By Rick Spruill, Scripps Howard News Service Houston, Texas
Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, April 2010
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Monday announced a vast, collaborative plan developed by a federal task force to restore the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil spill disaster.
The plan will be kick started by a $50 million infusion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to restore the seven U.S. waterway deltas crucial to the Gulf’s health. Jackson outlined in broad strokes the four-part plan that will take years — and hundreds of millions of federal and private dollars — to implement. It was developed by the Obama administration’s Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force made up of federal officials and leaders from five Gulf Coast states.…