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Tag: Lake Huron

  • Decision to shoot down balloons puts spotlight on hobbyists

    Decision to shoot down balloons puts spotlight on hobbyists

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Decisions to shoot down multiple unidentified objects over the U.S. and Canada this month have put a spotlight on amateur balloonists who insist their creations pose no threat.

    Over the last three weeks, U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered fighter jets to shoot down three objects detected in U.S. air space — a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast as well as smaller unidentified objects over Alaska and Lake Huron. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week ordered another object to be shot down over the Yukon; a U.S. fighter jet carried out that mission.

    U.S. government officials have yet to definitively identify the objects, but Biden said Thursday that they were probably balloons linked to private companies, weather researchers or hobbyists.

    Tom Medlin, the owner of the Tennessee-based Amateur Radio Roundtable podcast and a balloon hobbyist himself, said he’s been in contact with an Illinois club that believes the object shot down over the Yukon was one of their balloons. No one from the club responded to messages left Friday, but Medlin said the club was tracking the balloon and it disappeared over the Yukon on the same day the unidentified object was shot down.

    The incidents have left balloonists scrambling to defend their hobby. They insist their balloons fly too high and are too small to pose a threat to aircraft and that government officials are overreacting.

    “The spy balloon had to be shot down,” Medlin said. “That’s a national security threat, for sure. Then what happened is, I think, the government got a little anxious. Maybe the word is trigger-happy. I don’t know. When they shot them down, they didn’t know what they were. That’s a little concerning.”

    White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday that the Biden administration wasn’t able to confirm reports that the object belonged to the Illinois club. He said the debris has yet to be recovered and “we all have to accept the possibility that we may not be able to recover it.”

    U.S. officials said Friday that they’ve stopped searching for debris from the objects shot down over Alaska and Lake Huron after finding nothing. Search efforts for debris from the Yukon object are ongoing.

    Kirby pushed back at the notion that Biden’s decision to use missiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to shoot down what were most likely balloons that cost less than $20 was an overreaction.

    “Absolutely not,” Kirby said. “Given the situation we were in, the information available, the recommendation of our military commanders — it was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the right time.”

    Medlin said the balloons he’s flying right now cost about $12 and are about 32 inches in diameter.

    The balloons carry solar-powered transmitters that weigh less than 2 grams and that broadcast a signal every 10 minutes or so that ham radio operators around the world can use to track the balloons’ locations, he said. He has a balloon up right now that’s been in the air for 250 days and has circled the globe 10 times, he said.

    The fun is watching the balloon circle the globe and building the tiny transmitters, said Medlin, adding that the devices are so small he needs a microscope to construct them. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been collecting data from ham radio operators to track wind patterns, he said.

    The balloons are so light that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t regulate them and doesn’t require balloonists to file flight plans, Medlin said. He inflates his balloons with enough hydrogen to ensure they’ll fly at about 50,000 feet. That is well above most commercial aircraft, he said.

    Current regulations posted on the FAA’s website state that no one can operate an unmanned balloon in a way that creates a hazard, and agency regulations apply only to balloons that carry a payload of more than four pounds.

    Medlin speculated that after U.S. officials detected the suspected Chinese balloon, they adjusted their radar to pick up very small objects. But the hobbyists’ balloons don’t pose a threat to aircraft, he said.

    “We’re following FAA rules and regulations,” Medlin said. “They’re the experts on whether this should or should not be done. Take a cork and drop it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Is a ship going to hit it? Probably not. And if it did it wouldn’t do any damage to the ship.”

    Ron Meadows co-founded San Jose-based Scientific Balloon Solutions with his son, Lee. He said the company produces balloons as large as 8 1/2 feet in diameter for university and middle school science students. He said those balloons carry a payload weight of around 10 to 20 grams, with transmitters the size of a popsicle stick. Some balloons feature a 20-foot (6-meter) antenna, he said.

    He understands that government officials are trying to keep people safe, he said, but they don’t understand that the balloons are totally benign and there’s no question they’re overreacting. Jet engines likely ingest far larger objects, such as birds, and most pilots probably wouldn’t even know it if they hit a balloon, Meadows said.

    He said he has tried to contact the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to educate officials about the balloons, but that his calls went to voicemail.

    “It would have been nice to get our government the information they needed,” he said.

