usual response isn’t an overreaction. Swimmers and pets have fallen ill or died due to poisoning from blue-green algae in the lakes. Madison Environmental Justice Organization recently made local headlines when they released their study on the ignorance of people who regularly eat lake-caught fish on the subject of dangers of mercury and PCB contamination. MEJO’s report recommended putting up signs at 25 area fishing locations in English, Hmong, and Spanish, informing fisherman of the dangers of eating more than one lake-caught fish meal a week, as per recommended by the DNR. The DNR itself proposed a plan to force utilities to cut mercury emissions by 90% statewide, but the Republican-controlled Assembly Natural Resources Committee sent it back for changes.

To top this off, last week the Dane County Lakes and Waterways Commission proposed a $14 million dollar budget in 2009 to improve locks, storm water drains, flood-proof buildings, and develop more land to prevent future floods and runoff. As it has been reported before, this represents a fourfold increase over the 2008 budget. Times may be tight economically, but this is something best done sooner rather than later. The time and money spent in past budgets on this issue has turned out to be the equivalent of fending off a bear with a shoelace – ridiculously ineffective and asinine. This solution has the potential to actually make a difference in our lakes.

In comparison, the Great Lakes Compact, while protecting from future damage, does little to address how to fix the current situation the lakes are in. Despite differences in opinion on when it will finally be passed, Congress, both presidential candidates, and even our current President approve of the deal. In the seven years since this deal first reached the table, though, the Great Lakes have taken a turn for the worse, leaving the compact a well-meaning but semi-useless piece of paper. Yes, we can save our lakes from future damage by requiring ocean-bound vessels to flush their ballast, we can keep the Southwest and Asia from tapping into the water, but how do we get rid of the invasive species already brought in? How do we keep big industries and the surrounding population from treating it like a giant toilet (I urge you to check out the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's excellent series on the subject, "Great Lakes, Great Peril", at http://www.jsonline.com/index/index.aspx?id=312)? The compact leaves room for solutions to the current problem, but no one has brought any to the table thus far. Likely solutions would cost billions that the US doesn’t have, even if we go “halfsies” with Canada.

Over 185 foreign species have been introduced to the Great Lakes already, with a new one being discovered about every six months. Zebra mussels and their nastier cousins, quagga mussels, are clogging intake valves, disrupting the food chain, and enabling the growth of the smelly, pervasive nuisance algae known as Cladospora (not the same as blue-green algae all too familiar in Madison lakes). Experts estimate the current mussel population at one quadrillion. That’s fifteen zeros, folks. Also, a new virus was discovered recently as the cause of a huge decrease in the Great Lakes fish population – VHS, or viral hemorrhagic septicemia. Not harmful to humans, latest testing by the DNR shows VHS hasn’t spread to other Wisconsin waters in the past year as feared (yet).

Together, these enabling forces are slowly destroying the Great Lakes, affecting the food chain all the way up to birds that eat the once-plentiful fish; not to mention the economy, sending real estate and the tourism industry into a slide. I’m going to venture a guess here and say that business owners generally don’t want to deal with this when they’re already struggling to survive the current economic situation.

The Great Cesspools Lakes as we used to know them are gone forever, unless someone takes a page out of Mr. Burns’ book from The Simpsons: Link a bunch of six-pack tops together, sweep the sea clean, and make it into a scrumptious sea slurry (unlike Mr. Burns, you would then have to put only the native species back in). Madison’s lakes, however, still have a fighting chance. Our problems with zebra mussels and blue-green algae are downright manageable, even combatable, compared to 185 foreign species and counting. Approving this budget proposal, as well as MEJO’s suggestions and the DNR’s plan, will be a big first step in the right direction for the future health of Madison’s lakes. Why not go a step further and develop our own lakes compact between all of the surrounding Dane County communities? It should be easier to do than pushing the GLC through eight state legislatures and two Canadian provinces. For once, it pays not to be Great.