Great Lakes to Get $1B for Environmental Restoration

The Biden administration will invest a large amount in the Great Lakes region to repair areas that have suffered severe environmental degradation from human interference. 

The $1 billion allocation, announced Thursday by officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, aims to address these areas of concern and to reinvigorate environmental and economic benefits for local communities. 

There are currently 25 areas of concern around the Great Lakes, down from the 31 originally identified1987; thanks to the $1 billion announced Thursday, which comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and funds from outside sources, the administration believes work on 22 of those sites can be completed by 2030. 

The administration hopes to remove 16 sites from the areas of concern list over the next eight years. Nine of the larger areas like the Milawukee and Detroit Rivers will likely not be removed from the areas of concern list by 2030 despite project completion, as officials noted it takes around five years post-project for a given area to heal sufficiently.

Funding from the infrastructure law will directly benefit at least 11 of the projects. 

Ultimately, there will be only three areas of concern remaining for EPA and our partners to complete the necessary remediation, senior administration officials said. This level of progress would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law funding, we have the financial resources to make this a reality.

Projects in the Kalamazoo River, the Saginaw River and the St. Lawrence River will likely still be ongoing by 2030.

The Great Lakes, home to the worlds largest natural source of freshwater, is surrounded by Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. EPA Administrator Michael Regan on Thursday called the area a vital economic engine and an irreplaceable environmental wonder, supplying drinking water for more than 40 million people, supporting nearly 1.5 million jobs, and sustaining life for thousands of species.

The projects span into New Yorks Niagara River as well. Each will have a separate focus, officials said, with individual time projections to completion and funding allocations. 

One of the larger cleanup efforts will occur in the Milwaukee area, as officials said there will be a tremendous amount of sediment contaminated that needs to be remediated. 

The more sediment remediation you do, the higher the cost and Milwaukee will be in the hundreds of millions, in the low hundreds of millions of dollars, officials added, saying other projects will likely cost much less. 

A combination of factors have thoroughly polluted the Milwaukee Estuary, including waste from historical industrial plants, sewer overflows, wastewater treatment runoff and other toxins from surrounding agriculture and cities.

Some of the other projects the funds will cover include habitat restoration, securing access to clean water, remediation of hazardous waste sites and more.

President Joe Biden will discuss the investment on Thursday during a visit in Cleveland and Lorain, Ohio, an area that will receive funds for cleanup and conservation projects in the Black River watershed. 

Once called the River of fish tumorsThe river is now cleaner than it was before the harmful effects of nearby toxins on its animal population and habitat. However, it still needs to meet certain benchmarks before it can become delisted.   

According to administration officials, the $1 billion investment will speed up cleanup efforts at sites throughout the Great Lakes Basin, from Duluth in Minnesota to Buffalo in New York, and everywhere in between. This includes several areas of concern in Ohio where the President will be visiting. This accelerated cleanup will bring environmental health and recreational benefits to communities throughout the region.