The U.S. has suffered from a bad economy for the last three years.
Parts of the Great Lakes have suffered from bad pollution problems for the last several decades.
Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to use money from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) to put people to work cleaning up pollution in the region.
From an EPA press release:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is setting aside approximately $6 million for federal agencies to sign up unemployed workers to implement restoration projects in federally-protected areas, on tribal lands and in Areas of Concern in the Great Lakes basin. EPA will fund individual projects up to $1 million. To qualify for funding, each proposed project must provide jobs for at least 20 unemployed people. “These projects will help to restore the Great Lakes and put Americans back to work," said EPA Great Lakes National Program Manager and Regional Administrator Susan Hedman. "In a sense, we will be using these funds to create a small-scale 21st century Civilian Conservation Corps."
The AP reports that Congress has appropriated $775 million over the past two years for the GLRI.
One of the GLRI's main goals is to clean up toxic hot spots known as "Areas of Concern" around the Great Lakes.
These Areas of Concern have been identified for decades, but clean-up efforts have stalled as funding for clean-up has been scarce.
EPA officials say they will award funding for these new clean-up projects by the end of September.