    Meadows said he anticipates that after this month’s incidents, the FAA will come out with tighter restrictions on balloons. He said he’s not overly concerned, since his balloon business is a side job; he also runs a swimming pool repair service.

    “We are in this (balloon) business more for the students, not for making money,” he said. “This is for education. When we build these things, the time it takes to build them, we can make more at our day job.”

    Medlin said balloons can reach speeds of up to 130 mph (210 kmh) if they get caught up in the jet stream. But Bob Boutin, a Chicago flight instructor, said its unlikely that such balloons pose much of a threat to aircraft.

    Most commercial jets fly between 25,000 and 45,000 feet, below the balloons’ level, he said. Some corporate jets climb higher than 50,000 feet, but at that altitude skies are typically clear with visibility of 20 to 40 miles, Boutin said.

    The White House’s Kirby said that the objects shot down were traveling low enough to pose a risk to civilian aircraft, but Boutin said even at lower altitudes, a small balloon wouldn’t merit a military strike.

    “Birds and planes are a heck of a lot more issue than a balloon would be,” he said. Even if the balloon were to enter a jet engine, “most jets have two engines, and if you lost one, technically it’s an emergency but not one that means the plane is going crash,” Boutin said.

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    Associated Press reporter Aamer Madhani in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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    Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Harm on Twitter.

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  • US ends search for objects shot down over Alaska, Lake Huron

    US ends search for objects shot down over Alaska, Lake Huron

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday that it has ended its search for airborne objects that were shot down near Deadhorse, Alaska, and over Lake Huron on Feb. 10 and 12.

    The statement released late Friday came hours after officials said the U.S. has finished efforts to recover the remnants of the large balloon that was shot down Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina, and analysis of the debris so far reinforces conclusions that it was a Chinese spy balloon.

    Officials said the U.S. believes that Navy, Coast Guard and FBI personnel collected all of that balloon’s debris off the ocean floor, which included key equipment from the payload that could reveal what information it was able to monitor and collect. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said a significant amount of debris was recovered and it included “electronics and optics” from the payload. He declined to say what, if anything, the U.S. has learned from the wreckage so far.

    U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that the recovery operations ended Thursday and the final pieces are on their way to the FBI lab in Virginia for analysis. It said air and maritime restrictions off South Carolina have been lifted.

    Northern Command said later that the decision to end the search for the objects shot down over Alaska and Lake Huron came after the U.S. and Canada “conducted systematic searches of each area using a variety of capabilities, including airborne imagery and sensors, surface sensors and inspections, and subsurface scans, and did not locate debris.” Northern Command said air and maritime safety perimeters were also being lifted at both those sites.

    The announcements capped three dramatic weeks that saw U.S. fighter jets shoot down four airborne objects — the large Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 and three much smaller objects about a week later over Canada, Alaska and Lake Huron. They are the first known peacetime shootdowns of unauthorized objects in U.S. airspace.

    While the military is confident the balloon shot down off South Carolina was a surveillance airship operated by China, the Biden administration has admitted that the three smaller objects were likely civilian-owned balloons that were targeted during the heightened response, after U.S. homeland defense radars were recalibrated to detect slower moving airborne items.

    Much of the Chinese balloon fell into about 50 feet (15 meters) of water, and the Navy was able to collect remnants floating on the surface, and divers and unmanned naval vessels pulled up the rest from the bottom of the ocean. Northern Command said Friday that all of the Navy and Coast Guard ships have left the area.

    On Thursday, President Joe Biden directed national security adviser Jake Sullivan to lead an interagency team to establish “sharper rules” to track, monitor and potentially shoot down unknown aerial objects.

    Meanwhile, key questions about the Chinese balloon remain unanswered, including what, if any, intelligence it was able to collect as it flew over sensitive military sites in the United States, and whether it was able to transmit anything back to China.

    The U.S. tracked it for several days after it left China, said a U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. It appears to have been blown off its initial trajectory, which was toward the U.S. territory of Guam, and ultimately flew over the continental U.S., the official said.

    Balloons and other unidentified objects have been previously spotted over Guam, a strategic hub for the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the western Pacific.

    It’s unclear how much control China retained over the balloon once it veered from its original trajectory. A second U.S. official said the balloon could have been externally maneuvered or directed to loiter over a specific target, but it’s unclear whether Chinese forces did so.

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    Copp reported from aboard a U.S. military aircraft.

