Duluth News
Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006
Lawmakers push Lakes cleanup
CONGRESS: Republican and Democratic lawmakers introduce Great Lakes restoration legislation, but there may not be money for their plans.
BY JOHN MYERS
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Great Lakes-area lawmakers introduced legislation in Washington on Wednesday to restore the region's environment despite warnings that there's little money to pay for the effort.
The bills address many of the issues in the Great Lakes restoration plan, unveiled last summer in Duluth by top Bush administration officials and heralded as the beginning of an era of renewal for the lakes.
The plan was assembled after a year of work by 1,500 scientists, local officials and federal experts in what was called the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. It called for more than $20 billion for projects to stop invasive species, end sewer overflows, clean up contaminated hot spots, restore wetlands and other habitat, and eliminate toxins in fish.
Experts warn that the projects must move forward soon, or the lakes will face an ecological tipping point from which they may not recover.
The legislation would call for spending $23.54 billion over five years, most of which would go to a loan fund for local sewage plants in all 50 states. More than $10 billion is focused on the Great Lakes, much of which would be matched by state money for specific projects.
The bills could help pay for restoration of wetlands and wildlife habitat in St. Louis Bay, clean up contaminated harbor sediments and help pay to stop Duluth's sewage overflows into Lake Superior.
The bills were introduced by Sens. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Carl Levin, D-Mich., and U.S. Reps. Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., and Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.
"If Congress does not act to keep pace with the needs of the lakes, the current problems, such as invasive species and contaminated sediments, will continue to build, and we may start to undo some of the work that has been done," Levin said in a prepared statement. "We must be good stewards by ensuring that the federal government meets its ongoing obligation to protect and restore the Great Lakes."
Even though the plan was commissioned by a presidential order, in February the Bush administration presented Congress a budget that offered little new money for restoration efforts.
In March, a key Senate committee chairman suggested that the government has little money available for the lakes cleanup plan because of huge amounts being spent on the war in Iraq and hurricane recovery along the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, advocates for the Great Lakes aren't giving up, noting that the plan is the result of hundreds of scientific studies and unprecedented research.
The proposal also allows the regional collaboration to keep working on Great Lakes efforts and gives the Great Lakes effort the same federal status as restoration of the Florida Everglades.
"This is a big day for the Great Lakes," Andy Buchs-baum, director of the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes office, said in a telephone news conference. "This bill turns planning into action."
Buchsbaum said that 16 U.S. senators from Great Lakes states and nearly 100 members of Congress will back the bill, adding political clout in Washington even though money is short.
"That's going to make Great Lakes restoration a pretty high priority," Buchsbaum said. "There's an incredible push by the Great Lakes delegation... and because the citizens of the Great Lakes, the tribes and state officials have pulled together behind Great Lakes restoration like never before."
Steve Fisher, executive director of the American Great Lakes Ports Association, said the proposal to require treatment of all ballast water in all ships entering U.S. ports by 2011 is generally supported by the Great Lakes shipping industry.
The measure is an effort to kill exotic species -- such as ruffe, zebra mussels and water fleas -- that often hitchhike into the lakes and coastal ports in ballast tanks.
"The key is that it's a national proposal. We can't have a regulation that only applies to Great Lakes ports and not the coasts or the Gulf," Fisher said.
Many companies are experimenting with filters, chemicals, water pressure, deoxygenation and other technologies that should solve the problem, Fisher said.
"The timeline (five years) may be a bit fast," he said. "But we've said that government needs to set where the goalpost is and let the companies figure out how to reach it.... It looks like this bill will do that.”
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