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Greening of the Great Lakes decries outrageous proposal to defund Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

Over the eight years Greening of the Great Lakes has aired, we have remained largely steadfast in our efforts to educate, not advocate.  However, controversies occasionally arise which are so fundamentally deleterious to our sustainability ethos that it is morally imperative we take a strong position.  Such is the case with the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal calling for the elimination of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI).

Established with broad bi-partisan support in 2010, the GLRI has supported myriad successful programs designed to ensure the long-term ecological health and economic vitality of our precious Great Lakes.  Initiatives have included invasive species control, wetlands and habitat restoration, nutrient run-off reduction, more efficacious water use management, and toxic site clean-up.  Because of both its overall importance and a track record of success, the GLRI has not only retained, but expanded the support that occasioned its creation.  And that is why we believe a vigorous advocacy by all parties concerned will ultimately prevail in the predictably contentious budget negotiations ahead. 

To that end, we recently talked with two individuals who represent organizations profoundly committed to the protection, restoration and wise use of the Great Lakes:  Jon Allan, Director of Michigan’s Office of the Great Lakes, and David Ullrich, Executive Director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

“We often hear about issues protecting the Great Lakes as being bipartisan, but I think it’s really nonpartisan; the Great Lakes don’t know politics,” Allan contends.  “The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has been so critically important. And Republicans, Democrats, right leaning, left leaning – however you want to cast that – the voice is universal on the importance of both the Great Lakes to us as a people, not just in Michigan but across the region.”

“It took a number of years for . . . these projects to come through and mature and get to the point where they’re ready for restoration. You can’t just flip a switch and find $300 million and move out the door. It takes thoughtfulness, it takes engineering, it takes communities coming together and finding a vision together. And what we’re most worried about under GLRI – the money is critical – but the amount of work that people have done under it to get us to this point, you can’t just flip the switch on and off. This is long term, durable work, and we need to make long term durable commitments to it.”

Allan and other members of the Great Lakes Commission were recently in Washington arguing for continued funding of GLRI.

“We heard universal support across party lines for the Great Lakes. It’s really making sure that the nation understands the Great Lakes as a national priority. We get it here, but what we have to do is make sure Missouri and Montana and Mississippi – the other M states – feel it the same way we do.  We think that this is an important national priority, not just a local or parochial interest.”

Allan encourages us all to make sure our elected representatives “know that this is important to you. They support it, but it’s always helpful to remind them that you do, too. But also make sure the speaker of the House knows it. We often talk to ourselves and convince ourselves this is good – and it is good – but we need to make sure that the nation understands the importance of this. And part of that is advocacy beyond our own neighborhood.”

Allan also provides updates on the water situation in Flint and nutrients in our Great Lakes. Click on the arrow above to hear the Allan/Heinze conversation.

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative is dedicated to the protection, restoration, and long term sustainability of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Formed in 2003, it is a coalition of 128 mayors of communities representing over 17 million people in the United States and Canada.

“These phenomenal water resources are really the heart and soul of our cities,” Ullrich says.  They’re the center of economic activity and vitality, and the quality of life is defined by them. So we devote ourselves to anything and everything we can do to protect these resources.”

Ullrich says that the seven years of the GLRI’s existence “have brought over $2 billion through over 3,000 projects to the Great Lakes region, and that’s just on the U.S. side.  The environmental restoration and economic redevelopment that have occurred as a result of it are tremendous. If the Trump administration proposal to completely eliminate GLRI were to go forward, it would be devastating for efforts all across the Great Lakes. It would bring progress in cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, Duluth, Superior, which have relied heavily on it, to a halt.”

And it’s not that the local communities expect the federal government to assume the entire funding burden.  According to Mayor Paul Dyster of Niagara Fall, New York, local governments invest “over $15 billion per year” in Great Lakes-related programs.  But he, like so many others, understands that the Great Lakes are a national resource and federal support is clearly justified.   

Like Allan, Ullrich was in Washington recently and sensed the same bipartisan support for GLRI.

“I am confident about the degree of resolve in this part of the country – and coming in from the Canadian side – that we are going to keep [the GLRI] at the $300 million level.

“If the government of the United State cannot come up with $300 million a year to protect and restore this phenomenal global resource, then I think we’ve reached a pretty sad state. And it doesn’t reflect the kind of values that I think are part of this country.

“You’re going to see a major push back on this, and a lot of it is going to come from Canada. We have to make sure we keep the momentum going.”

Click here to hear the Ullrich/Heinze conversation.

ullrich.mp3

Greening of the Great Lakes airs inside MSU Today Sunday afternoons at 4:00 on AM 870 and FM 94.5.

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