Echo

Senate passes $400M Great Lakes bill

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(MI) The Detroit News – 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. More

Echo

Advocates for Great Lakes cleanup meet, eagerly await funding boost

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Environmentalists’ long-held dream of restoring the Great Lakes may be on the verge of being realized. More than 200 of them are meeting in Duluth this week to celebrate — and to plot their next moves to protect the lakes that hold nearly one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. More

Echo

New federal funding proposal could help kill exotic organisms in the ballast of Great Lakes ships

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Editors note: This story is part of an occasional series of Echo reports on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 20, 2009

Preventing shipborne organisms from damaging the Great Lakes ecosystem is one target of the Obama Administration’s $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Ships carry ballast water to make them more stable as their cargo is offloaded. When they take on more cargo, they flush the ballast back into the lake or ocean.  That water can carry from foreign ports plants and animals that compete with native organisms for habitat and food.

Echo

Great Lakes watchers anxious to fill EPA post that’s key to restoration initiative

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 14, 2009

Great Lakes officials are anxious for the Obama Administration to appoint the region’s top Environmental Protection Agency administrator. “The appointment is always important, but for (the Great Lakes states), right now it’s absolutely critical,” said Andy Buchsbaum, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes region. “For the first time in history, we could get millions and millions of dollars from Congress, and the administrator is important to making sure the money is spent well.”

The Chicago-based Region 5 administrator is responsible for the Great Lakes program under the Clean Water Act. Region 5 includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Echo

Phytofilters: Turning brownfields green

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By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 13, 2009

Some Great Lakes brownfields will turn green if Congress passes a $475 million restoration package. Literally. The U.S. Forest Service seeks $2 million of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to transform  unusable industrial lots into parks and trailways – and clean up some contaminants in the process. While the forest service has  long restored natural vegetation and has an urban forestry division, this will be its first foray into phytoremediation, said Steven Davis, a watershed specialist with the forest service’s Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry division.

Echo

Column: Tell me what sucks about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

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By David Poulson
poulsondavid@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 7, 2009

I attended a Great Lakes public hearing this week that really wasn’t. The event at Michigan State University was one of the EPA-sponsored meetings held to solicit feedback for the Obama Administration’s proposed $475 million investment in environmental restoration. And while the meeting was open to the public, not much of the public was represented. Instead, this was mostly a Great Lakes love-in.

Echo

Advocates for cleaning Michigan toxic hotspots plot strategy for securing Great Lakes Restoration Initiative dollars

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 5, 2009

Federal agencies and Michigan residents looking to clean up Great Lakes toxic hotspots planned Tuesday how to obtain a piece of the Obama Administration’s proposed $475 million environmental protection initiative. The meeting was held at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. Michigan has 14 of the Great Lakes’ 43 Areas of Concern, or AOCs, designated by the U.S and Canada as impaired or unable to support aquatic life. Only one U.S. site, located in New York, has been cleaned to where it could be formally delisted. “Some people feel that’s not a lot of progress over the past 20 years,” said Matt Doss, policy director for the Great Lakes Commission, who moderated the meeting.

Echo

VIDEO: Michigan residents urge public input for Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

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Editors note: Catch tweets of hearing from Echo and others on Twitter at #GLRI Related stories here. Related poll here. By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 3, 2009

When more than 30 Michigan residents approached the microphone at a Great Lakes public hearing Monday, two messages were repeated: the public needs to be included in the Obama Administration’s $475 million plan to restore the Great Lakes, and there needs to be an effort to educate others. “If we don’t educate people to understand how their day-to-day activities impact the quality of the Great Lakes, our efforts may be lost,” one resident said.