Teach Me About the Great Lakes

Stuart and Megan talk with Heather Stirratt, Director of the International Joint Commission's Great Lakes Regional Office, about their recent Triennial Assessment of Progress Report on Great Lakes Water Quality, the importance of these sorts of broad, international efforts, and the existence of Windsor-style pizza.

Show links:
Show credits:
Host & Executive Producer: Stuart Carlton
Co-Host and Producer: Megan Gunn
Senior Producer: Carolyn Foley
Producers: Hope Charters, & Irene Miles
Associate Producer: Ethan Chitty
Edited by: Stuart Carlton. Sigh.
Podcast art by: Joel Davenport
Music by: Stuart Carlton and Carolyn Foley


What is Teach Me About the Great Lakes?

A monthly podcast in which Stuart Carlton (a native New Orleanian) asks smart people to teach him about the Great Lakes. Co-hosted by the awesome staff at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.

Stuart Carlton 0:00
We're not Morley Safer. Is that a guy? Is he still alive? Alright anyway, teach me about the Great Lakes teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to teach me about the Great Lakes a twice monthly allegedly podcast in which I agree lakes novice as people are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes. My name is Stuart Carlton. I work with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and I think I just heard Megan guns music. Megan, how are you?

Megan Gunn 0:27
I'm good. Stuart. How are you doing?

Stuart Carlton 0:28
I'm so good. So the funny thing is, I told myself next time Megan is on the show. I am going to totally have her title down. And because you have you're one of two people, were there too many words? Yeah. Oh, it's not that many words. Yeah, two word titles. Once it gets about the second word, anyway, make it is our aquatic education. Associate. How are you today?

Megan Gunn 0:53
I'm good. Can I tell you I know that like climate change is not great. But I'm really enjoying this mild weather right now where I can walk around and breathe impressive. Not freezing my lungs.

Stuart Carlton 1:05
No, I Yes, I agree with all that we, you know, so as an academic or a failed academic or whatever you would describe my job as a we spent a lot of time moving around and not having a lot of say over where we can where we're going to live right. Um, but we're always just hoping to end up somewhere for mild seasons. We did not know that we moved to the middle of Indiana. That would be the place for for mild seasons. But we're about to climate change or where there. Yes. You know, the thing is, you might as well take the bitter with the sweet or in this case this sweet.

Megan Gunn 1:33
Yeah, it is to be right now despite like, you viewers cannot see me but I have on a very more winter hat just because my ears are cold earlier. But yeah, it's nice outside now.

Stuart Carlton 1:46
There we go. But that's not why we're here today. Now. We're here not summer. We're here. We're here for a couple of reasons. One to remind everybody that coming up as soon as we scheduled or the lake ease, the 2023 Leakey awards, they might not come out too early January because I'm looking at the calendar. We're running out of time. But that is quite possibly not the least prestigious podcast Great Lakes podcast related award. So I want you to the nominations are closed for like ease, but keep your eyes out for those. It's one of my two or three favorite things we do each year. That will be coming but it might be a week or two late normally we're like to make it our last episode of the year. But this has been the year of inconsistency. And that is life is

Megan Gunn 2:24
happening right now.

Stuart Carlton 2:25
Whoa. Four years it well, you know what, we got a cool guest so let's just jump straight into it. Our oh wait, I'm supposed to hit the Dagnabbit How about this one?

Our guest today is Heather Stirratt. And she is the director of the AJC Great Lakes regional office and that is in is that in Windsor? It

Heather Stirratt 2:53
is in Windsor Stewart. Good job, and I am so grateful to be here with you. And Megan today. This is a real honor. I think this is our first podcast with you all I think.

Stuart Carlton 3:03
I don't think we've had AJC although at this point we've done about this will be 90 or 91. So they start to bleed together after a while. Embarrassingly enough? No, it's super great. And Windsor, of course is where the I Agler conference will be. This will be doing a live show.

Heather Stirratt 3:21
Indeed, it will be and we're working really closely with the I Agler. Planning Committee right now. It's going to be a very exciting week in Windsor.

Stuart Carlton 3:31
I'm already fired on.

Megan Gunn 3:33
There are so many acronyms here. Because this is your first time here. Can you tell us what ij C stands for? And what it is? Yes.

Heather Stirratt 3:44
Yes, I would be happy to start with that. Great question. So the International Joint Commission, also known as the IJ. C, we've had a really rich history, Megan, it dates all the way back to 1909 when the first Boundary Waters Treaty was signed by the US and Canada. So we under that treaty, really do work across trans boundary shared waters to resolve and prevent disputes over over the waters that the two countries have jurisdiction for. And so we really do work on approving projects that affect water levels flows. And probably one of the most important roles that we serve is investigating trans boundary issues and making recommendations back to the government's on solutions in those regards.

