45: The Season of Giving

A palette-cleanser after the nonsense-heavy Lakehouse of Terror. In this episode, we focus on groups making a difference in the Great Lakes. We conduct two interviews with people who are making a difference: Mark Mattson of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper/Swim Drink Fish and Mark Fisher of the Council of the Great Lakes Region about their Circular Great Lakes initiative. We know that these are challenging times, but there are a lot of worthy nonprofits who could use your help. Please consider supporting them!

Show Notes

Follow our guests on Twitter!
Mark Mattson
Mark Fisher

Vote for Lakies!:
http://bitly.com/lakies21

Donate money!
Swim Drink Fish
Council of the Great Lakes Region (click here for Canada)
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (please mention Sea Grant and TMATGL to make sure the money makes its way to us :)

Links:
Spotted Dick
Michigan two mittens? I guess this counts, though I can't vouch for the actual mitten quality.
Alliance for the Great Lakes
Freshwater Future
Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Coalition
IAGLR
Brown Faces Green Spaces
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper

Swim Drink Fish

Waterkeeper Alliance

The Swim Guide

The Great Lakes Guide

Gord Edgar Downie Pier at Breakwater Park

By questioning Canada's past, Gord Downie fought for a better future

Maps of nuclear facilities

The Council of the Great Lakes Region

Circular Great Lakes: Forging a Future Without Waste in the Great Lakes
A Ranking of Tim Horton’s Doughnuts

Creators & Guests

Host

Stuart Carlton

Stuart Carlton is the Assistant Director of the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program. He manages the day-to-day operation of IISG and works with the IISG Director and staff to coordinate all aspects of the program. He is also a Research Assistant Professor and head of the Coastal and Great Lakes Social Science Lab in the Department of Forestry & Natural Resources at Purdue, where he and his students research the relationship between knowledge, values, trust, and behavior in complex or controversial environmental systems.

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.

Disclaimer: This is an automated transcript, we apologize for any errors. If you notice any problems, please email the show at [e-mail]. Thank you.

Stuart Carlton 0:00
teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. John, welcome back to teach me about the Great Lakes the world's most timely and regular Great Lakes podcast. My name is Stuart Carlton, I worked with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. And I know a lot about riding home and seeing signs that say birds don't exist and wondering what that means. But I don't know a lot about the Great Lakes. I'm joined today by Carolyn Foley Carolyn, what's up?

Carolyn Foley 0:24
I not not not much is up, but I believe that birds don't exist thing is like, the whole like, are birds real? Are they just? Yeah, I mean, that's a whole conspiracy theory that we don't want to cover on the show.

Stuart Carlton 0:36
I know I just found out about so. So actually. So yeah, I wrote I wrote home. So I, we were going to record this. And so I had to leave the office and ride to my mobile studio, which is in my house. And and so I wrote home to notable I saw this guy holding up a sign he said birds don't exist. It was a big flag on campus. And so when you see a sign like that, there's only one reaction to have. And that's bleep Yeah. And so again, like a bleep Yeah, birds don't exist. And then I realized, what did I just agree to? I mean, in principle, I agree. Maybe birds don't exist, but but is what is this? So I need to do some Googling. So listener, birds probably exist. And I just need to find out about that.

Carolyn Foley 1:13
Yeah, I can. Yeah, there's a whole can of worms. I mean, happy reading. There was. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting.

Stuart Carlton 1:20
All right. Well, there we go. So and that will count then, as this week's note won't actually, I was gonna have a great like factoid, but it's a different grade like factoid. And we're not sure. And then the other thing happened. So I got this cool electric bike. I don't know if I told you about this. It's like a, it's a cargo bike for the kids to ride on the back and it's electric. And the cool thing is like, it's got like a little throttle. It's when you're at a standstill, you can kind of get going. And so I pulled up behind some kid, were at the red light, I was riding home and I was like, let me show you how it's done, man. And so I got ready, the light turned and I went to engagement. And I looked at his bike frame. It also had a battery on it like electric. So then I just kind of fell in line behind him. Very sad. Anyway, but here I am. MobileStudio. None of that has anything to do with any of this. So we will start off we have some follow up some feedback from a listener and this is from the great, Emily, one of our listeners. And if you remember a couple episodes ago, last episode, I don't know what happened last episode, but a couple episodes ago, we actually had hoped charters, the original teach me about the Great Lakes co host. And she was talking about visiting a friend of our colleague of ours on blob roll Island, or as I call it, boys blank Island. And she says I'm putting stone and I didn't know a lot about putting stone. And so listener or the great Emily reached out. But before I tell you what she told me about putting stone that is gonna be the Great Lakes factoid for this week, as soon as I find there it is. It's a great lakes factoid, a Great Lakes factoid, it's a great factoid about the Great Lakes. And so Emily says via Twitter that puddingstone contain spots of Jesper early Brits called it puddingstone because it reminded them of a pudding, which is a steamed fruitcake from back home called spotted dick, which contains dried fruit. And as someone who was at one point, a teenage boy, I know a lot about spotting. I know spotted dick was a common gag gift, I guess. But I've never actually eaten spotted. They

Carolyn Foley 3:22
had been on the I don't the great British baking show. At one point. There's a couple of things where they're doing like the steamed puddings. And it's kind of cool. That's really cool. Thank you, Emily.

