OK, so you don't look a gift consultant in the mouth, or something like that, but come on: Just how hard was it to figure our that cleaning up the Great Lakes would create an economic boom not seen since the days of beaver hats.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, if the Detroit River was returned to a pristine state property values would soar, people would flock to boat, fish and swim in the river and the increased business and property taxes would pay for the whole thing two times over.
No offense, but duh!
An analysis released by Brookings last month showed the metro Detroit area would see $3.7 billion to $7 billion in economic benefits, Chicago $7.4-$13.3 billion from a Great Lakes project. Cleveland, Milwaukee and the Great Lakes in general would also be big winners.
In fairness to the analysts, it must be said that thinking of Detroit (and some other spots on the Great Lakes) in terms of tourism, fishing, swimming and pricey riverside condos has not been much in vogue for the last 60 or so (maybe 80) years.
But just a few moments of contemplation show the wisdom behind the vision. Some 4.4 million people live within the 3,900-square-mile Detroit metro area. The Detroit River simply a narrow spot between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, after all is a part of the Great Lakes and has long attracted fishermen and boaters who knew where not to go to avoid pollution and toxics.
The river in its pre-industrial state, however, with crystal-clear water, great boating, fishing and swimming, would be a gem of the Midwest.
Remove the pollution and the toxics and tear down the industrial hulks that line the river and what you have left is prime riverfront property with amazing views of downtown Detroit, freighters on the river, the Ambassador Bridge, Belle Isle, marinas and boats galore and a non-urban urban lifestyle.
Imagine doing the same for Cleveland, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Alpena and Duluth, eliminating every sewer that discharges into a river or the Lakes, every buried ounce of mercury or dioxin, every toxic bit of anything humans have dumped into the lakes in the past 400 years or so.
Such an effort could cost as much as $26 billion, Brookings said, but would have a projected payoff of more than $50 billion, or nearly two-to-one. That's a lot of money; given Michigan's near-total lack of clout in congress the Great Lakes states' lack of clout, for that matter we have a better chance of winning that in the lottery than squeezing it out of Washington.
The pity, of course make that the sin is that $26 billion is what we spend on the war in Iraq is just over eight weeks the amount we'll spend from today until July 24 or so.
That's wrong beyond words.
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