Chicago, IL (May 28, 2021) – Earlier today, President Biden released the President’s FY 2022 budget. In response, Alliance for the Great Lakes Director of Federal Relations Donald Jodrey released the following statement:

“The FY 2022 President’s Budget builds on the Administration’s drinking and wastewater infrastructure proposal and continues the theme of investing in America including programs that are critical here in the Great Lakes.

The budget includes $4.9 million for the Army Corps of Engineers to carry out design work for the Brandon Road Lock and Dam project which is critical to stopping the spread of invasive carp towards the Great Lakes.

In addition, $500,000 is included in the Corps’ budget to initiate the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Study which will assist states in dealing with fluctuating water levels and climate change.

We also note that the budget includes an additional $10 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative which will fund the program at $340 million and we are hopeful that Congress will increase that program further and fund it at the authorized level of $375 million.”

###

Media contact: Jennifer Caddick, jcaddick@greatlakes.org

Note: This blog is part of a periodic series of updates from Don Jodrey, the Alliance’s Director of Federal Government Relations, with his view on Great Lakes policy from Washington, DC.

A call to increase drinking water and wastewater infrastructure funding was near the top of the Alliance’s annual list of federal legislative priorities. And now the issue is front and center in Washington.

Before I share a rundown of where legislation stands, first a quick refresher on the issue. Communities across the Great Lakes region continue to grapple with crumbling, antiquated drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, which includes drinking water and sewage treatment plants and the pipes that carry water to and from our homes. It’s not just a Great Lakes problem. Our nation’s drinking water infrastructure is woefully in need of repair. In 2021, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s drinking water system a “C minus” and said that much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. But, fixing infrastructure is expensive. The eight Great Lakes states need $188 billion over the next 20 years for improvements, upgrades, and repairs to this infrastructure

Back in March, President Biden unveiled a massive infrastructure spending proposal – the American Jobs Plan – and his FY22 budget also includes investments in drinking and wastewater infrastructure. The President’s budget and legislative proposals respond to our advocacy on behalf of Great Lakes citizens who deserve clean and affordable drinking water and clean water for recreation. The key question now is, how will the Congress respond to the President’s efforts to invest in fixing our massive infrastructure problems?

The initial legislative action in Congress is encouraging and it’s notable that one of the first bi-partisan bills to pass the United States Senate last month centered on water infrastructure needs. The Senate’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 passed the Senate 89-2 and proposes to spend $35 billion over five years to upgrade drinking and wastewater infrastructure around the country and to target communities most in need in doing so. The Senate’s proposed $35 billion investment is a good first step to address the needs of the Great Lakes, but we know that more is necessary. The bill still has hurdles before it can become law as it has only passed the Senate.

The House of Representatives is also tackling infrastructure legislation. In an encouraging development, two committees in the House are currently considering larger water-related investments. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021 and the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s America Act together propose to invest $101 billion in drinking and wastewater infrastructure. Committee hearings and markups – the process by which legislators debate bills by suggesting rewrites or amendments – are underway.

But where is all this going and how will it come together? The President’s American Jobs Plan proposed $111 billion for drinking and wastewater infrastructure spending over eight years, and that amount is much larger than either the Senate or House legislation considered to date. The President’s plan is being met with some resistance in Congress, with concerns being expressed by some House and Senate members over cost and scope of the plans. It is very much a subject of legislative negotiation and discussion with compromises still to be reached. But as with any domestic investment of this size and scale, this negotiation is to be expected.

So we remain engaged in the legislative process to inform Congress of our water needs. And, you can too. Hundreds of Great Lakes advocates sent letters to their Members of Congress in late April and it’s not too late to weigh in. It’s important that Congress hear from people like you as they debate these bills. We make it easy for you to send a letter in our Great Lakes Action Center.

Summary

We seek a highly motivated individual to lead the Alliance’s volunteer programs, which involve about 15,000 people each year across all five Great Lakes. The ideal candidate is a self-starter, a collaborator who works easily with many different types of people, and an extrovert with a passion for empowering others to make a positive change in the world.

The Volunteer Engagement Manager is on the front lines of engaging with and cultivating volunteers across the Great Lakes region. They will lead the Adopt-a-Beach program, which includes the Alliance’s flagship volunteer program that involves about 15,000 volunteers per year on all five Great Lakes and all eight Great Lakes states, and the Ambassador program, a growing “speakers bureau”-type program that currently involves about 200 volunteers per year. They will develop strategy for maintaining the Alliance’s regional volunteer leadership and manage program implementation.

