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Great Lakes Today was created to highlight issues affecting the lakes. The main partners are WBFO (Buffalo), ideastream (Cleveland) and WXXI (Rochester).Browse more coverage here. Major funding for Great Lakes Today is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American People. Additional funding comes from the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

Congresswoman Kaptur Hosts Lake Erie Roundtable Tonight

By Elizabeth Miller

Published July 10, 2017 at 4:33 PM EDT

ideastream's Rick Jackson with Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D) in February [Gabriel Kramer / ideastream]

With the fate of federal funding for Great Lakes restoration unclear, Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is hosting a roundtable this evening featuring experts with different environmental backgrounds. Kaptur wants to document local concerns about Lake Erie.

Kaptur co-chairs the Great Lakes Task Force – a bipartisan group within Congress that advocates for Great Lakes issues. Last month, Kaptur invited EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to tour Lake Erie as he testifiedbefore a House subcommittee – he accepted.

And now she’s assembled a group of panelists that include Ohio Sea Grant’s Dr. Jeffrey Reutter and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab’s Deborah Lee. Through the roundtable, Kaptur hopes to have constituent questions answered about everything from the recent discovery of a live Asian carp 9 miles from Lake Michigan to harmful algae blooms.

Kaptur’s office says this evening’s event will also offer citizens an update of the lake’s health – and the threats to regional restoration projects.

And Pruitt’s visit to Lake Erie? It hasn’t been scheduled yet.

The event is at 5:30pm tonight at Rocky River Memorial Hall. It will also be streamed on Facebook Live.