Contact: Ernest Blazar 202-224-7627 Shana Stribling 224-0309
Thursday, June 27, 2002

WASHINGTON- Senator Kit Bond today announced that the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $14 million worth of key environmental and educational projects for Missouri.

“This is good news for Missouri,” said Bond. “This money will help us restore and protect some of our state’s environmental treasures.”

The money is included in the fiscal 2003 Senate Interior Appropriations bill, approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee this afternoon. While these provisions cleared an important hurdle today, the funds still await approval by the full U.S. Senate and will later be reconciled with the version produced by the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill includes:

* $3,000,000 to expand and improve the currently inadequate visitor's center at the George Washington Carver National Historic Site, providing better educational opportunities for Missourians to learn about this important African-American Missourian.

* $305,000 to reforest lower Ozark land with indigenous Shortleaf Pine, returning this land to the unique state which existed prior to turn-of-the-century harvesting.

* $500,000 for the Columbia Environmental Research Center to study the insufficiently understood life-cycle and environmental requirements of the Pallid Sturgeon.

* $750,000 to determine the environmental impact of lead mining on the Mark Twain National Forest.

* $4,000,000 for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to buy and preserve sensitive wetlands in the Big Muddy Wildlife Refuge and the Great River Wildlife Refuge.

* $2,000,000 for the U.S. Forest Service to buy and preserve treasured forestlands for the Mark Twain National Forest.

* $1,994,000 to restore historic structures and provide visitor facilities at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.

* $1,250,000 to construct an education center at the Fort Osage National Historic Landmark.