The Lake Michigan Enforcement
Conference
ROBERT J.  SCHNEIDER, Deputy Director
Great Lakes Region
Federal Water Pollution Control Administration
United States Department of the Interior
Chicago, Illinois
INTRODUCTION
Lake Michigan constitutes one of the largest fresh water reservoirs in the
world and is the largest within the United States. Its drainage basin occupies
67, 900 square miles and includes portions of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and
Indiana (Figure 1). Approximately one-third of the area is occupied by the Lake
itself. Over 12 million people live within the basin including the Chicago metropolitan area immediately adjacent to the Lake.
Man's use of this water resource is extensive. Fifty municipalities pump 1.47
billion gals of Lake water daily. The basin's wide diversity of industry uses an
estimated4. 25 billion gals of Lake water daily. Commercial fishing and shipping
are also important uses of the Lake. The Lake is heavily used for all types of recreational activities including boating, swimming, and fishing.
In the next 50 years the demand for municipal and industrial waters is expected to triple, and the pressure for recreational usage will increase proportionately.
Water uses of the Lake are presently impaired by pollution from many sources
throughout the basin. The continued well-being of the surrounding States is directly dependent upon a high quality of water in the Lake and the national significance of the Great Lakes has been long recognized in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act where specific reference is made to this great body of water.
The summer of 1967 marked a turning point in the history of Lake Michigan.
It was then that a long series of events and circumstances came to a head, culminating in a four-state Lake Michigan Federal Enforcement conference. The
Conference was called for January 31, 1968 to protect this precious water resource from further and future abuse. In a way, the conference really had its beginning back in mid-June of 1967. This was when the catastrophic alewife die-
off began. As billions of these little fish died, their carcasses filled harbors,
cluttered beaches, and clogged the intakes of water filtration plants from Traverse City, Michigan to Michigan City, Indiana; from Chicago, Illinois to Wisconsin's Door Peninsula. Chicago spent $200, 000 hauling away and burying
4,600 cubic yards of dead fish. The West Michigan Tourist Association said the
rotting, malodorous fish caused losses of $50 million to resort owners. None of
the evidence gathered by the FWPCA from analyses of water samples and from
examination of carcasses indicated that water pollution was responsible for the
deaths. This unexpected disaster was the first of several indications last year of a
lake in trouble, of a body of water whose environmental balance had been altered.
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