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  • Here is what we know about the unidentified objects shot down over North America | CNN Politics

    Here is what we know about the unidentified objects shot down over North America | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A high-altitude object was shot down near Lake Huron on Sunday afternoon, marking the fourth time in just over a week that the US military has taken down objects in North American airspace.

    On Saturday, an unidentified object was downed over northern Canada, a day after another object had been shot down over Alaska airspace by a US F-22. Last weekend, a Chinese surveillance balloon was taken down by F-22s off the coast of South Carolina.

    There’s no indication at this point that the unidentified objects have any connection to China’s surveillance balloon, but it seems that national security officials across the continent remain on edge.

    Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said Sunday that the operation to down the object near Lake Huron was carried out by pilots from the US Air Force and the National Guard.

    CNN initially reported that the object was shot down over Lake Huron based on what sources said to CNN and a public tweet by Republican Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan.

    The object was first detected by the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the US Northern Command over Montana on Saturday night, and fighter aircraft were sent to investigate, a senior administration official told CNN. At the time, those planes did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits, which led NORAD and NORTHCOM to believe it was an anomaly.

    But on Sunday, defense officials reacquired the radar contact and detected the object flying over Wisconsin and then Michigan. The path of the object and its altitude raised concerns that it could pose a threat to civilian aircraft, but it did not pose a military threat to anyone on the ground, the official said. President Joe Biden ordered the object to be shot down.

    Here’s what we know so far:

    Prior to the takedown of the object near Lake Huron, a US official said Sunday there had been caution inside the Biden administration on the pilot descriptions of the unidentified objects shot down over Alaska and Canada due to the circumstances in which the objects were viewed.

    “These objects did not closely resemble and were much smaller than the PRC balloon and we will not definitively characterize them until we can recover the debris, which we are working on,” a National Security Council spokesperson said, referring to the suspected Chinese spy balloon.

    Earlier Sunday, Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh also noted the difference between the incidents.

    “These objects shot down on Friday and Saturday were objects and did not closely resemble the PRC balloon. When we can recover the debris, we will have more for you,” she said Sunday

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC News on Sunday morning that he was briefed by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and that the object shot down over Canada was likely another balloon – as was the high-altitude object downed over Alaska on Friday.

    On Saturday, Canada’s chief of defense staff, Gen. Wayne Eyre, also made mention of a “balloon” when describing instructions given to the team that worked to take down the object.

    The unidentified object that was shot down in Canadian airspace had been tracked since Friday evening, according to a statement from Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder.

    The object was detected by NORAD, and two F-22 fighter jets from Joint Base Elemendorf-Richardson, Alaska, were sent up to monitor the object with the help of the Alaska Air National Guard.

    Analyst thinks this is why more unidentified objects are being spotted

    The object appears to be a “cylindrical object” smaller than the Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down previously, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said at a news conference on Saturday.

    “Monitoring continued today as the object crossed into Canadian airspace, with Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joining the formation to further assess the object,” Ryder’s statement said.

    Eyre said Saturday that “the instructions that were given to the the team was whoever had the first best shot to take out the balloon had to go ahead.”

    US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both approved the shoot-down on Saturday, according to a statement from the White House.

    “President Biden authorized US fighter aircraft assigned to NORAD to conduct the operation and a US F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory in close coordination with Canadian authorities,” the White House statement said. “The leaders discussed the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin.”

    The object was shot down with a AIM-9X missile from a US F-22 – the same missile and aircraft that shot down an unidentified object on Friday, and the Chinese surveillance balloon on February 4.

    “The object was flying at an altitude of approximately 40,000 feet, had unlawfully entered Canadian airspace and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. The object was shot down approximately 100 miles from the Canada-United States border over Canadian territory in central Yukon,” she said.

    Ryder’s statement said that while Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations, the FBI will be “working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

    Sunday’s takedown of the unidentified object near Lake Huron marks the fourth such incident in just over week.

    On Friday, an unidentified object was shot down by a US F-22 over Alaskan airspace after it had been monitored by the US since Thursday evening.

    Pilots gave different accounts of what they observed after coming near the object, a source briefed on the intelligence told CNN; some pilots said it “interfered with their sensors,” but other pilots said they didn’t experience that.

