Atop one of the world’s tallest freshwater sand dunes in northern Michigan’s Benzie County there’s a place to marvel–dawn or dusk–at the magnificence of the Lake Michigan shoreline.
The view encompasses Betsie Bay, where the state-protected natural river of the same name empties into the sparkling clean shallows between Frankfort and Elberta. A wide sand beach stretches for miles north and south, a dun-colored threshold defining the space between the big lake’s crystal-clear blue waters and the green forests that drape the summits of even taller dunes.
This spectacle of nature, where color and texture merge into a source of enduring inspiration, is no accident. Here and across the Great Lakes, well-constructed and enforced laws and public investment over the last half century of more than $30 billion secured the region’s land and water, replacing decades of exploitation and contamination with new national parks, expanded state and federal forests, and state-protected natural rivers. Fisheries were restored, wastewater treatment was modernized, and sediments were scrubbed of toxic chemicals.
Taking advantage of the respite in poison and harm, Mother Earth spread her healing power to produce an inviting natural landscape full of life and economic opportunity. In short, what happened in Benzie County–just as what’s occurred in countless other beautiful places across the Great Lakes–reflects what is possible when a region and a nation recognize the monstrous damage to sacred natural resources and take the steps necessary to repair and protect them.
Threat from the White House
But this year, the constructive union of biology, ecology, and policy that produced one of the largest and most successful regional environmental restoration projects on Earth is encountering a new and menacing force. A strange and unnatural law of political physics is taking shape in Washington, apparently designed to halt a government program that is steadily yielding profoundly important ecological improvement and astonishing economic strength.
Let’s call it President Trump’s Law of Miserable Motion. Somehow the president sees Great Lakes healing as a project meriting disgust and disdain. The president proposes deep cuts in federal support for Great Lakes projects that will push the restoration program seriously off course. Every citizen and Great Lakes lawmaker that cares about clean water, healthy landscapes, and thriving communities needs to intervene to prevent the president’s irresponsible budget. Our job is to defend a government-led cleanup that has been moving in the right direction and producing economic prosperity for nearly six decades.
An analysis of the president’s fiscal year 2026 budget by Healing Our Waters, a coalition of environmental, conservation, recreation, and community organizations, identified the extent of damage the president is promoting. These are the proposed cuts in federal environmental programs, all of which affect Great Lakes restoration projects.
The administration wants to cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget to just under $5 billion, 54.5 percent less than this year. The showcase Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a 16-year-old project to remove toxic wastes from sediments, limit invasive species, and restore habitat will receive $368 million, more than $100 million less than the amount Congress authorized last year.
About half of the slashed EPA budget encompasses projects that reduce pollution and modernize drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. Both programs are proposed to be cut roughly 90 percent.
If approved by Congress, similar cuts of 90 percent are in store for programs put in place to reduce toxic chemical and nutrient runoff into streams, and state grants that support shoreline and wetland restoration. The EPA budget for enforcing environmental laws faces a 50 percent reduction.
That’s just the EPA. The president proposes a nearly 40 percent cut for the U.S. Geological Survey, 32 percent cut for the U.S. Forest Service, 37 percent cut for the National Park Service, and reducing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget by $1.5 billion, or 22 percent. Since 2010 NOAA by itself has overseen projects that restored 5,100 acres of wild habitat and opened 520 miles of streams to fish migration. Under Trump’s proposed budget that useful and durable work would be curbed, and perhaps brought to a close.
Not Thought Out at All
What President Trump proposes is infuriating because it’s so misguided. Remember this. Sixty years ago, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and Sen. Phil Hart of Michigan collaborated to attract attention to pollution occurring across Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes and begin drawing up new policy and investment to end their degradation.
The magnificent scene that unfolds from atop that Benzie County dune exemplifies their expansive vision of restoration. It wouldn’t have happened without the work of thousands of federal personnel, thousands more environmental program staffers from eight states, and tens of thousands of citizens. Great Lakes restoration, in short, displays the capability of government to rally support, achieve uncommon results, and stay at it across generations and administrations, regardless of political affiliation. With each accomplishment–a harbor cleaned, a fishery restored, a shoreline park established–public approval increased and more investment occurred.
The payoff: Clear water. Clean beaches. Bottomlands scrubbed of toxic chemicals. Thriving fisheries. Wetland sanctuaries for all manner of wildlife. New national parks. Protected forests. And a thriving recreational economy that rejects environmental exploitation.
Attention, citizens of the Great Lakes. We must raise our individual and collective voices. Express loud and clear our alarm and disapproval. The goal: eliminating the president’s irresponsible budget and safeguarding restoration projects that endow all of our lives with natural beauty and pleasure.
