(Chicago - October 3, 2011) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced funding for three Toledo-area Great Lakes Restoration Initiative projects totaling nearly $2.4 million. The projects will help to restore Lake Erie and put people back to work, using a conservation corps model to hire unemployed workers to improve habitat and clean up shoreline.
The three Toledo-area projects were selected from 44 proposals totaling almost $25 million, which were submitted in response to a $6 million challenge that EPA issued in August to encourage federal agencies to sign up unemployed workers to implement restoration projects in federally-protected areas, on tribal lands and in Areas of Concern in the Great Lakes Basin. To qualify for funding, each project is required to provide jobs for at least 20 unemployed people.
"The tremendous response to EPA’s challenge underscores the large backlog of Great Lakes restoration projects that are ready to be implemented and the strong support that exists for using a conservation corps model to get the job done," said Susan Hedman, EPA Great Lakes National Program Manager, today at Toledo’s Wildwood Preserve Metropark. "Over the next week, EPA will be announcing a total of eight restoration projects worth $6.6 million as part of this challenge. Each project will produce immediate, direct ecological benefits and will help to put unemployed people back to work."
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