Sunday, August 14, 2005

Report outlines rescue strategy

Task force urges $20 billion to add wetlands, upgrade sewage plants, increase native fish.

By Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau

Other proposals The draft report released in July also recommends: • Adding $20 million annually to programs to restore and boost native fish populations. • Spending up to $190 million annually to rehabilitate and acquire new wetland areas, which provide critical shelter and food for birds, fish and other wildlife. Up to 70 percent of the Great Lakes wetlands have disappeared, partly because of development. The report recommends doubling to 1 million acres the amount of Great Lakes wetlands. • Targeting $106 million for programs to help the 12,000 farms with 50 or more animals in the Great Lakes Basin keep manure from getting into waterways. Pumping $67 million into helping crop-growers create buffer strips to trap runoff of fertilizers and pesticides. • Cleaning up -- or nearly cleaning up -- 10 of the 31 designated Areas of Concern by 2010. They include Michigan sites in Muskegon Lake, Deer Lake, and the Menominee River, as well as the Michigan sections of the Detroit, St. Mary's and St. Clair rivers. All the Areas of Concern should be cleaned up by 2020, which could cost between $1.5 billion and $4.5 billion. • Taking steps to reduce the introduction of invasive species into the Great Lakes, at a yearly cost of $12.5 million. These steps include passage and enforcement of tough new rules to ensure ballast tanks on oceangoing ships don't harbor invaders. And funding research to speed up the development of shipboard treatment systems that kill invasive species before any ballast water is discharged. Online Read the full report at www.glrc.us. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

The $20 billion recommended by a presidential task force to rescue the Great Lakes would pay to upgrade old sewage systems, speed up the restoration of highly contaminated areas, expand wetlands and boost native fish populations.

The task force, which is seeking public comment before releasing its final report in December, also is calling for more research into controlling invasive species.

The Great Lakes Regional Collaboration wants $13.7 billion to upgrade sewers and make other improvements to reduce the volume of raw and partially treated sewage dumped regularly into the Great Lakes, especially from older sewage plants. The upgrades would include constructing more retention basins to temporarily store storm water runoff that overwhelms older plants. The target date for eliminating such discharges would be 2020.

Noting that none of the 31 Areas of Concern in U.S. waters identified more than 15 years ago has yet been fully restored, the task force also is calling on Congress to add $127.5 million a year more to speed up cleanup, for a total of $150 million annually. Nearly half of the areas -- 14 -- are in Michigan waters, including in the Detroit, Clinton, Rouge and St. Clair rivers.

One of the most notorious sites is the Black Lagoon at Meyer-Ellias Memorial Park in Trenton, part of the Detroit River Area of Concern. The contamination at the site -- nicknamed for the ghoulish black color of the water created by oil, gas and other discharges -- has been linked by EPA officials to the abandoned McLouth Steel plant nearby.

The nearly completed cleanup of the lagoon points to how quickly long-standing environmental messes can be turned around once the federal government puts its muscle and money behind a restoration dream.