Unfortunately, both the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) and the Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection Act (H.R. 4755/S. 3073) face uncertain futures. Congress is threatening to sharply cut the GLRI from $475 million to $300 million, or less. At the same time, it is unclear whether lawmakers will vote on the Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection Act at all.

ASHLAND, Wis. – Northland College has received a third Environmental Protection Agency grant to fund restoration and outreach initiatives for the Lake Superior Binational Forum. The grant, made possible through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, will fund four projects throughout the Lake Superior basin over the next two years.

Northland College has been home to the U.S. offices of the Binational Forum since 1992 through the Sigurd Olson Environment Institute. “The Forum has been funded through the EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office to conduct quarterly public meetings around the lake and collect public input from lake users,” said Lissa Radke, Lake Superior Binational Forum coordinator at Northland College. “This additional funding will allow the Forum to reach tens of thousands more people in basin communities in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario with our printed materials. The funds will extend our current outreach from about 20 main communities to almost 100 communities basin-wide as we celebrate annual events such as Lake Superior Day and as we recruit thousands of new stewards who want to volunteer in local programs.”

Projects funded through the Northland College chapter of the Lake Superior Binational Forum at Northland College grant include:

• Lake Superior Stewards Project to Build Watershed Capacity, a program to identify, recruit and train volunteers to undertake special projects to support the health of Lake Superior
• The Forum will develop a Bernie the Burn Barrel travelling display, which will highlight the environmental hazards posed by burn barrel use, including the release of dioxin which is a major pollutant affecting Lake Superior. The display will be available to agencies and organizations in the United States and Canada, including libraries, visitor centers, schools and other public locations.
• Climate Change Outreach to Watersheds through Webinars and Collaborations. The Binational Forum will organize and conduct two free webinars for local government officials and operators to inform these groups about how to prepare for changes their communities will face as Lake Superior undergoes environmental changes.
• Education/Outreach on Lakewide Management Plan Priorities. Since 2004, the Binational Forum has organized an annual, lake-wide celebration of Lake Superior. Funding from the GLRI grant will be used to design, print and distribute 250,000 informational placemats to restaurants and other venues to highlight lake issues and actions.

The Lake Superior Binational Forum has served as the principal public body linking the binational and tribal governments responsible for implementing the Lake Superior Binational Program and its Lakewide Management Plan with lake users. The Forum is composed of Canadian and American stake-holders representing multiple perspectives from locations all around the lake including environmental, Tribal/First Nations, industrial, business, recreational, tourism, health, labor, and academic interests.

Northland College and its Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute are located in Ashland, Wis., near the shores of Lake Superior. Northland’s distinctive environmental liberal arts program, passionate faculty, and beautiful natural location create a community of engaged learners who develop the skills and experience to prepare for advanced studies and meaningful lives. Founded in 1892, Northland enrolls 600 students from across the nation and across the world. For more information about Northland College and its Institute, visit www.northland.edu.

“Northland understands the exceptional responsibility we now carry as recipients of these vital public funds,” said Marc Barbeau, vice president for institutional advancement at Northland College. “We will work to ensure the expectations of the public, the EPA, and the elected officials who have expressed their support for these projects, including Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and Representative Dave Obey, are met and exceeded during each part of the workplans.”

Five of the fourteen CBAP partners will work to administer portions of the project. Agencies and organizations participating under the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership Habitat Restoration Project include the Ashland County Land and Water Conservation Department, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Iron County land and Water Conservation Department, the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute and the United States Geological Survey.

In addition to the federal dollars to be used in restoration activities, members of the partnership have contributed funding equal to 10 percent of the federal investment. Individual projects within the grant will reduce erosion and sedimentation through proper design and replacement of degraded culverts and will restore connectivity of tributaries to Lake Superior by removing structural impediments to fish and other aquatic organisms. This proposal incorporates planning, design, implementation, and monitoring of sediments.

Author and environmental historian Dr. Nancy Langston will speak in Ashland, Wis. on Thursday, October 7 and Friday, October 8 as part of the Van Evera Lecture series, a program of Northland College.

