COLUMBUS, Ohio — Hundreds of millions of dollars within the Ohio two-year budget will be directed toward clean water and internet access.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed the $75 billion budget with 14 vetoes early Thursday morning, just a few hours past the midnight deadline.
“There’s been this push to improve the water quality, particularly in some of the watersheds like the Lake Erie watershed or you think around Grand Lake St. Mary’s where we’ve had some challenges in terms of algal blooms and such,” said Andy Vance, an agriculture expert said.
The budget calls for $170 million to be used for funding the H2Ohio initiative.
“We have to acknowledge [this] is less than what the governor originally had suggested. He was asking for about $240 million,” he said.
Money will be distributed to the Ohio EPA, Ohio Department of Agriculture, and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources among other agencies.
“About $50 million of those dollars will go to the Department of Agriculture annually for its part of the program,” he said.
Farmers will be able to use the money to improve their agricultural practices with the goal of reducing nutrient runoff.
Meanwhile, $250 million will be used to expand broadband access throughout the state.
“There are just great swaths of the rural part of the state that have no broadband access. I think a lot of us just take that for granted,” Vance said. “If you think about the way we live our lives, the internet, in particular, high-speed internet is sort of the cost of doing business. You almost have to have it for pretty much everything we do,” he said.
Overall, Vance said time will tell if this funding makes a significant difference.
“Farmers definitely respond to incentives,” he said. “On the broadband front, it will be really interesting to see if municipalities do take up the sword and say they do want to provide some of these broadband services for residents in the rural parts of the state or if these additional grants will spur some further investment from the private sector.”
