By Don Behm
The $7.5 million worth of grants awarded by the Fund for Lake Michigan in its first three years to protect and improve water quality in southeastern Wisconsin have paid financial dividends many times over across the region, according to a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater economic impact analysis.
From restoring neglected stream banks to cleaning up contaminated waterfront properties, the 71 grants supported 480 full-time jobs and injected $35 million into the economy, said economists with UW-Whitewater's Fiscal and Economic Research Center.
The impact doesn't stop at payrolls and spending, the study found. Grant-funded work boosted property values by $45.5 million, more than six times the value of the initial grants.
"Not only are there measurable financial benefits, there is also the social impact of clean water," said Russell Kashian, UW-Whitewater professor of economics and a co-author of the study. "It enhances the quality of life in southeast Wisconsin that, in turn, attracts homeowners and businesses."
Grants included more than $1 million of investments in Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley, from a green roof covered with plants to absorb rain at the Global Water Center to storm water controls at Three Bridges Park, according to Fund for Lake Michigan Executive Director Vicki Elkin. The fund is supporting sturgeon restoration in the Milwaukee River and redevelopment of the Root River waterfront near downtown Racine.
The Fund for Lake Michigan was established in 2008 to resolve legal disputes over the environmental impacts of constructing the Oak Creek power plant. Under an agreement, We Energies is to provide payments to the fund of $4 million a year from 2011 through 2035.
Elkin said the organization contracted with UW-Whitewater to assess impacts of its grants after three years.
The study also found those grants helped communities, land trusts, nonprofit groups and others raise an additional $35 million in support of their projects, said Linda Reid, director of UW-Whitewater's Institute for Water Business and a study co-author.
One example is a $500,000 grant to the Genomics Center at the UW-Milwaukee's School of Freshwater Sciences. The cash helped pay for purchases of genetic technology — the next generation of gene sequencing tools — that, in turn, attracted new research grants, Elkin said.
Elkin described the cumulative, on-the-ground impact of the fund's grants as: "Restored more than 70 miles of degraded waterways to popular locations for fishing and other recreation; restored 100 acres of wetland creating high-quality wildlife habitat and reducing flooding downstream; made improvements at 25 public parks; revitalized waterfronts and transformed polluted and neglected land into parks and sites for new development; and advanced locally-developed technologies and products to reduce flooding and keep polluted storm water runoff from entering our waterways."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/grants-to-help-water-quality-having-real-impact-study-finds-b99302071z1-265322461.html
