US Environment Protection Agency awards over $17 million grants, Aims to restore Great Lakes

In a bid to counter the woes of Climate Change, the United States Environment Protection Agency has released fourteen grants totaling to over 17 million USD for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Confirming the news on its website, it has added that this initiative is imperative to improve the water quality in the country which has reached degrading levels owing to the nutrient run off and soil erosion mainly from agricultural facilities. Furthermore, this has led to the boom in algae growth in various water bodies causing marine mortality on a large scale, hence, threatening the food chain.

Moreover, EPA reports that the projects being funded would be completed under the guidance of not only conservation organizations but also the local and state governments.

Furthermore, the various projects have been designed to achieve the common goal of improvement in the quality of water by employing varied techniques such as Stream Buffering, Restoring Floodplains and increasing the Green Cover.

Keely Davidson Bennett, a Program Associate at Chagrin Watershed Partners Program told The News Herald that the present grant was sufficient to partially fund the projects with a completion date in the year 2016. Furthermore, he added that Wickliffe's Green Ridge Golf Course and at the Manakiki Golf Course in Willoughby Hills would form the major areas of work during the project cycle. Furthermore, the project would aim at the restoration of about 640 feet of streams and wetlands in these Metroparks.

The Ohio Environment Protection Agency was granted over $3 million to prevent Phosphorous from entering Lake Eerie by restoring six miles of streams and over 70 acres of wetlands coupled with the retirement of almost 270 acres of cropland. Senator Brown from Ohio who has been associated with the Restoration Initiative since long, later remarked on his website that since the lake was imperative for the population in the area, the funds for its restoration should flow easily.