Stuart Carlton 4:34
So water issues Yeah, that sounds like CSI or something.

Heather Stirratt 4:39
It's not quite that exciting, but I would say that um, we have a lot of a lot of issues that relate to drinking water quality, looking at commercial shipping, hydroelectric power generation, agriculture, ecosystem health, and we really do consider water quality here in the Great Lakes to be up paramount concern. So those are many of the issues that we look at and try to advise the governments on.

Stuart Carlton 5:07
And so what are you? So when you investigate that, so So hurry all set, I guess, where's your funding come from? And so who do you work for? That's a great question.

Heather Stirratt 5:17
So we actually receive our funding from both the US and the Canadian governments. It comes in as a federal line item and the appropriations that we receive. But when it comes to the way that we work, as a government, we really do make it a priority to represent the commission first. And so we're not wearing necessarily the hats of our respective national countries, so to speak, the folks who issue our passports, so to speak, but rather, representing that sort of shared interest and managing the shared waters appropriately. Yeah.

Stuart Carlton 5:58
Is that is that in a conflict that comes up? I guess. So sometimes you have to advocate or whatever it may be, won't use the term advocate because that's that can be contentious service. Sometimes you have to put the Commission's interests, kind of if there's tension between the two nations,

Heather Stirratt 6:11
absolutely, we serve as a I would say, almost like a third party evaluator that advises the governments on where those types of issues are really rising to a level of concern that would promulgate some type of a reference or a request from the governments for the AJC to step in and assess what's going on

Stuart Carlton 6:33
here at the Great Lakes Regional Office, which I think is also home to an early friend of the show, who has not appeared on it, but we've been in contact or live, which Allison Vogelsong, as in Yachty. But you're there with Allison, what, what do y'all do with the Great Lakes Weiser Great Lakes regional office, if it's the Commission on the Great Lakes or whatever? I'm very confused. Yeah, do epically lakes regional office. Yeah,

Heather Stirratt 6:56
so let's talk a little bit about that. So the Great Lakes regional office was actually mentioned in the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement, it was signed many years after the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty. But that Boundary Waters Treaty really recognized the IJ C's role for trans boundary issues and looking at those deeply. And so the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement recognize that role, and it commits the governments of Canada and the United States to work together to restore and maintain the water quality and the health of our Great Lakes basin. So in that agreement, the Great Lakes regional office was named. And to just get right down to it, we have several roles which are really specific to that agreement, we're required to take a look at analyzing and disseminating data around the water quality of the Great Lakes. We work on general objectives like ecosystem health, and we provide advice and recommendations to the parties of that particular agreement on social, economic, environmental aspects of of the water quality in the Great Lakes. We also do a lot of support and technical assistance for our Great Lakes, water quality board and Great Lakes Science Advisory boards, and their sub organizations. And then finally, we have a role, which is to provide public notice and outreach for the activities, including like public hearings, public meetings that are undertaken by the board and our commission related efforts.

Megan Gunn 8:30
Is this how the triennial report came about. Yes,

Heather Stirratt 8:34
yes. Good question, Megan. So, you know, the triennial assessment report is mandated under the agreement as well. And that report is generally directed back to the parties that's the US and Canadian governments, EPA and environment Climate Change Canada serve as the co chairs of the Great Lakes executive committee for implementation of the agreement. So the goal of the triennial assessment report is to assess the progress of the governments against the goals and objectives in the agreement. Steward, have you ever been a independent evaluator of the US or Canadian governments? It's hard, it's hard.

Stuart Carlton 9:16
But, ya know, that sounds virtually impossible. So how do you do this? How do you evaluate? I mean, are you pulling in secondary data sources? Are you going out and talking to people? What's the deal? Yeah,

Heather Stirratt 9:25
both actually, the Great Lakes Regional Office does issue on an annual basis several new projects and studies that we are advised to conduct by our boards and that the commissioners review and then approve, but ultimately, we are constantly building the foundation under which recommendations would move forward through the triennial assessment of progress. And so the process really and putting together a tap is, well, blood, sweat and tears for sure. Staff does Definitely leading into this report, it is what they are living and breathing for almost a year and a half to two years. So every three years, we put this report together. And it really is started when EPA and E triple C, deliver two important reports on the status, they released the state of the Great Lakes report. And that kind of tells folks about ecosystem indicators, it helps folks understand the status and trends relative to the health of the lakes. And then the second report that they release is the progress report of the parties and that details what programs practices activities the parties have completed over the last three years. Once we get those two reports, the Commission then considers both of them, and then gathers and summarizes input public and otherwise on it. We conduct our own assessments with the government's and then release it through the findings in the triennial assessment of progress report. It's it's a super heavy lift. And I'm really, really proud to say that we just delivered our transnasal assessment of progress on November 9, and we've been doing a lot of outreach around that. So we appreciate the invitation to share here.

