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Cleanup of Cuyahoga might be on agenda
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, Aug 03, 2009
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is in President Barack Obama's first budget as it moves through Congress and would be the largest commitment to the lakes in U.S. history.
The fresh-water system supports a region that is among the world's largest industrial and agricultural economies, but as a result, that natural resource has experienced more than a century of abuse.
States, communities and grass-roots groups across northern Ohio are eager to tap into the new money.
Some call the program a federal stimulus package that will fix long-neglected problems, including toxic chemicals, contaminated streams and harbors, invasive species and habitat loss on Lake Erie and the four other Great Lakes.
''It's an exciting development . . . potentially extraordinary,'' said Gary Gulezian, director of the U.S. Environment Protection Agency's Great Lakes program office. ''It will be great to realize some of those [cleanup] dreams.''
''It's not a panacea but it's huge,'' said Tim Eder, executive director of the Great Lakes Commission, an agency that involves Ohio and the seven other Great Lakes states.
Ohio environmentalists say the program provides a rare opportunity.
''It really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we don't
want it to get messed up,'' said Kristy Meyer of the Ohio Environmental Council. ''We feel responsible and we want to make sure the money is spent wisely.''
Gulezian said Lake Erie has more problems than the other lakes and is likely to get more funds.
There could be a major push to clean up the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland, along with three other polluted waterways in Ohio: the Maumee, which flows through Toledo, the Black at Lorain and the Ashtabula east of Cleveland.
It might facilitate the creation of teams to monitor and fight invasive species in Great Lakes harbors.
It could permit beach cleanups and wetlands restoration. Fighting algae blooms in western Lake Erie, Green Bay and Saginaw Bay could be projects.
It could allow research of emerging pollution problems, including pharmaceuticals in streams, fireproofing chemicals and endocrine disruptors that are believed to affect the hormonal systems of humans and animals.
Programs could be undertaken to reduce polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) — a once widely used toxin found in lubricants, paints, electrical components and pesticides — and mercury, which make Great Lakes fish unhealthy to eat.
More fish
It could permit restocking with trout and sturgeon.
Scientists are grateful and optimistic that the federal funds will boost needed research, said Kent State University professor Bob Heath, an expert on oxygen-lacking dead zones in Lake Erie.
However, the Great Lakes initiative does not provide funding for sewer and drinking-water projects, so it would not help Akron in its efforts to eliminate its combined storm and sanitary sewers, which overflow after heavy rains and pollute the Cuyahoga and Little Cuyahoga rivers and the Ohio & Erie Canal. Other federal programs are available to help Akron address that problem, estimated to cost $370 million.
The initial funding is for one year only. Additional appropriations would be needed to continue fixing the problems on all five lakes: Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior and Ontario.
The Great Lakes effort would be similar to one funded by Congress eight years ago to restore the Everglades in Florida. There have been more recent federal efforts to aid Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound and the Louisiana coast.
Also vying for funds are the Gulf of Maine, the Mississippi River, San Francisco Bay and water resources in central California. But the Great Lakes are the No. 1 national priority.
The fact that the Great Lakes are poised to get $400 million in new funds is largely attributable to Obama, who hails from Illinois, a Great Lakes state.
A unique window of opportunity was created with Obama, whose party controls Congress, said Andy Buchsbaum, co-chairman of the Michigan-based Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, with 100 organizations.
The former Illinois state lawmaker and U.S. senator pledged in his presidential campaign to begin a Great Lakes restoration with $5 billion — a project that government agencies say could actually cost more than $20 billion to complete.
George Bush had praised the Great Lakes as national treasures but never funded a restoration and had cut funding to corrective programs during his tenure.
Obama proposed $475 million in his budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. That would be new money, and about $60 million for existing initiatives in the Great Lakes would continue.
The $475 million was approved as the budget passed through the House, but was reduced to $400 million when passed out of the Senate Finance Committee. After the full Senate votes, a House-Senate committee will determine the final amount.
Public hearings
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is holding eight public hearings around the Great Lakes, one of which was held last week in Cuyahoga Heights and drew a standing-room-only crowd of 150.
The purpose of the sessions is to outline the plans and to seek public comment.
The money would be funneled through the EPA and shared with 15 other federal agencies.
In its initial proposal, the EPA laid out five specific areas for spending $475 million:
• $147 million for toxic substances and ''areas of concern.''