Stuart Carlton 3:32
There you go. Yeah, so there it is. It's all about the spotted dick. And then second thing, of course is it is leaky season. And if you're listening to this, shortly after release it you have about a week left to nominate things for the leaky so what I want you to do is go to bitly.com/leaky is 21 LAK i e s two, one, and that's bitly.com. Or you can go to bit.ly/like. He's 21 as hope will tell you, and nominee. Thanks for liking. So we got a lot of great categories, ranging from like science communication of the year news story of the year. Cool. So you learned on teaching about the Great Lakes of the year, Great Lakes animal of the year, you know, all kinds of stuff, but the nominations closed on December 1. And so we'd like to feature a leaky nominee this time of year. And the one I'm going to feature is actually done by a friend and colleague of ours. Elliott Nelson, he works with Michigan secret, and he's got this cool thing called Michigan birding 101. And I'm presenting this one to make up for the fact that I said bleep yes to the birds don't exist. And so anyway, so what this is, is this is a webinar series it started early this year, he had a four part series about birding tips, winter bird ID, backyard, bird feeding and those sorts of things. So you can go and check out those four as we head into the winter, and that'll be cool. And then there's a fall series about autumn bird IDs and raptors. I'm not sure if that's like the dinosaurs. Probably not, but maybe it's not

Carolyn Foley 4:54
the dinosaurs. You silly.

Stuart Carlton 4:55
Okay. Yeah, no, it's not it's a it's a bird. I don't know. What is that hawks Send.

Carolyn Foley 5:00
Yeah, like birds of prey right?

Stuart Carlton 5:01
Yeah. Birds of Prey. Yeah.

Carolyn Foley 5:03
Anybody can talk about Harley Quinn. No. Well, that's,

Stuart Carlton 5:06
that's a is that a Marvel or DC, DC?

Carolyn Foley 5:08
But yeah. But no, that series was like wildly popular. And they said that it was one of the things that they thought was cool Elliot and colleagues at Michigan Sea Grant, they thought it was cool, because it allowed them to reach so many more people. But then they also had to learn a lot more about the species that were in different locations, which is a really cool thing.

Stuart Carlton 5:27
That is really cool. So anyway, I've seen I think one of the Michigan burden one on ones and you know, it's not just Michigan. So wherever you are in the Great Lakes, go check it out good tips, and Elliott's a great guy. And they of course do good work at Michigan secret. And so it's a really great resource and a really great web webinars series. But we'll want to Leakey, tune in find out

Carolyn Foley 5:44
also, because we would be remiss not to say this, Michigan does touch four of the five great lakes. So it sort of makes sense that Michigan featured on teach me about the Great Lakes.

Stuart Carlton 5:55
That's why shoot like a hand, right? It's because it's touching all the Great Lakes. Right. With the top ones a mitten too. Yeah. Sure. Have to check

Carolyn Foley 6:04
that out. I am and I will drop a link into the show notes.

Stuart Carlton 6:07
All right, we'll put that link in the show notes. I was at a concert. I was at one of these fish concerts. And somebody walked by me with a shirt that said Michigan America's high five and I was like, America's high five. I like that. So anyway, that T shirt will not win a Leakey, maybe Michigan birdie one on one, we'll tune in in about a month to find out. And right now though, go vote on linkies bitly.com/like. He's 21 nominate some stuff. And then we will figure out how to actually work likies, probably about 15 minutes before the show begins. Great. But Carolyn, it is of course, a season in which as the weather starts to turn cold, the leaves go from green to resplendent colors towards Brown, as they begin to fall down, which is why this season is called fall because the leaves fall. And Canada they think the leaves autumn down but they don't they fall down. Anyway, it's time to start turning kind of inward I think right. And so one way that people do that is thinking about sort of good works and charity, and what we can do to help our fellow humans or, you know, the natural environment or whatever. It's a time of giving and a time of good works, isn't it?

Carolyn Foley 7:18
Yes. And we want to take this episode to acknowledge some of the fantastic work I mean, so we've talked to a lot of different people who are connected to the Great Lakes in one way or another, they live near them, they recreate near them, they do research on them, or they share historical facts. But I think that, you know, there's so many different organizations at so many different scales all the way from like local to state or provincial to by national who are doing really, really awesome work to help protect this resource, which is, you know, really, like a very unique resource on the planet. Right. So we are talking to a couple, I wanted to mention a few that if you were to Google, Great Lakes, nonprofits, you'd probably see a couple right away who are doing lots of cool work. The Alliance for the Great Lakes is one of them. Freshwater future, there's some there, but I wanted to call it specifically the healing our waters, Great Lakes coalition, they host different conferences and things like that. And we'll put a link in there. They've got a bunch of different member organizations. And I think just looking at this list, you get a sense of how many people care about the Great Lakes, and how many people are trying to work, you know, either big pieces of the pie are tiny pieces of the pie to try to help preserve this absolutely wonderful resource.

Stuart Carlton 8:41
No, I completely agree with that. And when we're looking into sort of people doing good works and nonprofits. Yeah, that scale thing was what was so stunning to me, right, exactly, like all the way from these international things, or even like I Agler, the International Association for Great Lakes research, you know, we have attended and podcasted from their conference the last couple of years, down to you know, small groups making a difference within, you know, individual areas and states like there's this great one that we were talking to somebody from this called brown faces green spaces in Indiana, and they work to try to expand access in just a small area, you know, under that idea, I think of thinking globally, but acting locally. And I think that thing you mentioned is just right. This is a really unique resource and doing this show for is it been oh my goodness, it's been about two years now has really helped to drive that home for me that just it's this is this is a Rare, unique and imperiled not necessarily fragile, but the way but imperiled resource, right. And so seeing these these different organizations at these different scales has been really something else.