Stuart Carlton 11:15
Anytime. Okay, so that makes sense. So I was reading through the report. It's a it's something like 80 pages, but it's very readable. I mean, for federal government evaluation, which is, you know, it's not a thriller, but well, maybe it is a thriller. I don't know, it depends on your perspective. But I thought the way you structured it was really clever. And like my view on the structure, I think, because I stole it from the headings is that it goes like past, present and future, right, sort of looking back, then assessing where we are, and then looking to the future. And I think the idea behind that is that you want to talk about where you're coming from where you are now. And then your recommendations are the future. But let's let's take those sort of one at a time. In the beginning, you review 50 years of the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement, which I thought was interesting. I hadn't really thought about it in that much in that way. And so I'm curious what your thoughts are like, how has it evolved over those 50 years, as we look through that review, because this is a major agreement for the

Heather Stirratt 12:13
absolutely steward. So the freshwater resources of this region have been and remain worth protecting and restoring right 40 million people relying on the region for safe drinking water, sustenance. So when we think about folks who actually obtain a portion of their protein from fishing, commerce, commerce and transportation are huge in this region, really serving as the entry point for a lot of the Rust Belt communities here in terms of much of the GDP and are really is the epicenter, if you will, of our blue economy here in the lakes. third largest gross domestic product in the world, I might add. So you know, suffice it to say drinkable, fishable, swimmable, that's the mantra here under the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement. So the champions of that first signed agreement really knew well that it would take a multinational approach to ensure protection of these waters over time, they knew that what happened on one side of the ponds would ultimately or could ultimately result in unintended impacts on the other side, so that trans boundary watershed and shared concern for careful management of these treasured natural spaces, it runs super deep, super deep. So I would say, you know, that was, that was really where we got started. That was what they got right from the beginning. And then, you know, it's meant to evolve over time. And so we've seen a lot of new emerging stressors that come up in these dynamic systems all the time. For example, climate change, right? Climate change is real. It's happening. Now the rate of change in these freshwater systems is mind blowing. Some examples, right, like, did you know that Lake Superior is the fastest warming body of freshwater on the globe?

Stuart Carlton 14:09
Well, hold on. Sorry, this, you're just gonna have to put up with this. So that sounds alarming to me like a Great Lakes factoids. So what we're gonna do is I'm going to play the Great Lakes factoid, theme music, and then you're going to repeat that factoid, in order to keep all of this in so that everybody sees how competent we are. So it's just 10 seconds. You'll I'll point you like this when it's it's a great lakes, factoids, a Great Lakes factoid, it's a great factoid about the Great Lakes. John

Heather Stirratt 14:39
Stuart, did you know that Lake Superior is the fastest warming body of freshwater on the globe, on the globe? On the globe, so many studies have been done to document this and that's why I was speaking specifically about that rate of change being mind blowing. We see temperatures rising, we see Now sadly, we are starting to see Harmful Algal Blooms occur. And what is the cold one of the coldest Great Lakes, certainly here in the region, but on the globe as well. And that's Lake Superior. It's the deepest, it's the coldest. And we now have harmful algal blooms happening there where they were not present.

Stuart Carlton 15:18
It was too cold there to have hurtful Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Heather Stirratt 15:22
So you know, a lot going on in these systems. We have, you know, new stressors like microplastics, that are now showing up in our monitoring data. There's some real pressures on the systems right now. And we have to be evolving with that over time. So the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement does provide those onramps to continually assess what is happening in the systems and then to report back on the progress that is keeping those systems available and protected for many generations to come.

Megan Gunn 15:56
So on the present side, you talk about the status and trends of the lakes, and they're all listed as unchanging, good and changing for superior and Huron, poor and unchanging for Erie and the rest of them are fair and unchanging. But we're doing we've been doing a lot of things. And this, this review is happening every few years, right? We're doing a lot of things for just to be unchanging. Are we just spinning our wheels? Are we actually making a difference? What is happening?

