GLRI project map 2015.jpg

A map showing Great Lakes Restoration Initiative projects from 2010 to 2015. The grant program funds pollution cleanup and habitat restoration projects in the eight Great Lakes states.

(U.S. EPA)

Update, 5/23: White House doesn't budge in formal 2018 budget ask

Update, 3/29: Trump wants $50M from Great Lakes to fund the wall

Great Lakes restoration funding is altogether eliminated in President Donald Trump's first formal budget proposal as part of $2.6 billion in cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency that will eliminate 3,200 jobs from the federal agency responsible for ensuring the country has safe drinking water.

Drastic cuts to the federal grants that fund pollution cleanup, watershed restoration and other work in eight Great Lakes states were expected, but the actual proposal the White House sent to Congress on Thursday, March 16 goes further by zeroing-out what has been a popular bipartisan program.

The proposed budget "returns the responsibility for funding local environmental efforts and programs to state and local entities," according to the 62-page document, titled "A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again."

Steep funding cuts to environmental protection, foreign aid, chemical safety review, public broadcasting, the arts, public health and other traditional conservative targets are necessary to "craft a budget that emphasizes national security and public safety" through a $54 billion hike in military spending without also raising the deficit, Trump wrote. The so-called "skinny budget" does not touch $2.5 trillion in annual Medicare, Social Security funding.

The budget kills $250 million in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) coastal and marine research and education grants. The NOAA cuts eliminate the national Sea Grant program, a national network of 33 university-based programs that conduct research on beach safety, harbor management, fisheries, aquaculture and coastal economic development using matching funds from states, tribes and businesses.

The Michigan Sea Grant at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan received $1.8 million from NOAA in 2016. Among other projects, it helps maintain a database of current-related Great Lakes drownings. It has funded $66 million in research, outreach and education since 1969.

Other cuts at the EPA include slashing Superfund special accounts by $330 million, the agency enforcement office by $129 million, the research and development office by $233 million, state and tribal assistance grants by $482 million. Energy efficiency grants, targeted air pollution grants and the endocrine disruptor screening program are also eliminated.

Stiff bipartisan opposition to many proposed cuts is expected on Capitol Hill.

Speaking with reporters about the Great Lakes funding cuts, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, who co-chairs the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, said "we've got to make sure this does not pass Congress." Her task force co-chair, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, also said he'd work to preserve the funding.

Great Lakes advocates are in Washington, D.C. this week pressing U.S. representatives and senators to fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) at its regular $300 million. The program, primarily administered through the EPA, has traditionally enjoyed strong bipartisan support and has standalone authorization at that funding level through 2021, meaning Congress can restore some or all funding.

Since 2010, Michigan has received $606 million for 760 GLRI projects.

Dan Eichinger, Michigan United Conservation Clubs director, said the GLRI funds have "protected the places we depend upon for hunting" and are "profoundly important for achieving our conservation objectives in Michigan."

"By virtue of it being a regional priority, it needs to be a national priority."

Eichinger said "I don't think any states are going to raise their hand and say 'we'd be happy to take on this burden" of paying for Great Lakes cleanup. "They can't do it. This is why we have the federal government."

Gildo Tori, the public policy director for the Atlantic region of Ducks Unlimited, called the GLRI a "model federal program" that isn't regulatory in nature.

"We've heard this administration really rail against over-regulation," he said. "Well, the GLRI is an incentive-based program. It drives people to work in partnerships."

"You can track the dollars and see the benefits" in work to clean up Great Lakes toxic pollution "hotspots" known as "Areas of Concern," restore coastal wetlands and battle back invasive nuisance species like phragmites, Tori said.

Last year in Michigan, $6.5 million was funneled through the GLRI toward a new project to clean up the Rouge River by restoring fish habitats at the Henry Ford Estate Dam, Rouge River Oxbow, and Nankin Lake, removing 40,000 cubic yards of fill and sediment and reconnecting 50 miles of the river and 108 miles of tributaries to the Great Lakes.

Another $5.6 million grant was awarded to clean up the Clinton River by restoring habitat in the Partridge Creek Commons, McBride Drain and the Clinton River Spillway in Macomb County. The money will fund invasive species control, native vegetation planting, shoreline stabilization and other work designed to improve the habitat for fish and wildlife.

In 2014, White Lake near Muskegon and Deer Lake in the Upper Peninsula were delisted as toxic concern areas after years of GLRI cleanup.

Elsewhere around the Great Lakes, the EPA awarded $2 million in GLRI grants last summer to 13 cities in Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin to fund bioretention areas, sediment filters, dune swales, rain gardens, vegetation planting, wetlands construction, shoreline buffers and permeable pavement installations meant to capture or prevent more than 13 million gallons of untreated stormwater from contaminating swimming beaches.

In the House, U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, said the GLRI is "extremely important" to the environmental and economic health of the country.

In 2007, a Great Lakes protection program cost-benefit analysis authored by the Brookings Institution and the University of Michigan concluded that every dollar invested in restoration generated about $2 in economic return.

"It's tough to explain to people who have never been around the Great Lakes how important they are to the economic engine of the country," Bergman said. "It's an education process on all counts."

A hydraulic dredge gathers mill debris from Muskegon Lake, a Great Lakes Area of Concern watershed cleanup project funded through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Trump's proposal does include $2.3 billion for the State Drinking Water Revolving Funds, a $4 million increase over the 2017 funding level. In Michigan, that money could be used to aid cities like Flint. Part of $170 million Flint aid package passed last year includes an option to use the funds to forgive Flint debts incurred before this year.

U.S. Rep. Fred Upton said the budget proposal "acknowledges our unsustainable national debt and does attempt to put us on the path to fiscal responsibility."

"However, I remain deeply concerned about proposed cuts to important domestic programs like the National Institutes of Health and especially to our Great Lakes," Upton said. "It's penny wise but pound foolish."

U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, House Great Lakes Task Force co-chair, called the GLRI a "critical program that works to preserve the Great Lakes for future generations," and said it "should continue to be a national priority."

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, said Trump "is essentially saying our way of life in Michigan doesn't matter."

"Such irresponsible cuts to Great Lakes protection efforts will expose our freshwater to major threats, including invasive species like Asian carp and pollution. These are very real threats not only to our environment, but also our economy," Kildee said.

"The Great Lakes generate billions in annual economic activity and support 1.5 million good-paying jobs in the tourism, boating and fishing industries."

In February, every Michigan Congress member besides Justin Amash and John Conyers sent the White House a letter urging full GLRI funding in 2018, calling the program essential to repairing a "more than a century of environmental damage."

Annalise Dobbelstein, organizer with the group Environment Michigan, called the budget proposal "dirty and dangerous," and likened it to a "get out of jail free card" for polluters."

Todd Ambs, campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, a collection of foundation-funded nonprofit groups that advocates for the GLRI, called the proposal "a total non-starter."

During the campaign, Trump's team sent a surrogate, former Ohio Division of Wildlife chief Mike Budzik, to a Great Lakes conference hosted by the coalition. Budzik told the conference Trump was "supportive of programs like" the GLRI but would "look to the experts" on how to address serious water quality issues like the harmful algal blooms that sparked a 2014 toxic drinking water crisis in Toledo.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said that "taking an ax to the (GLRI) will cost Ohio jobs and jeopardize public health by putting the well-being of Lake Erie at risk."

Ambs said the budget "makes it abundantly clear that real leadership to benefit the people of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois will have to come from Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress."