Didn't know where to put it - I looked up on the search for everything regarding great lakes and didn't find the topic - I know there is one somewhere since this has been discussed before.

 

President Obama quietly signs landmark Great Lakes clean-up bill

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Without fanfare, President Barack Obama has okayed a large cash infusion to help clean up the Great Lakes, quietly signing a bill that was years in the making and marks a rare bipartisan milestone.

 

The former senator from Illinois, which borders Lake Michigan, did it on Friday. Few people knew about it until Monday.

 

That’s because the measure with $475 million for the Great Lakes was part of a broader spending bill that included money for other projects, including $4 million with which to buy additional property for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2009/11/president_obama_quietly_signs.html

We could help them tremendously by choosing to not use lawn chemicals (which Cleveland is doing on the Mall, aside from every other Mr. Jones doing it in neighborhoods) Choosing not to pitch trash onto the street (which eventually can get into the lakes)...butts and those disgusting Black and Mild plastic tips....and such wouldn't cost a dime! 

Scientists Turn Their Gaze Toward Tiny Threats to Great Lakes

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

December 14, 2013

NORTH EAST, Pa. — The newest environmental threat to the Great Lakes is very, very small.

 

Tiny plastic beads used in hundreds of toiletries like facial scrubs and toothpastes are slipping through water treatment plants and turning up by the tens of millions in the Great Lakes. There, fish and other aquatic life eat them along with the pollutants they carry — which scientists fear could be working their way back up the food chain to humans.

 

Scientists have worried about plastic debris in the oceans for decades, but focused on enormous accumulations of floating junk. More recently, the question of smaller bits has gained attention, because plastics degrade so slowly and become coated with poisons in the water like the cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs.

 

“Unfortunately, they look like fish food,” said Marcus Eriksen, executive director of the 5 Gyres organization, speaking of the beads found in the oceans and, now, the lakes. His group works to eliminate plastic pollution.

 

...

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/scientists-turn-their-gaze-toward-tiny-threats-to-great-lakes.html?ref=us&_r=0