Heather Stirratt 16:23
Yeah, so amazing point, Megan, I would say that it's really important when we consider the status and trends to think about the size and the scope and the magnitude of these systems. So you know, I talked to my ocean friends all the time, they would come to visit. And they're absolutely awestruck by the fact that our Great Lakes behave in many ways. Not all, but in many ways, like oceans. That said, you know, we don't have lunar tides, instead, we have wind driven safe shipments. And, you know, these are bodies that are large enough that they create their own weather and climate. That's pretty amazing. We have actual storms on the Great Lakes that result in wave heights that top 30 feet and our severe weather. sure that the audience who listens to this podcast is has heard, at least at some point in time of the gales of November on Lake Superior, right? It's It's no joke, these are big systems. So it takes a very, very long time for these systems to demonstrate us huge change in the status and trends. But to your point, Megan, you know, how do we know that we're making progress, right? It's clear, we're in a much better place today than we were many decades ago, for example, our rivers aren't catching fire. That's a good thing. We were seeing these beneficial use impairments being actively removed from existing areas. And we are also seeing some of these historic legacy areas of concern where we've seen just a ton of pollution concerns being expressed that they're being delisted all the time now, and that's, that's real progress that we can hang our hats on.

Megan Gunn 18:15
That's awesome. That makes me feel better. Yeah,

Heather Stirratt 18:18
exactly.

Stuart Carlton 18:20
But I think a lot about this idea. You know what, I'm not gonna go there. Well, but I'll give the background just for the FYI. We had an interesting panel discussion of there's a film called URI situation that this guy. Yeah. And so we watched we, we played that, for some students at Green Week as part of part of Greenwood care Purdue, and had a really great panel discussion. David Brock, the director wasn't there. We had some professors there. And you know, everybody liked the documentary, but there were many parts of it that were simplifications because your job is to documentarian is to simplify things into a story. And professors job is to do quite the opposite. Sometimes detrimentally, so but but one impression the students got from it is that Lake Erie is totally hosed. And, and is worse now than it's ever been. And maybe I will keep this and but but actually, like URI is the best overall, that it's been by many indicators in quite some time. Right. So it's interesting to see how these different it depends on what you're looking at. It depends on the scale, you're looking at both timescale, geographic scale and things like that. So I feel like a lot of lakes are in better condition in many ways, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're in perfect condition. And the scale is really irrelevant.

Heather Stirratt 19:38
Yeah, I would just say, Stuart, I think you've kind of nailed it. Right. It's it's we're making progress if the baseline was how things were back in the early Well, I would say late 1960s. Right. When we did see rivers catching on fire and pollution was running rampant, and we had a lot of historic sense of the past that we really had been working concertedly Since 2010, and even earlier than that before GLRI, to really try to rectify, and I think the message here is an ounce of prevention, right, if we can try really hard to get out in front, and that requires that we're monitoring constantly monitoring these systems, then we can be in a better position, a much more proactive position to be able to one name it name with that new threat is to keep an eye on it three, start to mitigate and and work to resolve those types of issues.

Megan Gunn 21:11
So how do you settle on what recommendations that you're making for our future? Progress?

Heather Stirratt 21:18
Yeah, that's a good question. So I will tell you, and again, this kind of relates back to the tab. We try to keep the triennial assessment a progress report very current and relevant to the day time and age when it is produced and publish. So it's hard, we oftentimes get this question of well, how do you decide what rises, right? So the International Joint Commission actually conducts, like 10 to 15 new projects per year, round about. And in each of those projects, we have at least one probably many recommendations that get issued. So if you do the math there, right, it's it's hundreds, hundreds of recommendations over a three year period, not everything can rise. If everything were to rise, it would make it super difficult, right for for the governments to actually absorb and respond and implement those. And so for the tap, we really did look at this particular 2023 report as an opportunity to distill things up to the top three to five recommendations that we wanted to put before the government's

Stuart Carlton 22:34
just for those who don't know, speaking of acronyms, the tap is the triennial assessment of progress, which is what we're talking about. Okay, so you picked three? Yeah, cuz I was gonna say, I've got dozens of recommendations. Everything you need to put all your work behind just a couple of arrows, I guess is that yeah, that's something we can say. Right.

Heather Stirratt 22:50
And those previous recommendations from the other report, you know, they stand for as long as as they need to stand or until somebody fully implements them. And so they don't go away. It's just that they may not be the top thing that we're reporting on and that triennial report,

Stuart Carlton 23:07
I want to hear about the recommendations. But before I forget, so do you ever re recommend stuff like if there if sufficient progress is not? Because I believe this is the only tap I've I've read? I'll be honest,

Heather Stirratt 23:19
yes. In fact, yes, in fact, we have done that we have, we have reiterated important recommendations and previous tap reports. And many of the recommendations, even for this tap report, are grounded in foundational work that we previously reported on.

