No one is pretending things are perfect when it comes to environmental issues in the region, but most agree it has gotten better.
"You can't be Pollyanna-ish about it because it's not like all of the problems are solved," said local environmentalist Lee Botts. "On the other hand, it's not like nothing is being done."
She should know. The tiny, silver-haired senior of Gary's Miller neighborhood has been a powerhouse in the environmental movement for decades on various sides of the fence. Botts worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Chicago Department of Environment and served as an appointee during the Carter administration to the Great Lakes Basin Commission.
She also is the founder of the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center and serves on a host of advisory boards and committees at the local and state levels.
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Botts said environmental improvements began in earnest at the local level in 1990 when the U.S. EPA instituted the Geographic Initiative. The project focused on the Calumet Region, which was listed as the most environmentally degraded area in the EPA's Midwest region.
"This had major consequences and I believe contributed tremendously to what started happening in industry in the 1990s with new technology and industries going beyond the regulatory standards," Botts said. "Regulation is not the whole story here. We have industries making voluntary changes."
The results of those changes can be seen in "tremendous improvements in air quality and much less discharge into Lake Michigan," she said.
Kay Nelson, environmental affairs director for the Northwest Indiana Forum, said the benefits of the partnerships are far-reaching and pointed to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resource compact as an example.
The Northwest Indiana Forum and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission issued position papers on the compact and Nelson and Botts stood side by side to present them at a regional conference.
"Sam Speck of Ohio leaned across the table and said, 'Can you two come to Ohio and teach people there how to get along?' " Nelson said. "That is truly, truly something that we take for granted here. Nowhere else is there an area rich in industry and ecology where people are working together to that extent."
Nelson pointed to a number of industry representatives who sit on the boards for environmental groups and projects, like the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center, as another example of partnerships in action. At the same time, most big industries have citizen advisory committees that provide input on environmental matters.
Cameron Davis, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes in Chicago -- which Botts founded as the Lake Michigan Federation in 1970 -- said environmental initiates are proving effective.
"We�ve spent decades and billions of dollars in investments trying to bring down industrial pollution levels, and the effort is working for the nastiest of the nasty toxics, like PCBs, DDT and other pollutants that hit women, children and other populations so hard," Davis said.
Other successes, Davis said, aren't about traditional environmental achievements.
"It�s about public engagement," Davis said. "People are reconnecting to the Great Lakes like never before. We�re starting to think about our waterways like we think of the Grand Canyon or the Rocky Mountains. As resources that we can use, but not abuse. And this is helping businesses to rethink the Great Lakes as amenities for attracting workers."
