Congressman Tim Kennedy announced that he has secured $443,000 in federal funding to help Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper assess threats, risks and solutions for addressing issues in the region’s waterways.
The funding will support initiatives focused on collecting and analyzing data from samples collected from Lake Erie’s Eastern Basin, which has problems including nuisance algal blooms, fish contamination and invasive mussel species.
Kennedy says new investments to assess threats and solutions for the Niagara River and Lake Erie watershed are necessary for the future of Western New York.
“We've made incredible progress in cleaning up Lake Erie, once declared dead in the 1960s, but we know that work is far from done,” he said.
Buffalo Niagara Waterway will share localized data and resident feedback with government partners and improve community engagement among students and trained volunteers. Experts say the work is necessary to help identify and communicate threats to residents.
“A lot of times, Waterkeeper gets questions like, Is our water safe? Can I swim in the lake or river? Can I eat the fish? Will I get sick? And the answer is yes, no, maybe, and sometimes it's even, we don't know,” said Jill Jedlicka, executive director of Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper.
Additionally, the funding will also help support the Young Environmental Leaders Program, which provides students with hands-on experience in clean water stewardship that can count as college credits.
“They get real work world experience to understand what it means to be either a professional environmentalist or a conservationist, or if they want to go into engineering or whatever their career paths may take them," Jedlicka said.
This year, STEM-based educational opportunities will be afforded to students at Niagara Falls High School, as well as four Buffalo Public schools: International Preparatory School, Emerson High School, Riverside High School and Burgard High School.
