Clear water has real value
Study shows huge economic benefit from Great Lakes cleanup efforts
Updated: 04/22/08 6:39 AM
The deep thinkers at the Brookings Institution are making the vital case that $20 billion spent on cleaning up the Great Lakes will provide the adjoining states with a more than 2-to-1 return on investment. The rule makers in Congress, meanwhile, are just trying to catch up with the challenge of stopping those lakes, and the rest of America’s waterways, from getting dirtier.
Last year, Brookings experts made the case that the estimated $20 billion that is thought to be necessary to remove pollutants, protect native species and restore natural ecosystems would yield at least $50 billion in economic benefits for the eight U. S. states that border the five Great Lakes. Last week, they broke out the benefits of increased property values in some of the larger metropolitan areas that lie along America’s North Coast.
A cleaner, more attractive Lake Erie, according to their figures, could boost coastal property values by as much as $1.1 billion — that’s “billion” — in Buffalo residential property values alone. That doesn’t even count the certain increase in commercial property values that would follow.
Larger metros would do even better, with Chicago standing to improve residential property values by as much as $13 billion, Detroit by $7 billion and Milwaukee by $2.3 billion. The smallest of the cities on the list, Erie, Pa., should improve its residential property values by as much as $500 million as the fact and reputation of the Great Lakes as a source of clean water and site of sustainable recreation grows.
Of course, it’s a lot harder to clean something up if you haven’t stopped the flow of filth. That’s why Congress needs to get busy and approve the Clean Water Restoration Act that is now before it, a bill that rightly has the support of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Buffalo’s Rep. Brian Higgins.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 was one of the landmark environmental protection laws passed in the early days of the Nixon-era (yes, that Nixon) ecological awakening. There was reason to believe that its impact would be long-lasting.
Sadly, however, the Bush era of environmental degradation has taken its toll. Interpretations by the so-called Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers and even the Supreme Court have found reasons to deny federal protection to wetlands and waterways that are not so obvious as to carry boats downstream 365 days a year.
But those marshes and intermittent and seasonal streams get polluted, too. And, when they do, the pollution still runs downstream, often across state lines, and into the rivers, lakes and drinking water supplies that clearly need protection — the kind of protection that would be restored by the Clean Water Restoration Act.
Experts and politicians can argue about the best way government can help Buffalo improve itself. But there’s no doubt that a Clean Water Act worthy of the name would go a long way toward stemming its tide of decline.
