But more than five years later, not much has been done to support the Great Lakes and Ken DeBaussaert, director of the Michigan Office of the Great Lakes, said the Bush Administration was never supportive of funding for Great Lakes restoration.

"The difficulty of that term 'restore' is, 'What are you restoring it to?'" he said. "Clearly we won't be able to restore the Great Lakes to pre-European conditions. We want to restore the Great Lakes to an environment that is sustainable."

In 2005, a recommendation strategy report released by the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration outlined recommendations and solutions to restore the Great Lakes that would cost $23 billion. It is the same plan that President Barack Obama is currently supporting.

DeBaussaert said the same GLRC strategy could provide an economic return between $80-$100 billion, a definite boost to a slumping economy, especially in Michigan.

DeBaussaert said much of the funding had come from national programs. Paradoxically, it took the country's recession, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed last month, to create the $475 million budget for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The initiative would target problems such as invasive species, runoff pollution, degraded wildlife habitat and contaminated bottomlands.

"In many respects," he said, "the funding is not only for the cleanup, but for preventative measures to keep the lakes in good condition."

Roger Gauthier, program director of the Great Lakes Commission, said the funding is welcomed news but long overdue.

"It's a portion of the funding we've been pursuing for the last five to six years - aggressively pursuing in Congress," he said.

DeBaussaert said the $475 million budget supported by the Obama administration and enacted by Congress will not only benefit the Great Lakes, but create jobs and a stable economic return. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said last month that the initiative could create up to 265,000 jobs.

Gauthier said $475 million is a lot, yet is still far from the $23 billion the GLRC strategy calls for.

Zebra mussels

The biggest impact to the health of the Great Lakes' condition is the invasion of non-native species, notably the zebra mussel, DeBaussaert said.

In the 1980s, zebra mussels were identified in the eastern parts of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Recently, zebra mussels have even been identified across the country.

"It could be from people pulling their boats out of one lake and going somewhere else and putting their boat in another lake," DeBaussaert said of the possible country-wide spread of mussels.

Another big problem is contaminated ballast water from ships, DeBaussaert said. When ships load cargo, it takes water into ballast tanks to maintain the ship's stability. When ships unload its cargo elsewhere, it releases the ballast water. Mussels and whatever else was in the water released from ballast tanks then contaminates the new waters.

The zebra mussel is a clam-like shell that is native of the Black and Caspian seas. They can grow from the size of a fingernail to two inches across. They spread virally because female mussels can produce between 30,000 and 1 million eggs per year.

Even invasive vegetation agitates both humans and animals. Phragmites is a common weed that has grown rampant in the Saginaw Bay area and spreading rapidly along lakeshores all over the Great Lakes. It can grow up to 15 feet tall and virtually crowds out species from habitats along the lake.

Gauthier said the funding comes at a crucial time.

"We were rapidly reaching a point where native species were at risk of being endangered," he said.

metro@cm-life.com