    Colonel Leighton high altitude object nr vpx

    Retired colonel on what he believes ‘high-altitude object’ in Alaska could be

    The object was flying at 40,000 feet, which made it a risk to civilian traffic. That set it apart from the Chinese surveillance balloon, which was traveling “well above commercial air traffic,” Ryder said at the time.

    Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska said Friday, after the unidentified object was shot down over his state, that similar objects have been spotted over Alaska in recent weeks, the Alaska Beacon reported.

    “There were things that were seen on radar but weren’t explained,” the Senate Armed Services Committee member told the publication.

    The Chinese balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last Saturday after traveling across the US. Biden administration officials said it posed little intelligence gathering and military risk.

    It did, however, pose a risk to people and property on the ground if it were to be shot down, as officials said it was roughly 200 feet tall and the payload weighed more than a couple of thousand pounds.

    The US military is still working to recover debris from the balloon on the ocean floor. Ryder said Friday that they have “located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to our further understanding of this balloon and its surveillance capabilities.”

    Notably, the US intelligence community’s method to track China’s fleet of surveillance balloons was only discovered within the last year, six people familiar with the matter told CNN.

    The findings have allowed the US to develop a consistent technical method for the first time, which they have used to track the balloons in near-real time across the globe, the sources said.

    Earlier Sunday, before the shooting down of the object near Lake Huron, lawmakers on Capitol Hill offered a range of responses to the recent developments.

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner told CNN that the Biden administration does appear “somewhat trigger-happy” in how it dealt with objects over the weekend after allowing the first spotted balloon to fly across the country.

    “What I think this shows, which is probably more important to our policy discussion here, is that we really have to declare that we’re going to defend our airspace. And then we need to invest,” the Ohio Republican added. “This shows some of the problems and gaps that we have. We need to fill those as soon as possible because we certainly now ascertain there is a threat.”

    Turner’s Democratic counterpart on the Intelligence panel, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he had “real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows,” before adding, “My guess is that there’s just not a lot of information out there to share.”

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, said Congress needs to investigate why it took so long for the US to catch on to the Chinese government’s use of spy balloons.

    “I do think (Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana) is looking into why it took so long for us, our military, our intelligence, to know about these balloons. That’s something I support. Congress should look at that. That’s the question we have to answer,” he said. “I think our military, our intelligence are doing a great job, present and future. I feel a lot of confidence in what they’re doing. But why, as far back as the Trump administration, did no one know about this?”

    Also Sunday, Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he remains unconvinced by assertions from the intelligence community that he suspected Chinese spy balloon did not seriously damage US national security during its flight across the country.

    “They say they mitigated it, but my assessment – and I can’t get into the detail of the intelligence document – is that if it was still transmitting, going over these three very sensitive nuclear sites, I think if you look at the flight pattern of the balloon, it tells a story as to what the Chinese were up to, as they controlled this aircraft throughout the United States,” the Texas Republican told CBS News.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • ‘Unidentified Object’ Downed Over Lake Huron, 3rd This Week

    ‘Unidentified Object’ Downed Over Lake Huron, 3rd This Week

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said an “unidentified object” has been shot down Sunday for the third time in as many days, this time over Lake Huron, after earlier downings in Alaska and Canada.

    Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., tweeted that “the object has been downed by pilots from the US Air Force and National Guard.” A U.S. official confirmed the shootdown.

    U.S. and Canadian authorities earlier Sunday restricted some airspace over the lake as aircraft were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials on Sunday were trying to precisely identify the latest two objects blown from the sky by F-22 fighter jets during a week of unprecedented incursions over the United States and Canada, carefully working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalate about what Washington says is Beijing’s large-scale aerial surveillance program.

    The object shot down Saturday over the Yukon was described by U.S. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the three school bus-size balloon hit by a missile Feb. 4 while drifting off the South Carolina coast after traversing the country. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.

    Both were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin.

    U.S. officials said the two more recent objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike. They said the Alaska and Canada objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.

    That large white orb first appeared over the U.S. in late January, and since then Americans have been fixated on the sky above them. U.S. authorities made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them.

    On Sunday, the U.S. briefly closed the airspace over Lake Michigan; on Saturday night, that was done over rural Montana. Officials Sunday said they were no longer tracking any objects over those locations.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that U.S. officials were working quickly to recover debris from all the sites. Using shorthand to describe the objects as balloons, he said the U.S military and intelligence officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information, then compiling a comprehensive analysis.

