Date: August 8, 2009
Contact: Kendra Barkoff (202) 208-6416
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Congressman David Obey today highlighted more than $116,000 in projects at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore funded under President Obama’s economic recovery package that will bring jobs and economic growth to Wisconsin. Overall, the Department of the Interior is investing more than $29 million across Wisconsin in projects in wildlife refuges, national park units, scientific research facilities, and on tribal lands.
Investment in the park under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed earlier this year by the president includes $41,170 to install 200 feet of permanent railings improve 500 feet of trail at the historic brownstone quarries on Basswood and Stockton Islands and $76,995 to repair yards of washed out trail and construct a boardwalk on Oak Island.
Salazar also highlighted $5 million to rehabilitate the park’s lighthouses that was included in the parks’ 2009 budget due to Obey’s efforts in Congress.
“President Obama and Congressman Obey have made a strong commitment to both the working people of the United States and to our national parks to create jobs while strengthening our National Park System,” Salazar said. “The investments we are making in Wisconsin and here at the Apostle Islands will help us weather the current economic crisis while improving the park so that generations that follow can enjoy the same experiences with which we are blessed today.”
Nationwide, the National Park System will undertake 750 projects with an investment o $750 million in the president’s economic recovery package. All the projects announced today are long-standing priorities of the National Park Service based on its capital planning process.
Secretary Salazar has pledged unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability in the implementation of the Department of the Interior’s economic recovery projects. The public will be able to follow the progress of each project on the recovery web site and at www.interior.gov/recovery. The website includes an interactive map that enables the public also to follow where and how the department’s recovery dollars are being spent.
