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Dear Honorable James Oberstar:
I am writing to express my strong support for renewal of the Great Lakes Legacy Act. As the Committee begins work on this legislation, I would appreciate your consideration of a number of changes to strengthen the Great Lakes Legacy Act.
I represent communities adjoining the Clinton River Area of Concern (AOC) in Southeastern Michigan. After decades of industrial and municipal discharges caused significant environmental degradation in the Clinton watershed, the river is making a strong comeback. There are no longer any major industrial discharges into the river or its tributaries and municipal facilities have taken action to greatly reduce discharges of sewage into the river. These efforts and many others have significantly improved water quality in the Clinton River. To give you some idea of how far the Clinton River has come, during the 1960s, no live fish could be found in the river between Pontiac and Lake St. Clair; today, a large section of the river’s mainstream generates 30,000 angler hours of fishing recreation during the steelhead trout spawning run every spring.
The challenge now is to build on the tremendous progress that has already been achieved and make the Clinton River the healthy urban waterway all of us want it to be. To that end, there are a number of improvements the Committee can make to the Great Lakes Legacy Act to improve the Act’s effectiveness. Specifically, I urge you to:
1) Increase the authorization for the Great Lakes Legacy Program. If the federal government’s long-term commitment to restoring beneficial uses at the 31 designated U.S. Areas of Concern is to met, additional resources will be needed. I support the recommendation of the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative to increase the authorization level to $150 million a year;
2) Significantly reduce the current 35 percent non-federal cost share requirement. The purpose of the Great Lakes Legacy Act is to accelerate the cleanup of contaminated sediments in Great Lakes AOCs. A significant barrier to progress is the high non-federal cost share requirement, especially at orphan sites where there is no potentially responsible party. For such orphan sites, the required cost share should be reduced to 25 percent, or even lower, from the current level of 35 percent.
3) Allow the use of Legacy Act funds to restore habitat. To date, the Great Lakes Legacy Act has focused on re-mediating contaminated sediments. While contaminated sediments are one of the most significant challenges for AOCs, additional work, such as restoring habitat, will need to be done in order to delist a site as an AOC. To that end, funding should also be made available to support habitat restoration efforts within AOCs.
I greatly appreciate your taking these comments into consideration. I look forward to working with you to strengthen the Great Lakes Legacy Act.
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