    “The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said of spy program that the administration has linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”

    Eight days ago, F-22 jets downed the large white balloon that had wafted over the U.S. for days at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. U.S. officials immediately blamed China, saying the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals and could maneuver itself. White House officials said improved surveillance capabilities helped detect it.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry’s said the unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course. Beijing said the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down.

    Then, on Friday, North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined U.S.-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected and shot down an object near sparsely populated Deadhorse, Alaska.

    Later that evening, NORAD detected a second object, flying at a high altitude over Alaska, U.S. officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday near the Yukon, a remote province, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered it shot down.

    In both of those incidents, the objects were flying at roughly 40,000 feet, posing a potential threat to civilian aircraft that fly at that height.

    The three cases have increased diplomatic tensions between the United States and China, raised questions about the extent of Beijing’s American surveillance, and prompted days of criticism from Republican lawmakers about the administration’s handling.

    Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the administration was looking “somewhat trigger-happy.”

    “Although that is certainly preferable to the permissive environment they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of most sensitive sites,” Turner, R-Ohio, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    After shootdown last weekend, Chinese officials said they reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”

    Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, urged the administration to be as forthcoming as possible, saying the lack of solid information was fueling online speculation.

    Himes said one thing that was clear from briefings in recent years was “that there is a lot of garbage up there” in the sky.

    “The truth is that most of our sensors and most of what we were looking for didn’t look like balloons,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

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  • Biden’s signature advances major projects in water bill

    Biden’s signature advances major projects in water bill

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    President Joe Biden signed a large defense bill on Friday that includes a water bill that directs the Army Corps of Engineers on major infrastructure projects to improve navigation and protect against storms worsened by climate change.

    The biggest project by far this year is a $34 billion Texas coastal barrier featuring massive floodgates and other structures to protect the Houston region with its concentration of oil refineries and chemical plants, at risk during major hurricanes.

    The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 also includes a $3.2 billion authorization for a new Soo Lock on the St. Marys River which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron.

    Nearly all U.S. iron ore is mined near Lake Superior, but to create steel and build cars, it needs to travel on large vessels through a single, aging Michigan lock that federal officials have called the Achilles’ heel of the North American industrial economy.

    There are two locks operating but only one is big enough to handle the roughly 1,000 feet (305 meters) freighters the industry uses.

    “Everything was built around water transport on the Great Lakes,” said Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of a steel industry group. If the lock fails, it could upend industry and manufacturing, he said. Roads and rail aren’t workable alternatives.

    After years of studies and planning, members of Congress push to include their preferred projects in the water bill, typically every two years. If they are successful, they tout the job creation and local benefits back in their districts. This water bill includes 25 project authorizations.

    Versions of the new Michigan lock have been authorized by Congress before and it is already under construction. But the Army Corps said inflation, design changes and other factors have significantly increased its cost. This year Congress authorized the Corps to spend much more. Some of the money still needs to be allocated. Officials say the new lock should be finished in 2030.

    The new Soo Lock is in Sault Ste. Marie on Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula, about 346 miles (556 kilometers) north of Detroit. The existing Poe Lock is growing older and Army Corps officials don’t want it to be a single point of failure for a critical supply chain.

    “When you have steel components that are in the water for 50 years, they do tend to fatigue and deteriorate,” said Kevin McDaniels, deputy district engineer for the Army Corps Detroit District.

    The Senate voted 83-11 earlier this month to pass the national defense bill. In addition to water infrastructure, it increases spending on defense programs and includes a Republican-favored measure to end COVID-19 vaccination mandates for U.S. service members. It passed the House with broad, bipartisan support.

    The water bill also makes it easier for the Corps to shift toward using wetlands and other nature-based solutions to combat flooding.

    “There is a lot in here that is important for our environment, our economy and for climate resilience,” said Amy Souers Kober, a spokesperson with American Rivers.

    For example, when hurricanes hit, coastal protections can be built with climate change in mind, allowing designers to think about how much seas will rise when they make their plans.

    There are numerous other provisions. The bill improves outreach with tribes, allows the Corps to focus more on water conservation in drought-prone areas and supports ecosystem restoration projects. In Michigan, it shifts more of the costs to the federal government for a project aimed at protecting the Great Lakes from invasive carp.

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    Reporter Corey Williams contributed to this story from Detroit.

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    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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