Michigan Commits $89 Million to Detroit and Kalamazoo River Cleanup
*LANSING, Mich.* — The state of Michigan has pledged $89 million toward cleaning up the Detroit and Kalamazoo rivers, with much of the funding earmarked for contaminated sediment, habitat restoration, and future river projects.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the "Reclaim the Rivers" initiative in Detroit on Thursday at Belle Isle's Sunset Pointe. Nearly $50 million of the total will go toward the Detroit River, where decades of industrial activity left contamination embedded in the sediment.
State officials say the work along both rivers will take years, with some projects still in the investigation and planning stages before physical cleanup begins.
EGLE Director Phil Roos described the scope of the task and pointed to the size of the rivers and the large areas where contamination still needs to be addressed.
"We have a number of places where we have contamination," Roos said. "I think this is such an important waterway and a big waterway, so there are more pockets where it's happening here than other places."
Roos said the first work will focus on determining the best way to remove or contain contaminated sediment.
"There's an investigation phase where they really have to figure out, 'What's the right strategy?' for picking up the sediment," Roos said. "So that's the first stage, is to get that rolling quickly."
Whitmer said the contamination problems are not unique to Michigan and pointed to PFAS as one example of a pollutant the state has worked to detect and address.
"It's not that it's unique to Michigan," Whitmer said. "Unfortunately, this is a story that's playing out across the country."
The governor said Michigan was among the first states to detect and act on PFAS contamination, adding that increased testing can also uncover problems that have not yet been identified elsewhere.
"We were some of the first to detect and act on PFAS mitigation," Whitmer said. "We're looking for what other states aren't yet."
The Kalamazoo River runs through Kalamazoo County and is a major waterway for the region. Local officials and environmental groups have long pushed for state and federal funding to address decades of industrial contamination along the river's course.