Great Lakes restoration needs our help this week

As News Tribune editorials have been pointing out for nearly a decade, the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative works. And deserves — no, needs — to continue to be allowed to do good.

The initiative has been powering Great Lakes cleanup efforts since the presidency of George W. Bush. With adequate and appropriate funding under President Barack Obama, the initiative has removed mercury and other contaminants from river bottoms and lake bottoms; has made water swimmable, fishable, and even drinkable again; and otherwise has turned environmental disasters into cleanup successes. In Duluth, along the St. Louis River, the initiative has been responsible for the restoration of wild rice beds, sturgeon spawning grounds, and the habitats of piping plover and other nesting birds, among other projects...