Carolyn Foley 9:45
Right. So I'm gonna go ahead and say that link, it's healthy lakes.org/members. That's where the list is that I'm talking about. But we did get a chance to talk to you just too, unfortunately, maybe we can do more in the future. But we talked to two really awesome nonprofit For this episode, so, do we want to get to those now?

Stuart Carlton 10:04
Yeah, why don't we go to those now?

Carolyn Foley 10:24
This is Carolyn and I'm speaking with Mark Matson, the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and the president of swim drink fish. Sorry.

Mark Mattson 10:34
No, that's exactly yeah. Okay. Great.

Carolyn Foley 10:37
Thank you. So, Mark, we're really excited to speak with you today about the work you're doing on Lake Ontario. Can you tell us a little bit about first let's back up and say, What is a water keeper?

Mark Mattson 10:49
Back in the 90s. When I was an environmental lawyer, I didn't know what a water keeper was either. But I got approached by what's the Waterkeeper. Alliance and it was that's a group of river keepers, Bay keepers, stream keepers, water keepers, that really, you know, help organize people or communities around having a dedicated group towards protecting the water body, the water body where they live. So, you know, I know in the Great Lakes we have Milwaukee River Keeper, Detroit River Keeper, buffalo, Niagara River Keeper, save the river, I know has a St. Lawrence River Keeper. So we have these groups and, and they really focus you know, 100% on the community, and the in the water and the, you know, the watershed they live in, I like to define it, because I'm on the Great Lakes and out of the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement back in 72. I think it's the 50th anniversary next year, you know, it really set out the gold standard. Well, was to protect the Great Lakes. So they're swimmable, drinkable, and fishable. And, you know, that was a really amazing way to define what we're for on the Great Lakes, while we work against what we're against. But it really helps define, scientifically, legally, the roles of public health and others around these uses. Because, you know, it's great, I always say, you know, swim ability, recreational waters, the gateway for many of us to our connection with the Great Lakes and drinkability clearly is like, it's the, it's the foundation of why we're here. And fishability really links to a pass where a lot of people got their food from the Great Lakes. And although it's not as common any longer, maybe it should be maybe that's a red flag, but so that's for humans, and then think about, you know, the creatures that can't read the signs, don't drink, don't swim, and don't fish in that water. They're not getting those warnings. So we have this incredible, you know, then lost to the ecosystem as well. So we set out to have swimmable, drinkable, fishable water on the Great Lakes, and we have groups that are dedicated to making sure that that happens in every community. That's sort of the the idea behind the Waterkeeper movement.

Carolyn Foley 13:01
That's awesome. Thank you. And so can you tell me a little bit more about specifically what you're doing in the Lake Ontario, like the lake itself, and if it's surrounding tributaries, or things like that, to help it be swimmable, drinkable, and fishable?

Mark Mattson 13:17
Sure, it's,

it's our 20th anniversary, so I have so many stuff. And we've worked in so many different places, but I always chronologically, you know, I wasn't environmental lawyer, I was representing a lot of communities. And at the time, in the 90s, there was a lot of real focus around landfills and discharging of toxins into rivers and in debates and into communities. And I was working a lot on closing and capping those sites, some historic and some still operating. So when I became the lake, Ontario Waterkeeper, I continued with a lot of that work, and ultimately found myself at the the large nuclear waste sites on the lake, Lake Ontario, has both the Darlington and the Pickering nuclear power plants both have eight reactors, and then a little town of Port Hope and port grandi, where they have the, you know, where the fuels made, chemical makes the fuel on the lake as well. And they have a lot of historic ways. So we did a lot of work there, sampling defining the waste and, you know, tried to bring charges against the government. But at the end, they they put together the largest cleanup on the Great Lakes, I think ever, it's about $1.5 billion now and a small community report help to clean up the historic waste. And of course, there's still processes in place with the bigger high level waste, which there still isn't any solution to but, you know, these were issues we really worked on early then sewage. You know, I started finding as the Waterkeeper the number one question I had was, Can I swim in the lake? And then the answers I knew depending on where you were, you know, some places were on swimmable and some weren't. And so we started to define the public spaces and the beaches. We started with water quality sampling, getting it from the public health and we produce beach reports. Ultimately with technology, we we created an app that's free to anyone. And we started updating water quality on that free app. It's called swim guide, the swim guide.org. And that's one guide. I think there's over 2000 beaches on the Great Lakes, you can go anybody listening today can go look at that and find their own beaches. There's an app and, you know, on Google and Apple as well, but that actually grew beyond the Great Lakes, and there's 8000 beaches worldwide. Now we're in 11 countries. But there's a lot of affiliates, a lot of groups, local groups that collect water quality data, recreational water quality data and are sharing it on that platform for free. So it's built a real nice community around swim waters, which was a response to sewage. And then, more recently, we're making a real push now with respect to waterfront revitalization and ensuring that there's accessible water for communities. So often, they create these paths, great for bikes, which I love, the past public access, and you can get to the water, but you can't get in it. Whatever reason, and I think that those links are so important to our communities, because that's, as I said, from the beginning, like that's where people create their first connection, their emotional connection and go on their own journey and discover, you know, the needs of their community and meet people who are working for sambal drinkable fish water. So we're starting with these peers. We have one signature one in Kingston, Ontario, it's called the gourd editor down here.

Carolyn Foley 16:29
I'm glad you mentioned that.

