A Scattering or A Smattering

Lighthouse View Point ~Enlarge

If you had nearly half a billion dollars to spend on restoring and protecting the Great Lakes in the next year, how would you spend it?

You'd better hurry up and decide, because the money is halfway through Congress already. So on June 25, a group called the federal Great Lakes Interagency Task Force issued a 28-page document (go here and click on 'FY 2010 proposed programs and projects') outlining its proposal for spending the money.  That was the same week the U.S. House of Representatives approved the sum, sending an appropriations bill to the Senate.

There's much to discuss in the list, which includes over 100 separate initiatives ranging from environmental remediation at Great Lakes lighthouses to the modeling of atmospheric deposition of mercury to the Great Lakes.  But here are a few observations:

* $2.04 million is set aside for "assessing indicators for the Great Lakes ecosystem." That sounds promising unless you know that almost 20 years have already passed since federal agencies began work on indicators, and have floundered. They've identified some indicators, but are still churning along, and have failed to figure out how to communicate a Great Lakes report card that is authentic and accurate to the public.  The proposed $2.04 million for 2010 is tolerable only if the project is completed by the end of next year. In other words, the search for indicators must result in a "deliverable" at a date certain and the search for indicators, for now, should stop when that is done.

* $16 million is given to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for "restoring aquatic ecosystems."  There has been a lot of talk about the greening of the Corps, and some signs of progress, but the agency retains predominately a habitat destruction focus.  The new money may help reorient that, or it may fund greenwash or mitigation for past damage. This bears watching. (In a separate initiative under the plan, the Corps gets $9.996 million for "strategic and environmental dredging," whatever that is. This, too, bears watching."

* $75 million, the biggest single amount, is proposed for cleaning up toxic sediments in the Great Lakes.  This makes sense if and only if renewed efforts are made to crank down the sources of toxic chemicals that drift into the Great Lakes from faraway countries and continents. Cleaning up toxic sediments even as more new toxic sediments are slowly being created is a short-term jobs program and a long-term waste of money. The federal government needs to think and act far beyond the Great Lakes if it is to protect the Great Lakes.

The wisdom of divvying up $475 million among so many initiatives and a multitude of federal, state, tribal and local agencies is itself questionable. While placating the agencies, it may result in little measurable gain for the Lakes. But perhaps this is too pessimistic.  Much of the funding looks useful and reasonable. Look over the list for yourself, decide, and comment.