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Clean Ohio Fund Headed for Fall Ballot

Popular State Conservation Program Benefits All Ohioans

COLUMBUS, OHIO — April 2, 2008 — The Nature Conservancy applauds Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Senate President Bill Harris and House Speaker Jon Husted for an agreement, announced today, that will seek voter approval for a $400 million conservation and brownfields revitalization program known as the Clean Ohio Fund.

“Sixty-five percent of Ohio voters favor renewal of the Clean Ohio bond fund this November,” said Denise Franz King, Director of Government Relations for The Nature Conservancy in Ohio. “Nearly every county has benefitted from this locally driven measure to conserve Ohio’s natural areas and working farms, to build trails, and to revitalize abandoned industrial sites.”

The decision to place the Clean Ohio fund on the Nov. 4 ballot is part of a $1.57 billion job stimulus package announced today by Gov. Strickland and Ohio’s legislative leaders (.pdf).

The Clean Ohio fund is a popular and successful bond program that to date has protected over 26,000 acres of wildlife habitat, more than 20,000 acres of farmland, created 216 miles of recreational trails and cleaned up more than 140 abandoned industrial sites (known as brownfields).

The Nature Conservancy has strongly supported reauthorization of the fund, King said. “The Nature Conservancy is eager to join with Governor Strickland and the leaders of the Ohio General Assembly in a bipartisan coalition to give the voters an opportunity to renew Clean Ohio,” she said.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.