Senate passes $400M Great Lakes bill

Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau

Washington -- The Senate easily passed legislation tonight containing $400 million for Great Lakes restoration by deterring invasive species, cleaning up highly polluted sites and expanding wetlands.

The funding level for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative falls short of the $475 million passed by the House in June and supported by President Barack Obama.

Michigan Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, voted for the full bill.

Andy Buchsbaum, the Great Lakes project director at the National Wildlife Federation, said environmentalists will work with House-Senate conferees to try to ensure the final bill has the $475 million funding level.

"This is an unprecedented funding level for cleanup of the Great Lakes, and absolutely critical to bringing the lakes back to health," Buchsbaum said.

The Great Lakes funds are contained in the $32.2 billion Interior Department appropriations bill, which passed by a 77 to 21 vote.

The senators said the bill also contains $129 million for wastewater and drinking water projects in Michigan, and several million for other projects, including:

• $100,000 to build a seawall to protect Big Sable Lighthouse.

• $1 million to stabilize deteriorating buildings of the historic Quincy Smelting Works, located within the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

• $1 million to buy 15 parcels of land for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

• $300,000 for the Oakland-Macomb Interceptor Drainage District to help construct a 21-mile sewer line to transport sanitary sewage from over 300,000 residents of Oakland and Macomb counties to Detroit for treatment.

• $300,000 for Port Huron to prevent overflow of untreated sewage into waterways.

• $2.8 million for the Ottawa National Forest to buy the Prickett Lake property and protect the watershed of Ottawa National Forest and Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness.

"This bill will help restore the Great Lakes, provide communities with clean drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, protect and improve public lands and parks, and preserve key facets of Michigan's heritage," Levin said.

Stabenow added: "These projects will help safeguard and care for our state's most precious natural treasures. Michigan families and tourists alike should have the opportunity to enjoy our beautiful parks, lighthouses, and lakeshores for years to come.

A recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general concluded that at the current pace it could take more than 77 years to clean up the most polluted areas of the Great Lakes.

But Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union worries that the Great Lakes cleanup will include "padding and waste" at a time of record national debt.

In addition to cleaning up the Great Lakes, the federal funds will create jobs.

Because of Michigan's outsized footprint in the Great Lakes region -- 58 percent of the Great Lakes' U.S. shorelines are in Michigan, as are 44 percent of the contaminated "areas of concern" in U.S. feeder rivers and harbors -- it stands to end up with a large portion of the restoration money.

Chad Lord, Great Lakes program director at the National Parks Conservation Association, says if the $475 million level is appropriated, it would represent nearly a doubling of the federal government's yearly commitment to the Great Lakes.

Already the federal government appropriates about $550 million a year to Great Lakes programs in other appropriations bills, which environmentalists expect will continue. If all goes as advocates hope, Congress could end up pumping about $1 billion to the Great Lakes in fiscal year 2010.

"It's so important to get the higher $475 million funding level of the House bill," Lord said. "The difference in the money is huge in terms of how many toxic areas can be cleaned up and how many wetlands projects are done."

The White House this week issued a statement urging "the Congress to fully fund the President's request of $475 million."

That level includes:

• $146 million for cleaning up pollution in sediment in feeder rivers and harbors before it flows into the Lakes.

• $105 million to protect and restore habitat and wildlife.

• $97 million to stop "nonpoint" pollution, such as farm fertilizer and oil runoff, that closes beaches and leads to fish kills.

• $65 million to evaluate how the Lakes and wildlife are responding to cleanup efforts.

• $60 million for combating zebra mussels and other invasive species, which the EPA has estimated cause up to $5 billion in damage a year in the Great Lakes basin by destroying fisheries, clogging power plants' pipes and reducing property values.

Lawmakers from Michigan and other Great Lakes delegations are circulating a letter to urge their colleagues to support full funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Lynn Vaccaro, project coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant, has predicted that Michigan could get one-third of the money.

The other Great Lakes states are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Only Michigan lies completely within the basin.

Vaccaro, drawing on an analysis by the Brookings Institution, predicts that if $475 million were appropriated annually over five years, about $2 billion to $4.3 billion in economic activity could be generated in Michigan.

That prediction foresees more spending on everything from fishing bait and beer to binoculars and charter boats. The value of homes in cleaned up areas would rise as well, the analysis claims.

dprice@detnews.com (202) 662-8736