Mark Mattson 16:33
A friend of mine and board member who lived across the street and always said he'd help us out at like on Turner Waterkeeper. If we could ever get swimmable water in front of his house. So he did, we did get his name, and you know, it's his father's name. In the middle of it. Gord unfortunately passed away before we jumped off a year later, but it is named after him. And it's a really, people think it's weird that an environmental lawyer thinks it's great that he created a swimming pier, but it's all linked through my work at Waterkeeper.

Carolyn Foley 16:59
Right, that totally makes it. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. I'm a Canadian living in the US. So I definitely watched the like, CBC live stream of The Tragically Hip event. And I'm going to put all of the links into the show notes, which I believe will be at teach me about the great lakes.com/ 45 for episode 45. I'll ask Stuart to correct that piece of this recording if I have the wrong number. And I messed up somehow. But yeah, so I'm actually really excited that you brought that up, he was

Mark Mattson 17:27
really great person, anybody who's listened to the tragic live music knows him as a singer. But you know, maybe more recently, he's worked for indigenous communities in Canada. And we did a lot of traveled with him. But he was an incredibly committed person to water and they want to listen to his songs and know how many are about water. And he really worked hard on connecting people to the lakes and reminding them that that was his views. That's where he got all his ideas, his power, his creativity. And he was always very open about that. And that, you know, Lake Ontario, for him really was like his heart. And we had a, we did a heart of a lake once tour, and he named it harder the lake because he always felt like the lake really was as hard.

Carolyn Foley 18:07
That's fantastic. So what is a project that is kind of on the horizon for you that you're really excited about?

Mark Mattson 18:15
Well, continuing on the theme of peers in Toronto, we've been sampling around the city for a number of years looking to see you know, Toronto only has 11 beaches, eight of them are blue flag, which is great. So there is accessible water. During COVID, the demand went through the roof, it's clear that we don't have enough accessible water. And we've been sampling around the city and there is an accessible, really incredible beach, on the southern side of downtown on something called Ontario Place, which was a piece of land owned provincially for many years, originally was intended to try and connect Torontonians to Lake Ontario. For those who didn't have a cottage they had a place to go. But it doesn't have a beach, swimmable water. And yet we sampled and found that it could be some of the cleanest water and it was walkable to the core. And it's so beautiful and so wild. That we been really promoting it for four years that anyone who does anything there should keep the public beach and create that link for Torontonians. And my experience from the gore Downey pier is it would be the most popular place in Toronto in the summer. But it would also have that what Canadians like to do, we're not we don't usually walk into the water, we'd like to jump in a pier and have deep water cool water and that experience with wilderness in the community in downtown Toronto be a great thing. So I'm really focused on that I'm working on trying to get provincial federal, local, public health, you know, teams together to really make sure that that piece of water that piece of the Lake Ontario that we're working to clean up the other areas, but this one is now and you know, we do a lot of things for our children's stuff, but I also think we need to do things for ourselves. We can great appear there in my lifetime. That'd be a great thing, something I'm working on. We're also, you know, we're still working on the nuclear issues. They're really serious. There's a lot of issues in terms of money and where the cleanups happen and the other lakes are involved as you know, deep water geological proposal up in north of God rich. Okay, Bruce nucular plant, they're important Elgin and stuff. Um, what else we work in, in in sewage, it's always we're really promoting real time monitoring of all discharges from all urban centers and cities. It's easy, it's technologically available to do. I mean, they monitor everything. I don't know why we don't know where the pipes are, when they're discharging and what they're discharging on a real time basis. So the City of Kingston does that now. And we've got three other cities in Ontario and two others in Canada. But we have 800 municipal water systems in Canada, you guys probably have 3000 on the Great Lakes. I don't know how many Canada but you know, that data should be available in real time for the public. So they know, they can always check the water where they are. And if there is a pipe there, and it hasn't been the CSOs are still, you know, combined sewer overflows, there's still the public should know and they should know when they're discharging. And so we're really pushing for that. We borrowed from a policy from New York's New York state, it was a right to know sort of policy, I don't think it ever got adopted. But we've been building on that, that those principles, and we've produced this sort of a model sewage alert on our website, that any community can use and go to their town council and ask that their water utilities abide by that. So yeah, we're working on that, I guess, lots of other things. But those are good.

Carolyn Foley 21:37
There's so many big thing. Okay, so where can people go to learn a little bit more about your organization, and all these really awesome initiatives that you have cooking?

Mark Mattson 21:46
Well, so two real cool platforms we've created. One is the swim guide, definitely go to the swim guide, check your beach, see if you know what's going on in your community. And maybe you want to contribute data to that platform. We also have something called the Great Lakes guide. It's just great lakes doc guide. And it's a platform that connects people to the Great Lakes in different ways, new communities, people who don't other articles about things you didn't know about the Great Lakes very similar to what you're doing. I just, that's why I love the show. About the Great Lakes, I think water literacy about the Great Lakes is such an important component to protecting the Great Lakes. So that connection is so important. So that's all we have the Great Lakes guide, and then slendering fish, that's the parent website. So I'm doing fish. And then there's Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, which is the lake site and then, and hopefully, if you go to those sites, you can find some, if you're looking for other groups anywhere in the Great Lakes, I think we try and make those links and tell the stories about each other. Because, you know, we understand too, that we all need to work together, particularly on the Great Lakes, you know, the eight states, the two provinces, the two countries, we have a lack of indigenous representation and governance, you know, that has to be fixed going forward. Lack of, even though the you guys put a lot of money in the Great Lakes just a couple of days ago, but that's great, but lack of sort of coordinated funding between the two governments and other governments and, and I just think, you know, just, we just need to update on what waste we've put in and what our goals are. And I'd love them to affirm swimmable, drinkable, fishable water, again, going forward as you know, realistic goals for every community, and let's not normalize water that is unfit for swimming or for drinking or for fishing.