On Thursday, Dr. Langston will present “Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Struggles for Healthy Watersheds and Communities” at the Presbyterian Congregational Church, located at 214 Vaughn Avenue, in Ashland. The event will begin at 7 p.m. and will be open to the public free of charge. The music trio Take 3 will perform folk and acoustic music. Copies of the author’s book Toxic Bodies will be available for sale and signing.

Dr. Langston is one of the world’s foremost environmental historians and the author of several books, including her most recent, Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES. An exploration of synthetic chemicals and their impact on human and environmental health, Toxic Bodies has been praised by noted environmental author William Cronon as a “fascinating book,” and “a cautionary tale with profound implications for us all.”

In addition to her writing accolades, Dr. Langston is a professor in the department of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a joint appointment in the Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. A celebrated educator and researcher, Dr. Langston has been the recipient of fellowships from the Marshall Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Humanities Center, The American Philosophical Society and the American Council of Learned Societies. Her first book, Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares, won the 1997 Forest History Society Prize for best book in forest and conservation history.

“Chemical pollution is a complex subject, and Langston does a masterful job tracing the interconnected threads of politics, science, cultural norms, and human behavior. The lessons she draws from the case of DES are urgently needed to understand carbon emissions regulation and the ongoing regulation of pesticides and endocrine disruptors,” said Clare Hintz, sustainability coordinator and environmental educator at Northland College. “Dr. Langston’s visit represents the best of Northland’s academic program: the intersection of student learning and community dialogue around contemporary issues.”

The Van Evera Endowed Lectureship Fund was created so that every year Northland College could host an eminent authority to give a public lecture and lead a seminar to engage students, Chequamegon Bay area citizens, and appropriate faculty. Designed to bring these groups together around a particular environmental issue, the Van Evera Lecture and Seminar was established “to bridge teaching and research with application and action.” For more information about this event, please contact the Van Evera Lecture Coordinator, Lissa Radke by calling (715) 682-1489.

The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute (SOEI) at Northland College, working on behalf of the Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership (CBAP), has been awarded a $192,000 grant to conduct sanitary surveys on several area beaches and shoreline areas. The grant, the first of four awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, will provide funds to CBAP to target and reduce shoreline contamination in the Chequamegon Bay watershed.

Beginning in the summer of 2011, the Chequamegon Bay Beach Sanitary Surveys grant will provide support to four of the 13 CBAP partners, including the SOEI, the City of Ashland and the Bad River and Red Cliff Bands of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa, to survey more than one dozen beaches in the bay area. CBAP partners will assess previously new and previously monitored beaches in these communities for contamination and, where appropriate, follow up with remediation.

In addition to the Tribal and Ashland beaches, water quality sampling will take place at five previously un-sampled lakeshore storm water outlets within the city of Ashland to better target contamination sources contributing to the degradation of area beaches. These surveys will be complimented by efforts to reduce habitat for water borne pathogens on beaches that show elevated levels of these contaminants through regular beach grooming and annual beach clean ups hosted by the City of Ashland and other CBAP members.

The benefits to the region extend beyond the environmental and water quality improvements that will come with increased attention, said Grant Herman of the SOEI. “Beaches are one of the great reasons people travel to the Chequamegon Bay,” he said. “Clean, environmentally healthy beaches will boost tourism in the area and will help maintain or even increase property values in communities around the bay.”

“2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the Beach Act of 2000,” said Mike Gardner, program manager at the SOEI, referring to federal legislation passed to strengthen water quality standards and provide funding for beach health monitoring across the United States. “This is a great opportunity to improve area beach management and public health protection through the reduction of beach water contamination sources, increased water quality monitoring and improved communication of beach health information to the public.”

The Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership is a group of area federal, state and local natural resource agencies, Tribes, municipalities, nonprofit organizations, county land and water conservation professionals and college staff and faculty that are collaborating to develop a region-wide program for more effective and efficient natural resource management and program implementation. In addition to the SOEI, members include, at present, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Red Cliff and Bad River Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa, Iron and Ashland Counties, Cities of Ashland and Bayfield, The Bad River Watershed Association, The Northwoods Cooperative Weed Management Area, UW Extension, The Bayfield Regional Conservancy, the US Forest Service and the U.S. Geologic Survey.

EPA PRESS RELEASE:  Release date: 09/07/2010

CHICAGO – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson will announce EPA’s first Great Lakes Restoration Initiative competitive grants at an event today in Toledo, Ohio.

She will be joined in Toledo by Ohio Lt. Governor Lee Fisher, Ohio EPA Director Chris Korleski, Mayor Michael Bell, City Councilman Mike Craig and Tim Eder, Executive Director, Great Lakes Commission.

The first of the Ohio Great Lakes Restoration Grants (totalling $1,968,228) are:
• $1 Million to Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for Cuyahoga County surface water improvement.
• $250,000 to the Ohio Office of Budget and Management for Toledo Harbor sediment project.
• $550,228 to the University of Toledo for prevention of surface water contamination from biosolids.
• $168,000 to Ohio Department of Natural Resources for Maumee reforestation.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

11:15 a.m. EDT Toledo Press Conference
Maritime Center
1701 Front Street.
Toledo, OH
OPEN PRESS

 Contact Information: Anne Rowan, rowan.anne@epa.gov

CELCP helps states and communities preserve threatened coastal areas that have exceptional ecological, historical, and recreational value, and natural beauty. Since 2002, CELCP has provided for the permanent protection of more than 4000 acres of Great Lakes Coastal Habitat. CELCP grants are competitive and matched one to one with non-federal funding.

 The 2010 Great Lakes CELCP projects funded through GLRI include the regional Houghton Falls project. 77 acres along the south shore of the Bayfield Peninsula, including more than 2,200 feet of Lake Superior shoreline, to protect ecological values and provide public recreation.

Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership Projects, selected as finalists: Northland College’s Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute submitted proposals for collaborative partner grants with other CBAP members.  Two proposals were selected:

• Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership Habitat Restoration Project ($251,414)
• Chequamegon Bay Area Partnership Beach Sanitary Surveys Project ($192,116)

Northland College’s Binational Forum:  Northland College hosts the Lake Superior Binational Forum, a collabortative effort by many partners across the Lake Basin (MN, MI, WI, and Canada) invested in educting the community about the Lake Superior Management Plan and preservation efforts.

• Lake Superior Binational Forum LaMP Implementation/Outreach ($144,623)

Red Cliff Band of Lake Supeior Chippewas:

• Red Cliff Band of Lake Supeior Chippewa Septic System Project ($365,637)

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources:

• The Ashland/Chequamegon Bay Shoreland Restoration Project ($222,491)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Great Lakes National Program Office invited 270 finalists to submit applications for a total of $161.450,000 in competitive grant funding under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI).

In response to its November 2009 request for grant proposals (RFP), EPA received more than 1,000 proposed projects from state, tribal, and municipal agencies, non-governmental organizations and other eligible entities aimed at restoring and protecting this national treasure.

 GLRI grants will fund projects that address the most important Great Lakes priorities, including reducing toxic contaminants, restoring the Great Lakes Areas of Concern, protecting beaches and beachgoers, keeping out invasive species and reducing polluted land-based runoff.

 Finalists may submit final applications immediately so that grants may be issued and work can begin this summer. Successful projects will focus on achieving results in the five priority areas identified by a federal interagency task force as vital for restoring the Great Lakes. Each preliminary proposal was subjected to a rigorous review and ranking by multiple reviewers from EPA or other federal agencies.

 President Obama has made restoring the Great Lakes a national priority.

In February 2009, he proposed $475 million for the GLRI, an unprecedented investment in the nation’s largest fresh surface water ecosystem. Congress appropriated full funding in October. Grants, expected to be awarded later this summer, will advance the goals of the GLRI Action Plan released by partner agencies in February.