A Collective Action to Protect the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin By Building a Multijurisdictional Governing Regime

Great Lakes Compact 2005: A Collective Action to Protect the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin By Building a Multijurisdictional Governing Regime Based on Cooperative Horizontal Federalism: Overcoming Barriers to Collective Action Through Governance\, Leadership and Social Learning as Negotiated Order and Decision-Making Processes. The five Great Lakes (Superior\, Michigan\, Huron\, Erie and Ontario) and St. Lawrence River Basin hold twenty 20% of the World’s fresh water supply and 96% of the fresh water in the United States. It is a vast\, complex ecosystem supporting 43 million people\, industries and cities that are along and near its shorelines. The invasion of alien aquatic species\, combined sewer waste water overflows and 150 years of industrial dumping continue to threaten the water quality. And\, now\, the threat of significant diversions of water outside of the Great Lakes Basin have brought this critical and unique resource to the brink of ecological collapse (Kuehner and Koff 2005). It is a prisoner’s dilemma: collective action to protect the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin is clearly needed. How do the relevant parties overcome their individual interest for the greater good and develop an effective collective action\, when failing to do so will result in a classic Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1977)? The stakes are high and the subject matter complex. Effective collective action to protect this unique and critical natural resource will not be easily achieved. To preserve and restore the Great Lakes will take a significant and effective large-scale collective action. The need for leadership\, governance and decision making capacities are needed on an unprecedented scale and within a limited time frame. The collective action must be multijurisdictional as between the eight Great Lake States and transnational as between those States and the United States Government on the one hand and Canada and her Provinces of Ontario and Quebec on the other. Failure means the destruction of an irreplaceable and vital resource. The need is for a cooperative multigovernmental effort unprecedented since World War II. In December of 2005 the Council of Great Lakes Governors\, Great Lakes Regional Collaboration and the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative\, along with the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec\, Canada announced the signing of Compact and Sustainable Water Resource Agreements. These agreements craft an organizational structure and regimen for the governance and management of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin designed to prevent water diversions\, promote water quality\, direct restoration priorities and provide for ongoing study\, monitoring and enforcement of regional water management standards. In short\, the outcome of the collective action is the Compact 2005 and the companion Sustainable Water Resource Agreement (Appendices). The regimen will not be complete (enforceable as between the states)\, however\, until the compact is approved by the eight Great Lake States\, the US Congress and President. To obtain treaty status with Canada will require affirmation by the Canadian national government.. Compact 2005 and the Sustainable Water Resource Agreements will start their ways through the various State Legislatures during 2006. This paper explores the historical\, political and social networks and legal complexities that marked the development of Compact 2005 unique in its scale and scope and how the participants overcame barriers to collective action. A key proposition of this paper is that the prime motive for collective action and collaboration was the fear of water diversions outside of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin and that the barriers to collective action were overcome by that common fear. Most importantly\, this study examines the key factors and processes of the collective action and how: (a) political leadership\, (b) governance (organizational structure and functioning); (c) social learning and negotiated order as decisionmaking processes and (d) a historical dynamic collaborative community overcame the barriers to Great Lakes collective action. The structure and legal framing of the collective action as represented by Compact 2005 were the requirements of American Federalism (i.e. political structure of power not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved to the states) and Constitutional Law. Specific provision of the U.S. Constitution (commonly called the “compact clause”) provided a clear method to frame a governing regimen between the eight Great Lakes States and the United States federal government. To be fully enforceable across national boundaries will require a treaty between the United States and the Canadian national governments. These same Constitutional process remain the most significant barrier to completing construction of the collective action regime.,Doctorate of Management Programs

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