Carolyn Foley 23:26
That's great. This is all been fantastic. I really have enjoyed speaking with you and listening to all of the great work that your organization is doing. It wouldn't be teaching me about the Great Lakes if I didn't ask you the very important question, which is, if you could have a great doughnut for breakfast, or a great sandwich for lunch, which would it?

Mark Mattson 23:48
But given that I haven't eaten today, like both my attention and being Canadian, and always having a coffee. You know, historically it would have been that donut with coffee. Now that I'm 60 I might be looking for a healthier sandwich and skipping the donut. So I'll go with the donut for now and then I'll get healthier next year.

Carolyn Foley 24:15
That sounds like a good plan. And so where can we go to get a really good donut when where are you in Toronto? Are you in Kingston right now?

Mark Mattson 24:23
I'm in Toronto.

Carolyn Foley 24:24
All right. So in Toronto, where can we get a really good donut?

Mark Mattson 24:27
Well Princess donuts up on Dupont. It's a good one, I think I don't know if they're there anymore. Otherwise, probably I end up always unfortunately, but I always end up at the Tim Hortons. Just having a straight up apple fritter if they have them otherwise, the honey dip donut those are sort of the two standards.

Carolyn Foley 24:48
So thanks, Mark. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. Best of luck with your work. And thank you for coming on and teaching us about the Great Lakes.

Stuart Carlton 25:13
Alright, I'm talking with Mark Fisher. He is the president and CEO of the Council of the Great Lakes region. And they have a new or new ish circular, Great Lakes initiative that I want to hear all about today. Mark, how

Mark Fisher 25:25
are you? Nice to be with you, Stuart. Thanks for having me.

Stuart Carlton 25:28
Oh, yeah, we're glad to have you on. So first, let's start with what is the Council of the Great Lakes region? I'm not familiar with this council. But if anything called Council must be big.

Mark Fisher 25:37
Great questions there. Thanks. Thanks for asking it. We've actually been around since 2013. And the idea of the council really came out of a body of research that was being undertaken by Brookings, the Metropolitan Policy Program, the moment Center at the University of Toronto at the time to really think about this Great Lakes region. So eight Great Lakes states, New York to Minnesota, Ontario, and Quebec has this massive shared economy between both countries. And so what can we do across sectors and borders to really improve this region's long term competitiveness? Because it is a fully integrated economy? But also, how do we work together across borders to protect the Great Lakes to protect the environment for for future generations. And that research culminated in a conference in 2011, in the Detroit Windsor area that brought together over 400 different leaders from from business from all levels of government, academia, the broader nonprofit sector, and what came out of that conversation was that we really needed to have a forum in the region where all of those different interests and perspectives could come together as one to really understand these large socio economic environmental issues that we're facing this mega region, not just the Great Lakes. And ultimately, how do we then connect, convene work together to identify the the pathways, the solutions that will do a better job of harnessing the region's economic strengths and assets, you know, improving the well being of the region, citizens, this region is on a broad basis, home to 107 million people. But then also, how do we protect the Great Lakes. And so that really led to the Council of the Great Lakes regions creation in 2013. It started with a nonprofit corporation in Ontario and Canada. And then a few years after that, we created a 501 C six organization in Ohio called Council, the Great Lakes region, USA. And then we have a 501 C three foundation called the Council, the Great Lakes region Foundation, or CTLR. Foundation, which is where the lion's share of our work happens, because most of the stuff that we do is is charitable in the public interest and really trying to advance again, this multisector multi stakeholder dialogue. So we've been around for a while we're growing and, you know, really appreciate the opportunity to explain a bit more about our mission and our mandate.

Stuart Carlton 28:03
Yeah, sure. So what are some of the things you've been around longer than I realized? That's about eight, I guess, nine years coming up? What are some of the sort of Keystone accomplishments in that time? And, you know, first of all, bringing together groups of people is hard and slow, right. But But what kinds of stuff? Have you all done? In that time?

Mark Fisher 28:20
Yeah, well, it is slow, it is tedious. There, there are historical organizations in the in the region. You know, you know, obviously, we've got the the Conference of Great Lakes, governors and premiers, you know, we've got the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, which engages mayors, you know, we've got the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus, which is a consortium of state provincial lawmakers that care about the Great Lakes in the region, you know, we've got the Great Lakes task force at the congressional level. But these groups very rarely ever connect, and convene and talk to each other. And doing so alongside again, other, you know, other experts, and, you know, participants, again, whether that's industry leaders, you know, whether that's academia or environmental groups. And so one thing that we did early on in our mandate was launched the Great Lakes Economic Forum. And because of the pandemic, we've had to postpone that since 2020, hoping to get back to it in person next year in Chicago. But the Great Lakes Economic Forum has really been our major platform for bringing together all these different perspectives, to talk about these issues and to ultimately build dialogues coming out of the forum, you know, in a commitment to work together, whether it's looking at creating a group that wants to look at the Great Lakes auto sector and the future of mobility and how does that sector remain competitive? You know, in this global economy, how do we think about, you know, healthcare and aerospace in space technology strengths that we have in the region? How do we think about how we can be a North American and global leader and producing more food for an increasingly hungry world and doing that in a sustainable way? So the forum has been this great place for really talking about these the sectors and industries that we have in the region, how they are connected across borders, and what more we need to do to make them successful, and so that the region can compete and win in the future. But it's also then looking at, you know, again, how do we work together to protect the Great Lakes, protecting the environment for future generations, it is the largest freshwater system in the world, there are legacy issues that we need to tackle in combat. And, you know, the United States has been doing, you know, a tremendous job through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, and really addressing some of those those past conflicts with the economy, cleaning up those areas of concern, for example, addressing nutrients responding to climate change, invasive species, the on the Canadian side, whoever it's been a lot slower, you know, we've been, you know, one of the I think one of the successes we've had is, is really trying to marshal, a larger network and a stronger voice to make sure that both governments are equally investing in the protection of the Great Lakes, and making sure that we're developing a sustainable future a sustainable economy in this region. So why do