Stuart Carlton 23:35
Sure. Okay, well, let's talk about your recommendations there there in this one. He's a really interesting, let's go through whichever one you want to talk about. First, let's do that one.

Heather Stirratt 23:44
How about let's talk about the science of the region. So we have spent a lot of time looking at our current science, the state of the gaps with proactive and comprehensive science and monitoring programs. The Commission had concluded going into this particular reporting cycle, that existing science and monitoring efforts focused on indicator reporting for assessing progress would really benefit from complementarity efforts towards the development of a Great Lakes Science plan, one that's just focused on this basin. And that would really help us get to that proactive stance that I was just discussing, you know, around these threats and stressors. So the commission recommended that the party support and actively participate in the Great Lakes Science Advisory Boards collaborative process to develop this 10 year Great Lakes Science plan. We've got a two year project that's just kicking off now. We just established a member based collaborative to help us with that. And the US and Canadian governments are both participating and so we're seeing a lot of early indication that this is one that will go pretty far. And we're very, very hopeful about what this new Great Lakes Science plan will do for the region and getting an earning that that sort of proactive stance.

Stuart Carlton 25:08
So how does it how does this finance plan help with that? What what does this iceberg look like? Is that just like, is a really broad in terms of these are the general thrust of things that we're gonna do? Or is there more specificity? Obviously, it doesn't exist yet. But if what do you think and with that? Yeah,

Heather Stirratt 25:21
so we, we, we had some early work done on this particular element, and through some contract arrangements, and over, I think it was, like 400 different scientists that we consulted with, there's really six big bits of effort that need to be involved and focused on in this big science plan that we're working on. We think that there needs to be enhanced models and forecasting systems developed for some of these newly emerging issues that we're looking at. We want to see longer term monitoring efforts really focused on long time series measurements for things like Harmful Algal Blooms. Things like winter science, where we currently don't have a lot of infrastructure, because as you well know, our Great Lakes winters are pretty harsh and severe. So a lot of our monitoring equipment gets pulled during the winter months. We want to invest in science, infrastructure, and centers of excellence that really are innovative and forward thinking. Those that would include, for example, socio economic and cultural perspectives that have traditionally maybe not been solidly at the table. And we really want to make sure that that is something that's interwoven throughout the work that we would do in this next science plan. And then, of course, we want to have works workforce development. I can tell you, for certain, talking with our Great Lakes fleet of science vessels, you know, our crews, we often struggle to keep our vessels fully crewed during the field season months. It's something that we need to focus on a lot of our chips are aging, and need replacement need investment. And so these are areas where we see workforce capacity, building opportunities to be life changing in terms of the work that needs to happen over the next several generations of work here in the Great Lakes region.

Megan Gunn 27:28
If I didn't get super seasick, I would definitely volunteer to staff one of the boats.

Stuart Carlton 27:36
They know that your dive sites without Oh, wait, but we have video of you don't wait. That's right. Yes,

Megan Gunn 27:41
I did. I did a lot of puking on the way to that. Okay.

Heather Stirratt 27:46
Those are just like gifts to Poseidon, right? Isn't that what they say?

Stuart Carlton 27:53
Oh, that's great. So this is one of the real big themes. So the show if you'd like look at meta themes, which is something I do, because what else might you do with my life, I suppose. But is is the premise the importance of government collected data, because so many of our guests come on, and they talk about long term datasets that if it's not collected by the government, or by university scientists funded by the governor, it's not going to get collected. And it seems to be like the science plan, you've you're identifying a bunch of future sources of really valuable decades long datasets. How does something like that get implemented, though, like the yellow of, you know, because you're not a regulatory agency? Right? You don't have much authority exactly in terms of trying to put plays into work. So I'm alone on this Science Play, and how does it How does it happen?

