Trib Live Reported 1st: Pennsylvania’s 73 miles of Great Lakes shoreline are likely to continue to receive federal funding for five years if the Senate agrees to a resolution the House passed unanimously last week. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Act authorizes $300 million annually for cleanup and habitat protection projects. The program is credited with successful remediation efforts at Presque Isle Bay, a 3,655-acre bay on the coast of Lake Erie that draws tourists.
“Having these federal dollars available to our research partners, our monitoring partners, and ourselves, has allowed us to do more in the past five years than we have in the past 30,” said Lori Boughton, regional program manager for the waterways and wetlands programs at the state Department of Environmental Protection. “Without it, we would be in big trouble.”
Begun in 2010, the program supports efforts such as toxic substance cleanup and protection against invasive species through direct funding to states and competitive grants. The House reauthorized it Dec. 9. Should the Senate agree to the bill, it would require annual appropriations approval.
The federal spending bill for fiscal year 2015 passed last week included $300 million for the initiative. Boughton said the state directly receives $200,000 each year to aid Great Lakes cleanup. And $1.23 million in grants funded projects at Cascade Creek, a 4.75-mile creek that makes up a quarter of the Presque Isle watershed.
By the time a project is completed next year, crews will have removed a total of 284 tons of sediment and pollutants from the creek, Boughton said.
“We’re seeing fish in there we haven’t seen in quite some time,” she said. “The Great Lakes restoration funding, in that instance, allowed us to do something we would’ve never been able to afford to do.”
Pollution at Presque Isle largely came from a coal-fired power plant on the bay. The plant ceased operation in the 1980s but left combustion byproducts and metals in the watershed, Boughton said. In February 2013, federal regulators removed Presque Isle Bay from a list of contaminated harbors and rivers considered areas of concern, a designation it received in 1981.
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