Congress Approves Money for Merrimack Valley Project
WASHINGTON — More money for technology improvements may be headed toward Northern Essex Community College if President Bush approves the final budget bill for fiscal year 2003 that Congress passed Thursday.
Congressman Martin T. Meehan, D-Lowell, and Democratic senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry helped secure $200,000 for the college’s technology project. The school is spending $12.5 million to renovate the Technology Training Center at its Lawrence campus, and to build a new technology center for its Haverhill branch. The lawmakers helped get $600,000 for the school last year; Meehan said Thursday that he will keep fighting for more money to fund the program because “it allows students to be better prepared for 21st Century learning.”
In addition to the NECC project, the bill also includes $1 million for the Lowell-Gallagher Intermodal Transportation Center. The money would be used to help complete a new $1.5 million bus transfer hub, and to buy shuttle buses that run on clean fuel.
Meehan, Kennedy and Kerry were also able to get $1 million for the Essex National Heritage Area, a nonprofit organization that covers 500 square miles and encompasses hundreds of historic, cultural and natural resources. Meehan said he worked closely with Congressman John Tierney, D-Mass., to secure the money for the center’s museums, natural resources, after-school programs, and to preserve open space and trails.
Money for cleaning up the Merrimack River and studying its basin is also included in the bill, which the president is expected to vote on today. Approximately $135,000 would go to Lawrence to clean up the part of the river that is being polluted by discharge from the city’s overworked sewer system, and to prevent more raw sewage from seeping into the river. And $400,000 would go to the Army Corps of Engineers to study the Massachusetts and New Hampshire river basins.
Kennedy said he was “gratified that we’ll be able to make these critical investments to help strengthen communities in the region and improve the quality of life for thousands of Massachusetts families.”
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
