Officials hold news conference at Great Lakes Commission meeting

 

By Lee Bergquist 

 

 

Mayor Tom Barrett and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) on Monday criticized proposed cuts in the U.S. House of Representatives for Great Lakes funding, saying a GOP plan to reduce spending would harm an array of clean water programs.

 

"It's very concerning for those of us who love and care about the Great Lakes," Barrett said.

 

He made the comments on the first day of the annual meeting of the Great Lakes Commission, which is being held in Milwaukee.

 

The two Democrats were joined by Mayor John Dickert of Racine and David Ullrich, executive director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, at a news conference at Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin, with the Milwaukee harbor serving as a backdrop.

 

Last month, environmental groups and public officials from Great Lakes states were critical of a cut by a House subcommittee that would slash funding from $285 million this year to $60 million.

House Republicans said the budget would help limit overreach of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

 

The House Appropriations Committee restored some of the funding in the latest version of the bill, increasing spending to $210 million.

 

"We made some good progress from $60 million up to $210 million, but we still have a ways to go," Ullrich said.

 

The officials at the news conference said the partial restoration was welcome news but didn't go far enough.

 

Baldwin said she wanted the House to fully fund the programto $300 million.

 

Dickert said that programs that helped protect Racine's beaches paid dividends in the form of $5 million a year in local tourism spending.

 

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said in a statement that she and others have told the Appropriations Committee that funding in fiscal 2014 should be at least $300 million.

 

Ullrich said Wisconsin has so far received about $180 million of $1.3 billion from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The program began in 2009.

 

The money goes to programs that include funding for cleaning up toxic waste, combating the threat of invasive species and reducing storm water runoff.

 

Examples in Milwaukee include funding to remove toxic sediments from the Milwaukee River at Lincoln Park and on the Kinnickinnic River, between W. Becher St. and S. Kinnickinnic Ave. The cost of both projects, using a mix of state and federal funds, was $46.6 million.

 

Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp, an appointee of Republican Gov. Scott Walker, declined to pick sides in the funding fight. But she said it was unlikely that many of the projects would have been funded without the Great Lakes funds.

 

"These are the kinds of dollars that turn around and yield exponential benefits," Stepp said in a telephone interview

 

Cuts to other programs also included a revolving loan program that cities can tap to repair aging sewers.

 

Barrett called sewers "the invisible infrastructure, because most people don't think about the sewers at all until something goes wrong."

 

"Throughout Milwaukee, throughout southeastern Wisconsin, we have to constantly update these sewers."