TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A spending bill crafted by
congressional leaders would allocate $300 million to a Great Lakes
cleanup that had been threatened with a massive cut during last year’s
budget fight, supporters said Tuesday.
The Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative is a program dealing with some of the lakes’ most serious
environmental problems such as invasive species, loss of wetlands and
other wildlife habitat, toxic pollution and runoff that causes algae
blooms.
It has gotten around $300 million in most years since
funding began in 2010. But last year, a House subcommittee proposed
slashing the 2014 allocation to just $60 million — an 80 percent cut
that Great Lakes advocates said would gut the program, which has
bipartisan support in Congress.
The compromise measure released
this week also would boost spending on another program targeted with an
80 percent funding cut last year that provides loans to communities for
improving drinking water and sewage treatment infrastructure. That
program is slated to receive $1.44 billion in 2014, up from $1.37
billion in 2013. About one-third of that money usually goes to the Great
Lakes region, where sewer overflows are a serious problem.
"This
budget represents a significant victory for the millions of people who
depend on the Great Lakes for their drinking water, jobs and quality of
life," said Todd Ambs, campaign director for the Healing Our
Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.
Advocates developed a $20 billion
wish list of environmental restoration needs a decade ago as scientists
warned the lakes were reaching "tipping points" where festering
ecological ailments would do irreversible damage.
President George
W. Bush signed a bill calling for a wide-ranging cleanup but provided
little money. President Barack Obama’s administration developed the
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in 2009, provided $475 million the
first year and has sought about $300 million annually since then.
The
program has pumped $1.3 billion into 1,700 grants for on-the-ground
projects and research. They have restored wetlands and other wildlife
habitat; advanced cleanups of harbors fouled with toxic industrial
chemicals such as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls; and supported
efforts to reduce agricultural runoff that feeds runaway algae.
Millions
of dollars have already been devoted to targeting the ravenous Asian
carp by operating an electric barrier near Chicago. The funds also will
pay crews to harvest the fish, an invasive species, in Illinois waters
so they won’t slip into Lake Michigan and compete with native species.
A
parade of lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans from the eight
Great Lakes states, protested when the House Interior, Environment and
Related Agencies Subcommittee proposed the deep cut in July. It was a
show of bipartisan unity that starkly contrasted with the ideological
warfare that caused a partial government shutdown in October.
Rep.
David Joyce, an Ohio Republican and subcommittee member, said Tuesday
that the restored funding was "a big win for our region because it helps
ensure our Great Lakes will remain an economic powerhouse and source of
job creation for years to come."
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois,
the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said the measure would provide enough money
to continue healing "one of our country’s greatest treasures."
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