Heather Stirratt 28:38
You know, Stuart? That's the big question right now. And that's what we're focusing on for the next two years, we're planning to get six different convenings, together with a whole bunch, a whole variety of folks across the region, to talk about governance, to talk about how the funding should flow to whom, who has the capacity to oversee something like this. And our initial work on developing the strategy, the sort of underpinnings of what this plan would look like, there were some initial cost estimates about what that would look like. And it's not an insignificant amount of funding, we're going to be working to refine those numbers going forward. But ultimately, we really do need to find source funding to work this through, we need to find entities who have the capacity to get funding out to the masses of folks who will need to work here. You know, there's some good examples of how this has been done in other countries. There are great examples, even here in the US have large funding streams, like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, for example. You know, that money initially comes into EPA, but then it gets diffused out amongst 16 federal agencies and I can tell you having worked for one of those federal agencies prior to this 95% of the money that that we at NOAA office for coastal management received that went right back out to working with local communities. So a lot of that money went right back out through, you know, grants and contracts to help those local folks on the ground do important work. That's what we're talking about with the science plan, we're talking about a governance structure that would bring in the necessary resources to focus on those six big bends. But where it would be diffused amongst many participants to actually help do that hard work. There's so many great academic institutions Illinois-Indiana, Sea Grant, great example, Purdue University, right. We've got McMaster and McGill, all of these folks who are doing amazing research here in the Great Lakes that could really benefit from a partnership like that. Makes

Stuart Carlton 30:50
sense? So that's Recommendation one is tenured or a Great Lakes Science plan, thinking on decadal type, you know, really decadal type timescales recommendation to that you want to focus on? Yeah,

Heather Stirratt 31:02
so we took a hard look at how well let me take a step back. So under the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement, I mentioned that there's this requirement for us to produce a triennial assessment of progress report, we are required to do that every three years. And on the third issuance of that report, which would be nine years technically into the agreement that triggers the governments to go back and do a full assessment of the agreement. We are now in in that timeframe. And so when we develop this tap, we were really mindful of that. And one of the things that we were considering is, how will first nations, matey, tribal governments, be involved in that review process? There, there has been so much interest and thinking about that, and leaning into the intention, which should be active partnerships and review of the agreement and in the subsequent processes that might change or amend the agreement. And so that was the recommendation it was that the parties collaborate with First Nations, matey and tribal governments, as active partners going forward,

Megan Gunn 32:14
which is what it should be right, like, bring everybody that's impacted and involved in everything that's related to whatever the topic is right to the table.

Heather Stirratt 32:23
So that yeah, yes, absolutely.

Stuart Carlton 32:26
No, I like that. But it sounds like an act. So what I always worry about with with First Nations and our tribal partners, is it I feel like there's oftentimes a lot of lip service paid, right. And well intentioned, I'm sorry, but but a lot of times it stops there. So I think if you're explicitly calling to incorporate people and representatives from error that I find to be good, and there are commissioners who represent them as well, right, as part of the International Trade Commission. Yes,

Heather Stirratt 32:53
that's an important point. So for the first time ever, the International Joint Commission does have an indigenous Commissioner, that's Henry liqueurs. And we are so blessed to have him as a commissioner, he's really been helpful in terms of educating us, but also advising us about how to do this in a good way. And I think, you know, the thing that I've learned from him most is that it is no one time engagement. It's a very much a long term sustained conversation, and it starts with active listening.

Stuart Carlton 33:25
Oh, that's great. Yeah. And it has to be, it has to be. Excellent. Well, thank you for that. That sounds great. And I really hope that I hope that somebody is able to implement that. Well. Recommendation number three.

Heather Stirratt 33:38
Yes. So this one is primarily oriented around scalable climate resiliency goals. And what we did was take a look at how the annexes are really thinking about scalable climate resiliency goals. What are the annexes? The annexes, there are 10 annex annexes under the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement. We have, for example, areas of concern like wide action and management plans. There are nutrients and there there are 10 of them

Stuart Carlton 34:18
are essentially like big topics. environmental topics,

Heather Stirratt 34:21
okay. Yes. And so what we did was take a look at how climate really was permeating all of those now there is a climate annex. But what we wanted to do was think about this in the context of Lake wide action and management plans. So what we were suggesting is on this rolling basis of every five years these development cycles for each of these plans, that the next version of each of those should articulate what those climate resiliency goals are, and that they should be achievable, scalable, right, a smart recommendation for multiple levels of governments to to act upon. So we recommended that the parties and collaborations with all levels of government, regional watershed authorities and others, that they would develop these common basin wide goals and that with transparent and accountable performance metrics, those would be included in each of the annex to like wide action and management plans. And

Stuart Carlton 35:22
so with these recommendations and your findings, or what do you mean, get in the findings? What do you have you back on to talk about the findings? What do you have your findings in your recommendations? Yeah. So so we sort of got into it with the science plan, but what can people do to help? Who needs to implement these? You know, you have to use your persuasive power, I suppose. But who needs to implement these plans? How does it get done? Or have these recommendations? And how does it get done? Yeah,

