President Barack Obama's proposed funding for continued cleanup of the Great Lakes has received politically correct responses from conservationists who wish he had offered more but know — in this economic climate — that he could have offered less.

Obama's budget includes $300 million for the continued fight against invasive species, including the Asian carp, and a 20 percent reduction in funding for infrastructures aimed at controlling sewage runoff.

It's a package that Jordan Lubetkin, spokesman for Healing Our Waters — a coalition of environmental groups focused on Great Lakes restoration — gives a passing grade and is likely to survive congressional review. He's confident the money will be part of the federal budget because there is unanimous bipartisan support for Great Lakes restoration from the congressional delegation representing the Great Lakes states.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, told me Thursday that although Obama's budget has been declared dead on arrival, he will work with elected officials from the Great Lakes states to make sure effective programs to restore the Great Lakes are adequately funded.

Lubetkin is confident. "You can't take any budget for granted, but I think we're in pretty good shape," he said.

Seemingly in good shape is the ongoing goal of cleaning up the Fox River. The pearl in the budget for Northeastern Wisconsin is the federal government's decision to nurture three Great Lakes watersheds that suffer under the effect of runaway phosphorous levels. These include the Maumee River in Ohio, the Saginaw River in Michigan and the Fox River in Green Bay.

Bill Hafs, Brown County's land conservation director, doesn't know how much money will come this way to reduce the impact of phosphorous in the river, but he knows this is a major step forward for the river and Lake Michigan.

"If you've ever seen the water (in downtown Green Bay) in August, the color is pea green," he said. "There are so many nutients and you have little clarity. That impacts the whole ecosystem."

The ripple effect of a cleaner river would affect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredging of the river's navigation channel that is necessary to get Great Lakes ships into the harbor.

The major source of the phosphorus is the runoff from agricultural fields, a problem that additional funding would address.

There's reason for optimism as two Great Lakes Restoration grants awarded two years ago have proven successful here. One provided buffer strips along the Baird Creek waterway to reduce the amount of phosphorous getting into the water. The other was improvement of the west shore northern pike habitat that when completed will help produce 20,000 pike per year in just one acre. Tourism wins with those results.

Hafs still has to submit an application for the money to go to work on the phosphorous problem. But it's clear the issue has the attention of the people who can make it happen.

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