A new federal fund designed to clean up pollution hotspots along the Great Lakes is being underfunded. Money promised from Congress is coming in much smaller amounts than originally pledged. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
Transcript
A new federal fund designed to clean up pollution hotspots along the Great Lakes is being
underfunded. Money promised from Congress is coming in much smaller amounts than
originally pledged. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
The Great Lakes Legacy Act was passed by Congress in 2002… with a promise of 54 million
dollars a year for five years to clean up some of the 31 so-called “Areas of Concern”… the most
heavily polluted areas along the Great Lakes.
But in 2004, the first year money was allocated, only 10 million dollars was released by
Congress. Even so, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Scientist Mark Tuchman says this is
money available for clean up now… a change from the notoriously slow Superfund process.
“This is a focused program. The focus is on contaminated sediments at AOCs. So we’re
optimistic that this program can start making a significant dent in the contaminated sediment
problem in these Great Lakes sites.”
Congress is allocating 24 million dollars for Great Lakes clean up projects in 2005. That’s still
less than half the annual amount promised.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.