Don’t eliminate funding for programs that protect and improve Northwest Indiana’s waters, a leading group of the region’s environmentalists says.
Eventually, that word could be passed on to Congress.
Members of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission’s environmental committee were asked recently to rank the importance of 22 environmental programs listed earlier this year in President Donald Trump’s budget outline — the so-called “skinny budget.”
Trump’s budget plan marked most of those programs for elimination or severe cuts.
Proposals to cut all money from two — the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and Coastal Zone Management — appeared to be the biggest concern among the environmental committee members when they met Thursday.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, funded through the Environmental Protection Agency, has provided $96 million for projects in Indiana since 2010, according to a summary provided by the NIRPC. That has included $75.6 million to remove heavy industrial pollution in the Grand Calumet River and the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, as well as money for ecological restoration in those areas. The NIRPC’s recently launched CommuniTree program, to plant trees to replace those killed by the emerald ash borer, also is funded through that program.
And eliminating the Coastal Zone Management program, the NIRPC summary said, would cut more than $1 million in annual funding for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, including $650,000 in grants to local governments and organizations in Northwest Indiana. In the past 10 years, those local grants have funded more than 350 projects to preserve and restore natural habitat, create public-access sites along waterways, and develop local ordinances, policies and plans.
Among other “skinny budget” proposals were elimination of money for states’ alternative-energy programs, for climate-change research, and for the Community Development Block Grant program.
Funding increases were proposed for a program promoting healthy and lead-safe homes and for low-cost loans for water infrastructure projects.
The actual fate of those budget proposals is uncertain in Congress.
Kay Nelson, the Northwest Indiana Forum’s environmental affairs director, noted that the House of Representatives included funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative when it passed a stopgap budget measure recently.
But, Nelson added, rumors that the Environmental Protection Agency is considering closing the EPA office in Chicago has worried many environmentalists around the Great Lakes. Although EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt contended, during his recent visit to East Chicago, that the EPA doesn’t plan to close the Chicago office, the rumors have persisted.
The budget priorities listed by the NIRPC’s environmental committee will be passed on to the legislative committee, headed by Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. and LaPorte Mayor Fran Milo.
The environmental committee includes representatives from several of the region’s nongovernment environmental groups and from city, town and county governments.
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Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.