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Session Summary: Chemicals Policy in the Great Lakes
This workshop will explore state-level Green Chemistry initiatives and chemicals policy reform efforts, which aim to protect public health and the ecosystems in the Great Lakes basin. Participants will learn how chemicals policy is an integral aspect of Great Lakes restoration, and how green chemistry fits into this discussion. Lead Organization/Person: Lin Kaatz Chaary Presenters: … Continue reading
Session Summary: Creating a Paradigm Shift…Putting the Buffalo River First!!
The Buffalo River is on a path of restoration. Learn how diverse partnerships for river dredging, habitat restoration, sewer abatement, economic recovery and master planning, tourism, and recreational opportunities have been formed to make Buffalo River ecological restoration a top priority for all stakeholders. Buffalo Niagara RiverKeeper, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Buffalo … Continue reading
Session Summary: Getting Results: Implementing & Monitoring Habitat Restoration Projects
This session will engage participants by providing an overview of best practices related to habitat restoration implementation and project monitoring in the Great Lakes. Participants will come away with a better understanding of various restoration implementation and monitoring techniques, and will hear about lessons learned from Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant recipients. Lead Organization/Person: NOAA … Continue reading
Offshore Wind in the Great Lakes Session
As Mike Murray described during the panel session “Offshore Wind: Balancing efficiency and accountability,” we have world-class winds in the Great Lakes. Yet, we only have one active plan for Great Lakes wind and currently no offshore wind production. Why is that? Well, we have governing questions, conservation questions and more. The proposed solutions? The … Continue reading
Session Summary: Economic Impact Studies: Practical Tips & Examples
Using four case studies, this workshop will help participants interpret, compare and use economic assessment tools based on public datasets, existing economic studies and targeted surveys. Environmental economists will identify the strengths of the approaches used in example projects and help answer questions from the audience. Lead Organization/Person: Michigan Sea Grant Presenters: Moderator: Chi-Ok … Continue reading
Session Summary: Conservation Results for Public-Private Partnerships
Innovative public-private partnerships are delivering substantial conservation and restoration successes in the Detroit River and western Lake Erie. This workshop will share lessons from: soft shoreline engineering; transformation of an industrial brownfield into a Refuge Gateway; construction of a sturgeon spawning reef; and growth of an International Wildlife Refuge. Lead Organization/Person: Fish and Wildlife Service … Continue reading
Study of how to separate Lake Michigan from Mississippi River basin is nearing completion
If you’re worried about Asian carp invading the Great Lakes, mark this date on your calendar: January 2012. That’s when the Great Lakes Commission will release the results of a much anticipated, privately funded study of how to re-engineer the Chicago Waterway System to keep Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan. The $2 million Great … Continue reading
Justice for All, Not Just Us: Fighting Environmental Racism and Greening the Great Lakes
Environmental racism has an ugly history in the Great Lakes region. The Detroit trash incinerator is a textbook example. It’s an inefficient waste burning inferno plaguing a mostly African-American community with mercury, dioxins, heavy metals and other airborne toxics that will eventually settle into the Great Lakes. One woman attending a breakout session on the … Continue reading
HOW hosts Great Lakes Week reception at the Detroit Institute of Arts
Nearly 500 Great Lakes Week participants gathered at the Detroit Institute of Arts Wednesday evening to relax after a long day of field trips and presentations.
Emerging Contaminants: A Toxic Cocktail You Won’t Find in a Bar
Environmental and public health threats are common themes in breakout sessions at the Great Lakes Restoration Conference, and some of those threats may come from your medicine cabinet. Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and agricultural runoff are just some of the things forming a vast chemical soup in the Great Lakes. This toxic cocktail is full of emerging … Continue reading
Vulnerability Assessments Make Decisions Easier in a Changing Climate
Only a few short miles from Al Gore’s speech on climate change and its effects the economy, Melinda Koslow (NWF), Jill Ryan (Freshwater Future), and Jennie Hoffman (EcoAdapt) spoke on a different aspect of climate change planning – the importance of incorporating climate adaptation into restoration projects. Planning to adapt to climate change can enhance … Continue reading
Silver Creek Super Project and the Freeing of the Brook Trout
Patrick Ertel from Huron Pines talked to us about a stream restoration project in the Ocqueoc River Watershed in Presque Isle County, NE Michigan. The Silver Creek Super Project is a holistic approach to restoration, bringing in lots of different efforts. It reconnects 7 miles of high quality habitat, removes 100 tons of annual sediment … Continue reading
Session Summary: Reducing Vulnerability of Restoration Projects to Climate Change
How do we protect our ecological restoration investments for the long-term? This workshop will guide managers through “climate-smart” restoration efforts, efforts that restore for future conditions in addition to past conditions. In this workshop we will interactively apply impacts of climate change from the most current scientific findings to examples of restoration efforts from throughout … Continue reading
Successful restoration projects in Cleveland
Ivette Bolender and Paul Kovalcik from Biohabitats, Inc. are talking about two restoration projects in Cleveland, Ohio at Nine Mile Creek and Big Creek Chevy Branch. Both of these creeks flow into Lake Erie. Nine Mile Creek is on the east side of Cleveland in South Euclid in Congresswoman Marcia Fudge’s district. They planted 14,000 … Continue reading
Implementing the Great Lakes Compact: Proof is in the Pudding
In 2008, the states and provinces surrounding the Great Lakes celebrated a monumental victory by passing the Great Lakes Compact, which bans diversions of Great Lakes water outside of the region. Today, a number of experts on the Great Lakes Compact discussed the regional efforts to ensure states around the Great Lakes are doing their … Continue reading
Session Summary: Great Lakes Waste and Environmental Justice
The Detroit trash incinerator is the symbol of environmental racism in the heart of the Great Lakes. It was conceived in the 1970s, paid for, designed and constructed in the 1980s, and has been operating ever since (with brief interruptions) at the rate of about 800,000 tons of trash per year, in an African-American community … Continue reading
Session Summary: Using IMPLAN for Conservation Economic Impacts
This workshop will show how IMPLAN, an impact modeling tool, has been and continues to be used to conduct economic impact analysis on Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funds distributed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in targeted Great Lakes watersheds. The presentation will also highlight ways to use IMPLAN results to show multiplier effects and … Continue reading
Session Summary: Project Prioritization and Stream Restoration Success
The Silver Creek Super Project, in the Ocqueoc River Watershed (Presque Isle County, Mich.), embodies how locally driven efforts lead to broad partnerships and collaboration, successfully accomplishing full restoration of this highest quality tributary by treating stream impacts, invasive species, erosion, and by promoting many other conservation techniques. Protecting and restoring sensitive coldwater ecosystems is … Continue reading
Session Summary: Multiple Societal Benefits of Large Scale Restoration
This workshop highlights successful large scale, on-the-ground restoration efforts in several priority areas of the Great Lakes. Strategies will be shared for planning, financing, and articulating results from restoration projects in order to bring multiple societal benefits. Participants will brainstorm the next level of restoration impacts we would like to see from the Great Lakes … Continue reading
Session Summary: Emerging Contaminant Threats and the Great Lakes
Chemical contaminants form a vast chemical soup in the Great Lakes, and from available data, we know exposure may be cause for concern. This workshop will discuss the threat of “emerging contaminants” in the Lakes, as well as give an overview of research, policy implications and recommendations for moving forward. Lead Organization/Person: Alliance for the … Continue reading