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The Mackinac Bridge spans the Straits of Mackinac between lakes Michigan and Huron in July 2002. The federal government is issuing more than $1.8 million worth of grants to combat nutrient pollution in the Great Lakes, officials announced on Monday. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
By JOHN FLESHER
AP Environmental Writer
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Federal grants totaling more than $1.8 million are being awarded to five organizations for projects that will use market approaches to reduce nutrient pollution that leads to harmful algae blooms in the Great Lakes, officials said on Monday.
The money will come through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which deals with some of the region’s most persistent ecological threats, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
“Addressing emerging challenges, like excess nutrients in our waters, requires creative solutions,” Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. “This EPA funding will help build on existing state, local and tribal efforts and support innovative tools and technologies that will deliver critical water quality improvements at a lower cost.”
Scientists say excessive runoff of nutrients, primarily phosphorus, feeds algae blooms that degrade water quality and in some cases produce toxins. Gigantic masses form each summer on Lake Erie’s western basin. They also have shown up in Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay.
Michigan, Ohio and the Canadian province of Ontario have pledged to seek a 40 percent reduction of phosphorus runoff into western Lake Erie by 2025. The primary sources of the pollution are fertilizers and manure from farms and treatment plants. Septic tanks and runoff from urban streets and yards also contribute.
The newly awarded grants are the first to be awarded since the restoration initiative got underway in 2010 and resulted from applications for water-quality trading projects, the EPA said. Such projects enable businesses or plants to cut costs of reducing contamination by purchasing credits from others that have done more than required to curtail pollution.
Farmers can earn credits through practices such as planting off-season cover crops that keep soil and fertilizers on fields instead of washing into waterways, said Bill Schleizer, CEO of the Chicago-based Delta Institute, one of the grant recipients. Its project will seek to reduce pollution in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River watershed.
“These innovative projects will encourage cost-effective ways to reduce the excess nutrients that can lead to algal blooms and other water-quality issues,” the regional administrator Kurt Thiede said.
The Delta Institute was awarded a $303,181 grant. Other recipients include the Conservation Technology Information Center in West Lafayette, Indiana ($479,782); NEW Water in Green Bay, Wisconsin ($338,438); the Great Lakes Commission, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan ($290,000); and the Dairy Research Institute in Rosemont, Illinois ($437,000).
