Protecting Great Lakes is an investment in the future

Some disasters can be avoided, but not on the cheap.
The federal government has responded to natural disasters at home and abroad, recognizing the obvious need to help people and to rebuild infrastructure after the fact. It's not always easy finding the money, but Washington normally does.
What Washington is less likely to do, however, is find the money that is necessary to avert a disaster.
So it is with the Great Lakes, one of the nation's most important natural resources.
The lakes are subject to potential disasters that would have enormous economic and social repercussions.
Pollution from myriad sources continues to flow into the lakes every day. There are oxygen-depleted dead zones in the lakes. And there is the threat from the Asian carp, a voracious fish capable of devouring other aquatic life in the lakes and upsetting the ecological balance as no other invasive species has before. The damage the Asian carp could do would make the invasion of zebra mussels look like a minor inconvenience.
Virtually everyone in politics in the Great Lakes region acknowledges the existing and potential problems facing the lakes and agree that action is necessary. But it is a bigger problem than any state, province or city can tackle. In Washington, too, there is acknowledgment of the potential problems, but Washington, the only governmental entity big enough to begin tackling those problems before they reach crisis proportions, appears to be only willing to pay lip service.
Ready to announce
Governors, mayors, Indian tribes and others along the lakes are going to announce their 15-year plan to clean up and protect the Great Lakes Dec. 12 in Chicago. The plan is more than a year in the making and at one time seemed to have President Bush's backing.
It is not cheap. Over 15 years, it would cost an estimated $20 billion.
That's a fraction of what the federal government will end up spending on hurricane reconstruction in the Gulf states over a much shorter period of time, but the White House is saying it has no additional money for the Great Lakes.
Ohio obviously, is a key state among Great Lakes states. It might do well for the White House to recall that Ohio has also been a key political state, and is likely to continue to be so. Gov. Bob Taft and U.S. Sens. Mike DeWine and George Voinovich all support funding for the Great Lakes initiative.
But the White House shouldn't respond to the needs of the Great Lakes out of political expediency. It should respond because protecting the Great Lakes is the moral thing to do and it is the responsible thing to do.
Preventing a disaster such as an invasion by Asian carp or expanding dead zones will cost pennies on the dollar, compared to the expense of responding to an ecological disaster after it happens.
The needs of the Great Lakes were real before the disasters of this fall struck the Gulf states and they are real now. The White House should do the smart thing -- the conservative thing -- and invest in preventative measures now.