Officials Lay Groundwork for Cleanup of Great Lakes
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: December 4, 2004
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - Dozens of officials from the United States and Canada signed a declaration on Friday that outlines a comprehensive plan to clean up the Great Lakes and the major waterways that feed them.
As one of President Bush's major environmental initiatives, the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration combines federal, state, local and tribal resources to broaden the continuing restoration efforts that have lacked such coordination....
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The collaboration sets forth a framework for establishing committees, lines of communication and overarching goals leading to cleaner water - the Great Lakes contain about 20 percent of the world's fresh water supply and serve as a source of drinking water for more than 30 million people in the United States and Canada....
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What the framework does not provide, however, is a financing scheme, asserting that those who signed the declaration acknowledge that participation "is subject to funding availability."...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/04/politics/04lakes.html