President Obama has slashed funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in his 2012 budget
EMMET CO., MI -- President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal includes cuts to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
He's asking for $125 million less than what was approved in 2010, and Republicans may try and slash it farther.
With less money to work with, there will be fewer projects with the initiative.
And according to the Tip of the Mitt, with fewer projects, it could lead to more long-term problems and costs.
"The longer we wait, the worse the problems get, and the more costly it gets in the end," said Jennifer McKay.
McKay is the policy specialist at Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council in Petoskey. She says it's going to take a lot to restore the Great Lakes, and the Government isn't making it easy.
"The Great Lakes has more aquatic invasive species than any other freshwater ecosystem, so if we can get a control over our system and manage it, we're actually helping to protect the rest of the country," said McKay.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative helps with this. It funds projects to help protect the lakes from threats, like polluted run-off and invasive species such as Asian Carp. In his 2012 budget, President Barack Obama proposed funding $350-million to the initiative, which is a reduction of $125-million from the 2010 budget.
"We have a lot of non-point source pollution contributing to the Great Lakes," said restoration engineer Jennifer Gelb.
Gelb says less funding would mean less proactive projects, like a storm-water management plan she hopes to get funding for. She says storm water run-off is a major contaminant of the Great Lakes, and with money, it can be managed.
“It's such a great opportunity to get a project like this funded, and there aren't as many funding sources available for projects like this," said Gelb.
There’s also concern for this year's funding.
The House Appropriations Committee released a "continuing resolution" to complete this fiscal year's budget and their plan is to reduce Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding to $225-million dollars, a cut from the $475-million put toward the fund just last year.
