State Senators Theresa Gavarone, whose district includes Ottawa County, and Kenny Yuko of Richmond Heights, introduced Senate Joint Resolution 2 recently, providing a long-term solution for H2Ohio funding.

H2Ohio is a statewide watershed planning and management program, established in 2019, to coordinate and build upon the shared efforts of state and local partners to improve water quality throughout Ohio.

The resolution creates a $1 billion bond to be disbursed over 10 years for water quality improvement projects throughout Ohio.

“As an early advocate of the H2Ohio program, I am proud of its massive success in cleaning up our waterways. However, the reality is this funding could disappear at any time,” Gavarone said. “We need a bipartisan, long-term funding plan solely focused on water quality improvement projects in Lake Erie and other bodies of water across the state, and Senate Joint Resolution 2 will help make that happen.”

If approved by Ohio voters, the money would be used towards the improvements of water treatment  and wastewater treatment systems, water quality research, reducing open lake disposal of dredged material into Lake Erie and other bodies of water, agricultural best management practices including water resource management, watershed restoration, soil and water conservation and other sewer and water capital improvements.