President Joe Biden announced that $1 billion in funding from his bipartisan infrastructure package would go towards cleaning and restoring the Great Lakes from accumulated pollution.

"It's going to allow the most significant restoration of the Great Lakes in the history of the Great Lakes," Biden said during a conference in Lorain, Ohio on Thursday.

The Environmental Protection Agency has declared 43 areas of the Great Lakes as "Areas of Concern” due to contaminated sediments that make the water incapable of fishing and swimming. There are 26 areas in the U.S. and 17 in Canada. Some areas have been “dangerously polluted for decades.”

"We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a better America to ensure that water infrastructure can withstand the impacts of our changing climate, to clean up the legacy toxic pollution and contaminated lands in our overburdened communities," Biden said.

"To create a future where all of our children, regardless of the color of their skin, how much money they have in their pockets, or the ZIP codes that they live in, can play in local rivers and streams without fear of hazard and harm, and to deliver on long overdue justice,” he added.

The funds towards restoring the Great Lakes should allow restoration of at least 22 areas of concern across Wisconsin, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois by 2030.

Biden noted during the conference that the Great Lakes also support more than one million jobs in manufacturing, tourism, transportation, warehousing, farming and fishing, along with providing drinking water to millions.

Biden’s infrastructure plan was signed into law in November and holds $1.2 trillion in funds that he is dedicating to “rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.” This includes waterways, bridges and roads.