Heather Stirratt 35:48
so the agreement is very clear about accountability. Right? It leans heavily on the party's US and Canadian governments, but specifically, the two federal agencies, EPA, and E, Triple C. I think, you know, anybody who works here in the Great Lakes region knows that in reality, the implementers of the agreement span multi nations, they work to involve efforts at every level of government, nongovernmental organizations and the public. So the reality is, we all have a role to play in implementing these recommendations. But don't know a steward. Megan, if you all have ever heard of this Jewish proverb, but it says, I asked not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders. And what? Yeah, right. So so what I believe around the agreement is that the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement is best implemented on the shoulders of many diverse contributors. And that spans from the average Joe who's making a decision on his or her parcel of land, about the view shed, you know, are they going to have a hard armored shoreline? Are they going to have a soft living shoreline to protect their property, all the way up to a federal agency that is looking to invest in land use related information and contribute towards urban planning decisions on a small city scale, for example? Those are things that I think we can all do a better job around.

Megan Gunn 37:24
Excellent. If regular people want more information about how we can help where where can we go to find out more information?

Heather Stirratt 37:32
Oh, of course. So there's so many different spots, right? There's never a one stop shop. But I would just say that, you know, starting with a, with a very basic understanding of the agreement, right, read through the agreement, and then on to other places to go would be binational dotnet, where several of these reports that I've mentioned are posted, you can also visit our International Joint Commission website, we post all of our publicly digestible reports on that website, folks can go there, they can get contact information for what is an amazingly educated and expert staff that can really broaden horizons in terms of answering questions about concerns that folks might have as they relate to water quality. So, you know, there's a lot of information that's out there, but I would just say, you know, we at the Great Lakes Regional Office stand ready to answer any questions that folks might have.

Stuart Carlton 38:29
We will put links to all of those in the show notes, which you can find in your podcast player right now. Or teach you about the great lakes.com/ninety Number nine zero because this is episode 90. Well, how about this has all been really interesting, and it's important work that you're doing with the triennial assessment and your ability to navigate through this really complicated bureaucratic system I think is impressive and important. We need a lot of people like you and you're right about the staff. There's heavy hitters on staff, some real heavy hitters, but that's actually not why we invited you here on teaching you about the Great Lakes this week. The reason we do teach me about the Great Lakes, it's asking you two questions. The first is that if you could choose to have a great doughnut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you choose?

Heather Stirratt 39:12
I would choose a great sandwich for lunch. There's a place and dilute that I literally cannot drive past without stopping to get a sandwich. Northern Water Smokehouse it's amazing. And if I don't get a sandwich then I would say there smoked fish local smoked fish with a sleeve of saltines is to die for

Megan Gunn 39:37
like about a trip.

Stuart Carlton 39:40
Well, you know that is home of Minnesota see grand right. All right. You know what someone else was recommended this Smokehouse before because it spoke with an H. Au s yes was a double recommendations. We got to do it. But what about so in the spring we're gonna be Windsor and we're gonna go out and have some Windsor pizza because apparently that is a style of pizza which First of all, is it I mean, you can to be honest here because Carolyn isn't on. She says, There's a quote Windsor sila pizza and it's, quote, a real thing. And nobody believes her. Is there a Windsor style of here's the hard hitting question, sir Windsor style of pizza.

Heather Stirratt 40:14
Oh, Stuart, I am the wrong recipient for this question. I will tell you I'm not a pizza fan. And I know completely weird. My family thinks I'm weird, but yes, I have not tried the local ones or pizza. So I cannot attest to

Stuart Carlton 40:30
that's fine. So what I'm saying is you cannot confirm I just put this in a note to Kerala you cannot confirm the existence. This is within right here. And listeners you can you can you we play or you listen, and then you decide on your own. All right, we report you decide that's what I meant.

What is Windsor style pizza?

Speaker 1 40:58
It's like, no, it does not have Canadian bacon, because Canadian bacon is not a thing. All right. So it's like a little bit chewy. Look it up.

Stuart Carlton 41:17
We report you decide. Okay, good.

Megan Gunn 41:20
Yeah. So we also wanted to know what is a special place and the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience? And what makes us special?

Heather Stirratt 41:29
I love this question. So my husband and I little known fact, we both worked for the US Forest Service right out of college. And we worked for the US Forest Service at the Superior National Forest. And so my special place that I always feel safe and secure, and it's just deeply special to me is grande moraine, Minnesota. And not too far. From there. I'll just share we have a family cabin. And it overlooks the Boundary Waters, while not in the Great Lakes. I just see. Right. So we have to think about trans Boundary Waters, I'll simply say it's beloved by all spirits and our loved ones alike.

