NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A6313 REVISED 04/08/19
SPONSOR: Burke TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the environmental conservation law, in
relation to creating a Lake Erie bill of rights
PURPOSE:
This bill will provide the Lake Erie ecosystem with the fundamental
right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve and will make it unlawful
for any person to violate the rights recognized and secured by this
title.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This bill amends Section 1. Article 17 of the environmental conservation
law by adding a new title 23.
Section 1 is a declaration of rights and violations. It defines Lake
Erie and the Lake Erie watershed, and states that it shall possess the
right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. In addition, it states
that the people of the state of New York possess the right to a clean
and healthy environment, and that it is unlawful for anyone to violate
the rights recognized by this title.
Section 2 lays out the enforcement of the new title 23 of article 17.
Any person found in violation of this title shall be sentenced to pay a
fine of no more than $500 for each separate violation; each day or
portion thereof where a violation occurs is a separate violation.
Damages shall be paid to the state to be used for the restoration of the
Lake Erie ecosystem.
Section 3 provides that the act shall take effect immediately.
JUSTIFICATION:
The health of Lake Erie is vital to the health of the plants, animals,
and people living in its watershed.
The Lake Erie watershed is the most populated of all the Great Lakes
basins, with about twelve million people. Eleven million of those indi-
viduals rely on Lake Erie for their drinking water.
However, Lake Erie is seeing a rise in blue-green algae blooms caused by
municipal sanitary and storm sewer runoff as well as agricultural
runoff. This increase in nutrients, specifically phosphorus, depletes
oxygen and fosters a toxic environment including poisoning drinking
water, killing fish, creating dead-zones, and increasing the cost of
water treatment.
In addition, it was recently found that climate change is causing the
Great Lakes region to warm faster than the rest of the country, meaning
these algae blooms and their consequences will worsen due to the fact
that blue green algae thrives in warmer waters.
The City of Toledo, Ohio, which is on Lake Erie, suffered a water
contamination crisis from an algae bloom that kept residents from being
able to consume their tap water for three days. Due to that experience
and their concern for the future trajectory the lake's ecosystem, they
passed their own Lake Erie Bill of Rights.
The people of New York state have the right to a clean and healthy envi-
ronment, which includes a clean and healthy Lake Erie. We need to
protect this vital natural resource and ensure that what happened in
Toledo does not happen in New York state.
According to current federal law, some inanimate entities such as corpo-
rations have a right to sue in a court of law, but natural bodies such
as Lake Erie are not afforded those same rights. New York State has 92
miles of Lake Erie coastline. The Niagara River and Lake Erie watershed
cover 2,280 square miles in six counties of Western New York and 4,086
miles of freshwater rivers and streams. New York has a responsibility to
formally recognize the right of Lake Erie and its watershed to exist,
flourish, and naturally evolve, and to provide an enforcement mechanism
so that people, corporations, or governments who violate this right must
pay damages to restore the Lake Erie ecosystem.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
None.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
