Federal funding cuts could hurt lakeshore conservation efforts
The Trump administration has a proposal in the works to cut NOAA's budget by billions of dollars to get rid of its climate research branch, . Congress would need to approve such a move, but if it happens, scientists are anxious about what it will mean for their research and cleanup efforts. The Department of Government Efficiency has already made massive job cuts at NOAA, which forecasters have said could result in dangerously less accurate weather forecasts.
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Kathy Evans is a board member for the Muskegon Lake Watershed with decades of experience in conservation, natural resources, and restoration. She said her team has been working to have NOAA declare the places where rivers empty into Lake Michigan as estuaries. The proposed funding cuts could put that at risk.
'It's important for us because Muskegon Lake, for example, and White Lake are areas of concern. They've been cleaned up, but there are other estuaries coming into eastern Lake Michigan that need cleanup, need science to better figure out how to manage these resources. If we don't get that information through the Estuary Program, we won't know how to manage our natural resources well,' Evans explained.
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Evans is also concerned about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. This is a comprehensive federal program launched in 2010 to accelerate efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes — the largest system of fresh surface water in the world. Led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in collaboration with 15 other federal agencies, the GLRI addresses the most significant environmental challenges facing the Great Lakes ecosystem, including invasive species and toxic substances.
The GLRI has invested roughly $4.9 billion from 2010 to 2024, with an another $800 million from 2022 to 2025 under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The investments have led to significant environmental improvements, including restoration and protection of over 80,000 acres of coastal wetlands and other habitats, reopening more than 1,000 miles of rivers and streams for fish passage and implementation of projects on more than 11,500 acres to control invasive species.
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It has also played a crucial role in reducing phosphorus runoff — a key contributor to harmful algal blooms — by more than 2 million pounds through 2020, according to the GLRI.
GLRI is up for renewal in congress this year. Evans worries not renewing it in full could affect important projects along our lakeshore.
'Things that would stop would be invasive species control resiliency, stopping erosion on the shorelines. Fish and wildlife habitat would be impacted. Contaminated sediments would not be cleaned up, and that affects our drinking water, our public health, our recreation, our commercial fishery, everything,' she said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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