About 300 experts from state, federal and tribal agencies are meeting in Milwaukee to grade the health of the Great Lakes.
Val Klump is the senior scientist at the UW-Milwaukee's Great Lakes Water Institute. He says if the lakes received a letter grade it would have to be a "D".
Klump says the biggest threats to the Great Lakes ecosystem are pollution and invasive species. These aren't new problems, so why haven't they been addressed?
Resources, he says, are the main problem. Cleaning up pollution is expensive but Klump says it would be an exaggeration to say nothing is being done. They've done a great deal, particularly in Milwaukee, on cleaning up what materials are dumped into Lake Michigan and they're proud of that.
The biggest battle Klump says may be against zebra mussels and other invasive species.
Klump says if resources were being spent on the lakes like they are on restoring the Florida Everglades, the Great Lakes would be much healthier.
