Since its establishment in 2010, the initiative has worked to protect and restore the Great Lakes — the largest surface freshwater system in the world.

The Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater and 90 percent of the United States’ surface freshwater — providing drinking water to more than 30 million people, supporting 1.5 million jobs and generating $62 billion in wages, according to the board’s resolution.

GLRI funding has supported long-term efforts to clean up toxic pollution, reduce runoff from cities and farms, combat invasive species and restore fish and wildlife habitat, the resolution states.

The document notes that the GLRI has also restored more than 150,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat, opened fish access to more than 3,400 miles of rivers, helped implement conservation programs on more than 1 million acres of farmland and accelerated the cleanup of toxic hotspots.

Pruitt

“This is a resolution supporting the GLRI — there’s currently no proposed funding for it,” board Chairman Gerry Corkin said. “The resolution is important to Michigan.”

Corkin said Sen. Debbie Stabenow visited the Upper Peninsula weeks ago to celebrate the Partridge Creek Diversion Project. The project was a crucial part of the previously contaminated Deer Lake receiving a clean bill of health in 2014.

In the 1980s, Deer Lake was identified as one of the 14 Areas of Concern in Michigan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The lake had severe, long-term environmental problems, according to a news release from Stabenow’s office.

The Partridge Creek Diversion Project received $14 million through the GLRI and stopped the flow of mercury into Deer Lake, which made fish unsafe to eat and harmed bald eagle populations, the news release states.

Since the establishment of the GLRI, two Areas of Concern in Michigan have been de-listed.

Corkin

According to a published report from the GLRI to Congress and the president, during fiscal year 2016 federal agencies and partners protected, restored and enhanced habitats and native species throughout the Great Lakes basin, implementing a total of 45 projects, enhancing 642 miles of Great Lakes shoreline and riparian corridors, 17,500 acres of coastal wetlands and more than 180,000 acres of habitat.

In his fiscal year 2018 budget proposal released in March, President Donald Trump’s administration called to eliminate the federal GLRI funding to help cover costs of a border wall with Mexico.

Marquette County Board of Commissioners and the GLRI say cuts to GLRI funding would jeopardize the momentum from over a decade of unprecedented regional cooperation.

According to the GLRI and the commissioners’ resolution, funding cuts would be a short-sighted, short-term cost-saving measure with long-term implications. Restoration efforts will only become more expensive and more difficult if they are not addressed in the coming years, the resolution states.

“I am proud that through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — helping to protect and restore the system that comprises more than 80 percent of the freshwater in the U.S. and Canada — we are fulfilling our mission to restore the health of the water that so many of our communities depend on,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a published report to Congress and the president. “The GLRI is protecting public health in the Great Lakes more than any other coordinated interagency effort in U.S. history, and helping to ensure that our children and their children live in safe, healthier communities.”

Signed copies of the board’s resolution will be transmitted to the president, members of Congress and the other 82 Michigan counties.

Jaymie Depew can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 206. Her email address is jdepew@miningjournal.net.