Stuart Carlton 31:11
you that's surprising for me to hear that you feel like Canadian Canadian, Canada would be another word for it, that Canada has been a little bit behind the United States, because kind of in my mind, I'm like, You're Canada, they got your health care, and other more progressive, and that sort of stuff there as opposed to United States. But that's, that's, you're saying they're a little bit slower? Why do you think that is?

Mark Fisher 31:30
Well, it's hard to say, but you know, here, here, here are the numbers. Stuart. So you know, since 2008, and the launch of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the United States has spent, you know, over $2 billion on, you know, restoration priorities, again, climate change nutrients, invasive species, cleaning up areas of concern, you know, and that, you know, you know, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is, is roughly a $350 million a year spend growing to about 450, I think, over the next three to four years, 450 million. And then with the passage of the infrastructure bill, you know, Congress has just approved, you know, an additional 1 billion for Great Lakes Restoration over the next five years. So if you add that on top of the baseline funding, it's an incredible investment that the United States is making, in the Great Lakes, on the Canadian side, are free freshwater Action Plan, which is for all of the country is a is a $75 million a year spend over five years, right? And then when you look at it, just in terms of the Great Lakes investment, it's only about $9 million a year, you know, for, you know, what, 45 million over five years, so we're not even in the same conversation, right? You know, and I think we've been doing a lot of work over the last couple of years, just to remind the Government of Canada that this is a bi national asset, it's a globally significant ecosystem. You know, Canada, you know, used to be a global leader when it came to environmental science, water science, water management, water conservation. And so really, now it's time to to, to level up, and to really start investing more again, and cleaning up areas of concern, but getting ready to respond to those, those emerging pressures that we all know are coming in, particularly in terms of climate change. You know, in the last election, Trudeau Government, which was reelected, you know, did campaign on investing 1 billion over 10 years and a strengthened freshwater action plan, that would be about $100 million dollars a year. You know, we don't know exactly how much that will mean, for the Great Lakes, but it's certainly a lot more than what's been there. They also campaigned on creating an independent Canada Water Agency. You know, and so, you know, as the parliament in Canada, you know, comes back next week after the election, and we see our, you know, the next budget, you know, we're hoping to see all these priorities, you know, you know, come to the foreground and sort of be implemented by the Trudeau Government and really start a process or a process of catching up to the United States. And we think the timing is perfect, you know, next year is the 50th anniversary of the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement. And so, you know, we really need to start becoming a lot more aligned between both countries in terms of how we think about this resource and protect us resource for future generations.

Stuart Carlton 34:27
And so one thing that y'all are doing as part of the Council of the Great Lakes region, then so that's, first of all, he's right. Anytime you have counsel in your name, you're doing big stuff. So that's good. I

Mark Fisher 34:38
agree with that. Stuart.

Stuart Carlton 34:39
Yeah, I'll confirm my own prior. But, so but one of the things you're doing that's smaller than all of this, but still big is this circular, Great Lakes initiative. Can you tell me a little bit about what is that? Exactly?

Mark Fisher 34:51
Yeah. Well, again, you know, thanks for asking the question. You know, as we know, over the last decade, plus, you know, the size ants about the ocean gyres, plastic waste and erosions has certainly been picking up pace. And I think, you know, that really, you know, captured everybody's attention when that photo of the straw and the turtle's nose circulated the globe. And I think, you know, you know, photo can all, you know, you know, say so much, and I think it really did galvanize, you know, industry and government and so many others, about the fact that we've got this oceans plastic waste problem, and we need to start really, you know, addressing it in a significant way. And, you know, that started the global conversation. But, you know, around that time over the last couple of years, and particularly when Canada was hosting the g7, and the, and was really focused on developing an oceans Charter, which included plastic litter, plastic waste, you know, we were putting our hand up as an organization and reminding both the United States and Canada that you know, what we're seeing through research in the Great Lakes that we've got an emerging and very concerning plastic waste and plastic litter problem right here in our own Great Lakes in our in our freshwater ecosystem, which in many ways functions as an oceans, because as an ocean, because it is so big. And just to give you, you know, some of the numbers, so, you know, roughly 80% of the material that's washing up on the Great Lakes shoreline is, is plastic, you know, research by the Rochester Institute of Technology, you know, estimates, you know, through formulas that are used equations that are used for the oceans, you know, it estimates that roughly 20 million pounds of plastics could be flowing into the Great Lakes every year through a variety of sources and pathways. You know, as a region, we're still sending way too much valuable material to our landfills, an extraordinary amount of materials, you know, that could be reused in our economy are just getting lost his ways to our landfills. And so, you know, because of that, you know, we we launched the circular Great Lakes initiative, to really try to bring together, you know, the different sectors and value chains that sort of make and use plastics, you know, policymakers and others, to look at how do we understand the major gaps in the Great Lakes region when it comes to collection, processing and end markets? You know, how consumers interact with plastics products, how do they think about recycling, you know, how our governments through their policies and regulations, you know, enabling, you know, sort of a more circular economy, as opposed to incentivizing, you know, waste to landfill, you know, we have very low tipping fees for landfills in the region, which is part of the problem. So how are governments, you know, in ensuring that we can improve the capture and recovery of valuable materials and get that material back into a circular economy, but also, how are we investing in infrastructure, you know, our material recovery facilities, you know, in many ways were designed for a waste stream, 2030 years ago, it was much simpler than it was glass, and it was paper, and it was metals. And so with the addition of plastics, you know, the waste stream has become a lot more complex. And so we needed that modernization of that technology. And so the circular Great Lakes initiative, was really a first attempt at bringing together again, these these different players and actors to think about how we perform as a region when it comes to those issues, and really trying to then create a roadmap and Northstar in terms of how do we create a more circular economy in the Great Lakes, as just just as a final thought, you know, as we as we capture more ways, recover more valuable material, you know, have it reused in the economy, but also looking at how do we reduce sometimes our reliance on plastics, you know, obviously, that will mean less litter flowing into our environment in our Great Lakes. And so, so this is, this is really a systemic roadmap in terms of how do we do a better job of creating more circular systems and cities and industries in the region, the byproduct of that, hopefully, will be less waste and litter in our environment. You know, and then, you know, just as a final thought, you know, as we're doing the circular Great Lakes, we've also launched an initiative called the Great Lakes, plastics cleanup, with an initiative in partnership with with pollution probe, also, with some funding from NOAA, to expand it in the United States, where we're actually trying to clean up plastics in the environment, because we know it's there. It needs to be cleaned up at the same time as we're trying to create this larger circular economy in the Great Lakes.

Stuart Carlton 39:15
That's what I think is what's interesting is you're doing the kind of bottom up, I guess, or you know, like picking up the stuff but also working on this big level. What I think is interesting about the circular economy approach, which I hadn't actually heard about until we interviewed somebody from the University of Toronto trash team a couple of episodes ago, but but it's it's treating this as the way you put it was a yeah, we can use this stuff in our economy, right. It's an explicitly economic approach to an environmental problem, which is, it's a little bit different from what we normally hear about right, which is the economy and the environment are kind of in conflict. Here's an explicit economics solution to win. I think that's a really interesting approach. It is

Mark Fisher 39:50
it is an interesting approach. We certainly feel that when we look back at sustainability issues, the economy of the environment, you know, tradition Only people have seen them in conflict. But we actually think that they can work together. They don't have to be this this competing, you know, demands between, you know, do you grow the economy, do the prep, protect the environment, we think that you can do both, we can do it in a way that is good for people good for planet and is good for profit, right. And so it is it is trying to marry those concepts. And I think if we can do that, and demonstrate how we can do that, in a region, like the Great Lakes, which is, again, North America's economic engine is by far the most important economic region to the United States and Canada. If we can demonstrate we can do this in the Great Lakes region, you know, we will ensure our long term competitiveness and sustainability which is good for the region, but also will make us more competitive, you know, in a global economy that is ultimately shifting, you know, to these new industries and these new services and these these new kind of sustainable mindsets.

Stuart Carlton 40:54
who worked at this is a really interesting stuff. And it sounds like you're doing great work. But that's actually not why we invited you on teach me about the Great Lakes is the reason that we invited you on teach me about the Great Lakes is there's two questions. The first one is this. If you could have a great donut for breakfast, or a great sandwich for lunch, which would you choose?

Mark Fisher 41:11
I'd have to save for breakfast, it would be a double chocolate donut and chocolate donut. Yeah. And that's just to give me that, that sugar punch in the morning and get me going alongside of coffee.

Stuart Carlton 41:22
Yes, I love it. So where are you based out of these days,

Mark Fisher 41:25
I'm actually based in Ottawa, Canada. And in a non pandemic year, I spend most of my time traveling across the region on both sides of the border. And now that the US Canada border is opening up and more and more people are getting vaccinated. You know, obviously, it's becoming a bit easier to sort of get back and travel again, and really experience this beautiful region that we call the Great Lakes. There we go.

Stuart Carlton 41:47
There we go. So before we get there, I want to hear about your travels. Where can I go to get a really great doughnut, either in Ottawa or since you're so well traveled anywhere throughout the Great Lakes.

Mark Fisher 41:56
I'm a bit biased, but if you ever make it to Ontario, Canada, and I understand that the chain is expanding into the United States, but my favorite doughnuts are from Tim Hortons. Okay, yeah. Which is kind of like your Dunkin Donuts. I

Stuart Carlton 42:09
know. I know, Tim Hortons. Yeah, they have them somewhere. My wife is from the Midwest. I'm from the Gulf South. But somewhere, we used to go to a family thing that had Tim Hortons. And so I remember one morning, I don't know why I went into Tim Hortons at two. I can't remember if I was coming or going. But I've been to Tim Hortons. Fantastic. But so you are well traveled? And that kind of brings us to the second question, right? Is there like a place in the Great Lakes? You know, we'd like to share wonderful places to try to help people realize what an amazing resources, is there a place in the Great Lakes that's really special to you? And if so, why is that? So?

Mark Fisher 42:38
It's a tough question. Because Because I deal with the Great Lakes and it's like having multiple children your love them all equally. And I've traveled with my family from the bottom of the, you know, Great Lakes and Lake Ontario to the top and Lake Superior. And there's so many beautiful places. All in between, I would have to say my favorite is is where I grew up, which is Coburg, Ontario, you know, has the slogan of Ontario's feel good town, it's right on Lake Ontario, it's got one of the best beaches on Lake Ontario. That's where I go home to really recharge my batteries when I have an opportunity to do so.

