Administration creates task force to organize Great Lakes cleanup

WASHINGTON – A task force that President Bush created Tuesday will coordinate cleanup of the Great Lakes, collectively the largest body of fresh water on Earth, but no new money is going toward the effort.

The federal task force should focus more attention on ending mercury contamination, invasive species and other problems that have wrecked the ecosystem of lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, some environmental groups said.

The Great Lakes Commission in Ann Arbor, Mich., already coordinates state and U.S.-Canadian efforts to help the lakes. But the president’s executive order should give the effort more urgency, said Michael Donahue, the group’s president and chief executive officer.

“I think the executive order will help make federal agency partnership more efficient, more effective, and as a result the federal agencies’ relations with the states will be more effective,” he said. “This is something that has been needed.”

The Bush administration has invested more than $1.3 billion in the past two years to improve the environment nationwide. But Democrats said $4 billion alone is needed to clean the Great Lakes.

They criticized the president for asking for $5 billion to rebuild Iraq’s water treatment system and $4 billion to restore the Florida Everglades, but nothing for the Great Lakes.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry slammed Bush’s announcement. Democrats and even some Republicans said Bush should provide money to clean up the lakes.

“We know what the problems are. We know what we have to do,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. “What he needs to do is show us the money.”

Other Democrats accused Bush of announcing the initiative to win votes in crucial Midwest states such as Ohio and Michigan.

“It’s rhetoric, not results,” said Kerry’s campaign spokeswoman, Kathy Roeder.

The Great Lakes cover almost 95,000 square miles and contain 90 percent of the nation’s surface fresh water.

But Americans have long abused the lakes: Industrial waste and raw sewage has been dumped into them since the 1800s. And invasive species that man introduced, such as Asian zebra mussels, are driving out native shellfish.

Administrator Mike Leavitt of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will head the Great Lakes Interagency Task Force, Bush said in an executive order. The task force will rally federal agencies such as the Interior Department, as well as state and Canadian agencies around the cleanup effort.

The task force will release a report on improving the lakes’ water quality by May 2005.

Republicans praised Bush’s action. But Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, co-chairman of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, said the government must spend more money to clean the lakes.

Last year DeWine introduced a bill to set up a $6 billion lakes restoration grant program.

The Bush administration should support Great Lakes money in bills such as DeWine’s, said Andy Buchsbaum, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Natural Resource Center.

“These bills include a planning process. They include action. And they include federal dollars,” Buchsbaum said. “These bills need to move, and they need to move now.

Bush’s announcement comes two days before House hearings on Great Lakes cleanup efforts. Lawmakers and officials from federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency will testify at the hearings Thursday and Friday.