President Barack Obama is apparently making good on his campaign pledge to increase spending on programs to restore the Great Lakes.
His 2010 budget calls for $475 million to create a new Environmental Protection Agency-led "Great Lakes restoration initiative" that will work toward cleaning up contaminated sediments, reducing existing pollution sources and stemming the inflow of invasive species to the lakes.
Conservationists on Thursday said they were encouraged that Obama's first budget appeared to make good on this more modest proposal for the five big lakes that have been battered by more than a century of industrial abuses.
"This investment is a major victory for the Great Lakes," said Jeff Skelding, campaign director for the Healing our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition that has been lobbying Congress for Great Lakes restoration dollars for the past few years. "It demonstrates the president is serious about his campaign commitment to the Great Lakes."
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