• $105 million for habitat and wildlife protection and restoration.
• $97 million for near-shore health and non-point pollution (non-point pollution is over a wide area, such as agriculture or urban runoff, and not attributable to a particular source, such as a factory or smokestack).
• $60 million for invasive species.
• $65 million for accountability, monitoring, communication and partnerships.
About $250 million of the total would be available through competitive grants to target specific problems, with a goal of showing Congress definitive results that would justify additional funding in subsequent years.
There are 30 American ''areas of concern'' where there are high levels of contamination, including the Cuyahoga, Maumee, Black and Ashtabula rivers.
Three of those 30 would be totally cleaned up with first-year money.
The near-shore health and non-point pollution would include programs to fight farm and urban runoff, erosion and algae.
Invasive species are seriously threatening the Great Lakes.
There are at least 58 plants and 122 marine animals that have been introduced to the lakes, many arriving on ships that have traveled the world. They multiply in the lakes and severely threaten the ecological system.
A U.S.-Canada report released last month said the invaders are a dire threat to the lakes and the situation is worsening.
The overall health of the Great Lakes is ''mixed,'' meaning the lakes show both healthy and degraded features, the report said.
Monitoring and evaluation are a critical part of the effort to obtain later funding.
First-year EPA goals include restoring 15,000 acres of coastal area for wildlife habitat and 1,000 miles of stream for fish passage, removing up to 6.25 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments, propagating 1 million lake trout and sturgeon, collecting 10 million pounds of household hazardous waste and prescription drugs to keep them out of the Great Lakes, and cleaning up contamination at more than 100 swimming beaches.
Cleaning up the Great Lakes could have major economic benefits.
A recent study by the Brookings Institute says that restoring the Great Lakes will generate $50 billion in the Midwest, including $2 billion in Northeast Ohio through new jobs, industrial development and increased property values.
What has Buchsbaum of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition excited is what could happen next as the EPA develops plans for subsequent years.
''I'm confident that you are going to see even more in subsequent years,'' he said. ''This is really just a beginning. It's not a one-shot deal. There are plans for this program through 2014 and that's very significant. We could see billions in federal dollars go to the Great Lakes. And we're going to see the health of the Great Lakes improve significantly in the coming years. . . . That's why what's happening is really a big deal.''
For information about the federal program, check out http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/glri. Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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akron, oh
Posted 07:01 AM, 08/03/2009
Donny should have clean up the sewers by now, just not one of his priorities. He would rather be traveling than solving issues that count.
Let's get rid of the rubber stampers this next election. This includes Merletti, Crawford,
Marco, Conte, Cox and the rest of the Mayor's boys.
Cuyahoga Falls, OH
Posted 07:56 AM, 08/03/2009
Hear, hear. Incumbents out!
Akron, OH
Posted 08:54 AM, 08/03/2009
wow, always back to the mayor, get over it, the recall lost.
i sure hope removal of the gorge dam is on the list
Posted 09:30 AM, 08/03/2009
All good news for those who love the lake however; the job will only be half finished unless the release of untreated sewage into the lake is addressed. What good is decontaminating the swimming beaches if the bacteria count in the water is dangerously high?
Posted 11:35 AM, 08/03/2009
• $60 million for invasive species.
• $65 million for accountability, monitoring, communication and partnerships.
$125 million dollars doesn't sound like money well spent. If this money went into fixing sewer systems that empty sewage into the Cuyahoga River and therefore Lake Erie -- that would be a more direct benefit.
You're not going to rid the entire lake of invasive species.
And $65 million to administrators just sounds like good money going down the drain that's not going to end up making a difference in the lake.
akron, oh
Posted 11:51 AM, 08/03/2009
People of Akron.Don't you think summit lake should be in that plan also?
Toledo, Oh
Posted 01:35 PM, 08/03/2009
This at the same time funding for the National Center for Water Quality Research (located at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Oh) has been reduced.
Akron, Oh
Posted 04:36 AM, 08/04/2009
You give the EPA Nazi's 400 million dollars then we're all screwed. You give cash like that to environmental wackos and we'll be a police state. If you start your weed eater you'll be fired upon.
Akron, OH
Posted 10:44 AM, 08/04/2009
It would seem that unless some kind of boat inspection system is developed, the invasive species will jump back into the Great Lakes.