Stuart Carlton 43:12
That sounds awesome. I agree. Well, Mark, if people want to find out more about the circular Great Lakes Initiative, or the council in the Great Lakes region, or even the Great Lakes, plastics cleanup, plastic leader, where should they go?

Mark Fisher 43:23
Well, our main website is Council Great Lakes region.org. And I certainly encourage people to go there. If they want to learn more about the circular Great Lakes initiative. They can go to that project website, which is circular great lakes.org. And that is a more specific website to for that initiative. But either way, we'd certainly welcome people to visit us and learn more about us and hopefully think about becoming a member and potentially a donor for through our CTLR foundation.

Stuart Carlton 43:53
Where's the best place to do that?

Mark Fisher 43:55
Yeah, I was gonna say you can do that through our main website, counselor, Great Lakes region.org. You can see on the about page how to become a member in the US or Canada or how to donate. And as you know, with most nonprofits, you know, our success is really driven by the people who want to join and participate and support our work financially. So we would certainly welcome that.

Stuart Carlton 44:15
Great well, I encourage your listeners to go look at the show notes for all of those links and more. And look at this really worthy cause doing important work and doing it from a perspective that's a little bit different from a lot of what we have on the show. So I really appreciate you lending that to us, Mark Fisher, the President and CEO of the Council of the Great Lakes region. Thank you so much for coming on to teach us about the Great Lakes. Yeah,

Mark Fisher 44:36
thanks for the opportunity, Stuart.

Carolyn Foley 44:47
It's a lot. It was a fun conversation that I had with Mark Matson. I really, really enjoyed speaking with him and he said he'd be willing to come back and chat with us again about all the cool work they're doing. So yeah, that's

Stuart Carlton 44:57
great. I can't wait for that. Yeah, we haven't done our editorial plan. Maybe for next year we need to. But yeah, it'd be great to talk to him again. And also great to talk to Mark Fisher again, of course, you know, it seems like he could talk for hours and hours about the important issues going on in the Great Lakes. And I really appreciated the chance to get that sort of different perspective, because we don't talk to groups quite like that. And people who work so closely with industry, we tend to be more on the academic and hippie dippie side,

Carolyn Foley 45:24
one thing I do, I did kind of note during my conversation with Mark, though Mark Manson was, you know, just how many things it like had the strength of personal connection to the lakes, which, and how some people can live right next to the next to the lakes, and maybe not have that personal connection the same way. So I feel like that's a theme that runs through, we've got a couple of themes through HP about the Great Lakes modeling is cool, personal connections, values and things like that. So it's just really fun to talk to people about this place.

Stuart Carlton 45:59
No, I hear you. Yep. And that's part of why we change the second question, right? To asking about places that are, you know, wonderful places within the Great Lakes, because I like to explore that personal connection with people a little bit.

Carolyn Foley 46:10
I certainly didn't forget to do the second question in my interview.

Stuart Carlton 46:15
Good. I know, because I've listened to your interview already. And so I know that you didn't forget to do it. But anyway, it reminds me it um, you know, when I worked at Texas Sea Grant, one of the things we were talking about that identity idea a lot. And you're right, and there's a theme here too, because the idea was, we thought that felt like for a lot of people, Texas wasn't a coastal state, but a state with a coast. And so you sort of get the end that that idea of connection is the same thing. And obviously that wasn't true for everybody in Texas. But that's it Sea Grant at Texas, you got what we talked about was how do we how do we instill that ethic of it being a coastal state, not just a state with a coast,

Carolyn Foley 46:51
but again, for the bits that we talked about at the beginning that you can learn about all like these, not just the two that we spoke with, but a bunch of other nonprofits as well. We'll put a bunch of links into the notes, we encourage you to discover what

Stuart Carlton 47:05
I agree. Yeah, absolutely, you should do that. And if you know, obviously, it's a crazy time right now. But if you do have some, the ability, you know, these are wonderful places to support with your dollars too. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that, we are also a wonderful place to support with your dollars. And so we'll have a link if you wanted to donate to Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant or teach me about the Great Lakes as well. But we encourage you to support whatever charity speaks to you whether it's one of the ones we featured today, whether it's one of the show notes or whether it's one that is there because you know, it's it's important, important. And listeners, do you have a favorite Great Lakes related nonprofit or charity or something like that you can email it to us and we may we'll talk about it on the air a little bit that's teach me about the great [e-mail] Or more importantly or not, more importantly, more better, more better. More better when you call the hotline 765496 I SG that's 4474 As everybody can tell you. So I encourage you to go and do that. Yes, we would love to hear from people. No, no, we do love to hear from you. So tell us your favorite Great Lakes and why it's awesome. Either leave a message or leave an email and we will talk about it on the air teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and we encourage you to check out the great work that we do at I see grant.org and at il i and secret on Facebook, Twitter and other social media teach me about the Great Lakes is produced by hope charters. The music no are Carolyn Foley Megan gone and of course Rini miles. Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and our fixer are super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport. The show is edited by the awesome Quinn Rose who hates me, and I encourage you to check out her work and aspiring robot duck call. If you have a question or comment about the show, please email it teach me about the great [e-mail] Leave a message on our hotline at 765496 ai SG You can also follow the show if you want to Twitter teach Great Lakes. Thank you so much for listening and of course, keep greatin' those lakes!