JACK WOLLITZ | Don’t cut funding for Great Lakes

One of the greatest vistas any angler will ever see is that which greets the eyes of the boater clearing the breakwall of a Lake Erie harbor.

It is spectacular. As you throttle up in the open water, Erie is crystal blue most days of the fishing season. Whether I am shoving off from Port Clinton or Conneaut or any port in between, I am speechless when I see the lake. I am reassured the world is good.

For five decades, caring anglers, concerned civic leaders and careful environmental regulators have collaborated to clean up Erie and the other Great Lakes. We have come a long way since Erie was declared dead and the Cuyahoga River burned.

While much remains to be done, Lake Erie is a great place to fish and boat. Anglers hail Erie and flock there to fish. Sadly, however, we still cope with annual algae blooms. Sadder still is that Erie stands to get much dirtier if the new administration in the White House has its way.

The Trump administration’s proposed budget eliminates the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The program is credited with helping clean up municipal, industrial and agricultural pollution throughout the Great Lakes system.

While Congress, not the White House, makes the final decisions on federal appropriations, the fact that slashing the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is even on the table should send shivers up the spines of anglers and all others who value clean water.

The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system in the world.

I remember the days when Lake Erie smelled bad and looked worse. I also know well that huge progress has been made since those days and I cannot stomach the prospects that we might disregard the advancement and slide back to a time when we simply shrugged our shoulders about the price of prosperity including filthy, toxic water.

Anglers should be heartened that Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman have said they will not support a budget bill that fails to provide funding for the continuation of Great Lakes cleanup work. U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan and Bill Johnson are among a bipartisan group of legislators who have signed a letter urging Trump to continue funding the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Hurray for them and for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and our local state legislators, who have been advocates for a clean Lake Erie. They regularly promote opportunities to take interstate and international actions that will improve the quality of the water that drains into the system.

I am among those who have thrilled at the spectacular aerial acrobatics of wild steelhead trout hooked off Ohio’s North Coast. They are fish that anglers spend thousands of dollars to catch in Alaska and our Pacific Northwest. But we have them in huge numbers 60 minutes north of Youngstown.

Each year I make as many trips as possible to experience the world-class smallmouth bass fishing Lake Erie serves up.

Who among readers of this column are not familiar with the amazing fishing on the Walleye Capital of the World? And what about the legendary perch fishing and the neighborhood fish fries that break out when buddies return from a day on the big lake?

Clean water is everything. Even if you don’t fish, you drink water and bath in it.

We cannot take for granted the walleye, bass, trout and perch fishing will be there next year.

It all comes down to clean water. There is no evidence anybody, any community or any industry will be better off if our Great Lakes are allowed to get filthy again.

Fortunately, our congressmen agree. I ask that they do all they can to see that the funding for clean lakes continues.

jack.wollitz@innismaggiore.com