Stuart Carlton 42:08
Fantastic. Heather Sterrett, the director of the International Trade Commission, Great Lakes regional office, and one of the guiding forces behind the new very important triangle assessment process. Oh, let me try that again. And one of the guiding forces behind the important new triangle. Let's be the afternoon triangle, one of the guiding forces behind the triennial assessment of progress, which is what we all know to call it. Thank you so much for coming on it teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

Heather Stirratt 42:42
Thank you, Stuart. Thank you, Megan. It's been a pleasure.

Stuart Carlton 42:58
I love to hear stuff like that. Because, you know, I tend to work on a relatively micro level within our program within our state or within our two states and a little within a region. When you hear people like Heather, they're, you know, they're doing really important work on a governmental, international level. And that was that can be really challenging. But it's important because you got to get all the people involved and onboard and all of that. So it's always interesting to hear that perspective. Because it is quite different from from mine.

Megan Gunn 43:28
Yeah. And I think it's, it gives me hope, right, like all the things that we've been doing, it does make a difference, right. Like we haven't been spinning our wheels we we are seeing things change. Yeah, I think things change. Yeah, cool. So

Stuart Carlton 43:44
bring the year don't and don't forget the ladies are coming up. If we don't get them released in December then we will get them released in early January as either the first or second episode. I do love the lake is just this lot going on. But Megan, Are you fired up about the leak? Are you a lake East person?

Megan Gunn 44:00
I am a lake East person and I want them firstly, can

Stuart Carlton 44:03
you miss Leslie? He's what I did. I

Megan Gunn 44:05
had COVID Oh, I was ill and so I couldn't move. When everybody was recording things.

Stuart Carlton 44:14
I'll be honest. COVID is unlikely to win a Leakey, it's

Megan Gunn 44:17
ya know, even for being the least prestigious awards from

Stuart Carlton 44:22
like back. No, we're, we're likely not likely

Megan Gunn 44:26
that at least. Sorry. They don't deserve an award.

Stuart Carlton 44:31
No, no. COVID is will remain award free. Yeah.

Megan Gunn 44:37
But I am excited about the lakeith. We'll see it we'll see them soon. I'm excited for the winners too. Are you? Are

Stuart Carlton 44:44
you gonna do it this way? I guess it depends on where you're calling.

Megan Gunn 44:46
It depends on one record. Can

Stuart Carlton 44:47
I get a commitment from you right now? That's okay. We don't need to put that first. I

Megan Gunn 44:50
would if it would be after the new year. But I the people that earn it, the people that win it, they have earned it. So I hope they take that to heart.

Stuart Carlton 45:01
You want to leaky for a year but you have a leaky for Life for life.

Megan Gunn 45:08
To teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the five people Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant we encourage you to check out the cool stuff you do it I see grant that work and that I am Sea Grant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Our

Stuart Carlton 45:20
senior producers Carolyn Foley in teach me about the Great Lakes is produced by hope charters, Megan Gunn and Rini miles Ethan today is our associate producer and our fixer. Our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport. Joel hope you have a good holiday my friend. The show was edited by me while we find someone to replace the irreplaceable Quinn

Megan Gunn 45:42
if you have a question or comment about the show, please email it to me about the great lakes@gmail.com Leave a message on our hotline at 765496 IASP You can also follow the show on Twitter at Teach Great Lakes but why do we have some findings and recommendations about that place? Thanks for listening and keep reading those

Stuart Carlton 46:12
are just want to say I haven't been recording my backup mic the whole time. So hopefully my audio was fine and streaming otherwise, well. We have this guy Tom coons on who was a meteorologist with the ABC 56 or 57 in south bend. This was episode three or four and so this is like our first person on a public profile we got on and so Carolyn I was a Carolyn was I hope whoever it was we were nervous and and I was having some sort of it turns out the USB mic I was using at the time was breaking but I didn't know it so kept making this noise like every now and again. No no would just like come to a crescendo and Tom would be like, your audio is bad. I was like oh sorry. So it kept recording. your audio is bad. Like every five minutes, who was super horrible. And then so what I had to do I went back to listen to edit it this was before we had coin and it was the audio was completely unusable. In my office I'm doing ADR that's that's like when the movies they go back and rerecord dialogue like over their lip sync. So I was ADR in my own interview it took like, like four hours for the interview and like try to remake the same lame jokes. It was just it was rough.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai