Cleaner Great Lakes Valuable
By John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press
Apr. 17–Cleaning up the Great Lakes would generate billions of dollars in economic benefits for metro Detroit and the wider lakes ecosystem, a new study reported Wednesday.
The analysis released by the Washington, D.C., think tank Brookings Institution showed metro Detroit would reap $3.7 billion to $7 billion in economic benefits, second only to the Chicago area’s $7.4-$13.3 billion, provided the nation makes a big upfront investment in the cleanup.
"We own a special piece of real estate here in the Great Lakes and southeast Michigan," said John Austin, a Brookings fellow and one of the authors. "People want to be near the water, and they want to use the water if it doesn’t kill you. There is a market for being near the water, and none of that is possible if the water is toxic."
Andy Buchsbaum, cochair of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, added, "What helps the Great Lakes ecosystem helps the Great Lakes economy."
The total benefits from a cleaner Great Lakes might run to $50 billion, according to a previous Brookings study, while the probable cost of a cleanup would be $20 billion.
"Bottom line, the benefits exceed the cost by a ratio of 2-1," Robert Litan, a Brookings fellow and one of the authors of the report, said Wednesday during a telephone news conference.
As the Brookings scholars said in a previous report, the Great Lakes are one of America’s most important — and often-overlooked — natural features.
Together, the five lakes account for 90% of the United States’ and 20% of the world’s surface freshwater, and affect the lives of the roughly 35 million people who live in the cities, states, and Canadian provinces surrounding them.
The lakes provide drinking water and recreation, commercial transportation and quality-of-life benefits.
Judging the potential gain from restoring fish and bird habitats, cleansing toxic sediment, rebuilding sewer lines, removing invasive aquatic species, and taking other steps involved a complex formula dealing with property values.
The authors studied how property valued benefitted from cleanups in individual parts of the region and then applied a similar factor to values for the region as a whole. They also estimated savings from reduced water-treatment costs for municipalities and other factors to derive the estimated economic benefits.
The new report is meant to prompt political leaders to approve paying for the many pieces of a Great Lakes cleanup. At least half of the proposed projects would be paid for by federal taxpayers. The vast bulk of that has yet to be approved by Congress.
Meanwhile, state and local budgets are stressed by the poor Midwest economy, and approving expensive public-works projects could be difficult even with expected future benefits.
For that reason, Buchsbaum stressed that action must be taken as soon as possible, lest the work become more difficult and more expensive.
"The health of the Great Lakes is declining, and in some ways very rapidly," he said.
"All told, then, the localized benefits are substantial, and make a strong case for why restoration of the Great Lakes and its waterways is so vital for the economic competitiveness of the region and its metropolitan areas," the report said.
Contact JOHN GALLAGHER at 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com.
—–
To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com
Copyright (c) 2008, Detroit Free Press
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.