They will also represent the Alliance at events across the region, speaking at community events and supporting large volunteer groups. The role is very hands-on with lots of contact with volunteers, nonprofit organizations, and business partners across the Great Lakes region. The Volunteer Engagement Manager is core member of the Alliance’s Communications & Engagement Team and will work closely with the Alliance’s fundraising team.

A typical day for the Volunteer Engagement Manager might look like this – The day begins with the Communications & Engagement Team’s daily 30-minute check-in video call, where the team shares out key updates from the previous day and discusses any key project changes. They may hop on a call with a member of the Alliance’s fundraising team and a potential new Adopt-a-Beach business sponsor. They might then gather supplies and run out to a Chicago-area beach to meet a large Adopt-a-Beach group to support the cleanup event and give a short thank you speech to the group about the impact of their clean up. In the afternoon, they might meet with the Volunteer Engagement Coordinator, their direct report, to brainstorm ideas for upcoming Ambassador training sessions and sort through Adopt-a-Beach questions and requests. And they might end the day in a meeting with the Alliance’s Database Manager to discuss options for fixing some technical bugs in the Adopt-a-Beach Salesforce database.

Responsibilities

Management and Strategy

• Develop strategy for and manage the implementation of the Alliance’s volunteer programs, including the regional Adopt-a-Beach program comprised of 15,000+ volunteers in 8 states and the Alliance Ambassadors program, a network of over 100 volunteers trained to speak to groups about Great Lakes issues.
• Manage the Adopt-a-Beach program, with a focus on ensuring regional participation and maintaining program participation and visibility.
• Support the growth and implementation of the Adopt-a-Beach business sponsorship program in partnership with the Alliance’s Development Team.
• Lead the growth of the Alliance Ambassadors program, with a focus on expanding the program to become a regional presence.
• Identify and cultivate relationships with high performing volunteers to deepen their relationship with the Alliance, either by increasing their volunteer leadership role or engaging them in other areas of the Alliance’s work.
  

Outreach

• Manage and facilitate external outreach opportunities to audiences critical to supporting Great Lakes and water protection, such as opportunities for public speaking, tabling, and presentations as appropriate to support Alliance priorities.
• Mobilize and recruit volunteers from communities (i.e., geographic, racial/ethnic, etc.) not currently represented in Alliance volunteer programs to ensure a wide diversity of people are engaged in Great Lakes protection efforts.
• Identify expansion opportunities for the Alliance’s volunteer programs that align with the Alliance’s strategic goals.
• Conduct trainings for volunteers to become environmental leaders, so that they have the skills and knowledge to address relevant Great Lakes issues and take action to improve the ecosystem.
• Speak publicly for large and small groups, and occasionally the media, about the Alliance for the Great Lakes, the Alliance’s volunteer opportunities, and Great Lakes issues.

Technical

• Manage volunteer data and identify strategic uses of the information for internal and external partners.
• Manage program supply inventory, ordering, and relationships with key vendors.

Management

• Manage the Volunteer Engagement Coordinator, and seasonal affiliates as needed.

Knowledge, Skills, & Competencies

• Associate’s degree with relevant experience or Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, environmental sciences and/or communications.
• Three to five years of experience in volunteer coordination and training, community outreach, developing stakeholder partnerships in the public, private, or nonprofit sector.
• Demonstrated experience connecting with a wide variety of stakeholders of all ages and backgrounds, including civic groups, schools, agency staff, businesses and community-based environmental organizations.
• Specific ability to manage volunteers with a positive and nurturing attitude to produce measurable results.
• Experience leading volunteers in outdoor, hands-on activities a plus. Must be comfortable managing volunteers in outdoor settings in variable weather and crowded settings.
• Excellent listening, writing, and speaking skills. Must be able to speak publicly in a clear, compelling, and engaging manner. Experience speaking with the media a plus.
• Database management skills, specifically Salesforce, desirable.
• Adaptive leader who is open, creative, and flexible in thought and practice with skills to lead both from the front and behind as needed.
• Able to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Knowledge of Great Lakes or water issues a plus.

Job Parameters

• This position is full-time exempt and consistent with Alliance employment policy. Salary to be commensurate with experience.
• Excellent benefits, including health, dental, and paid leave. Employees are eligible for participation in our retirement plan after 1 year of employment.
• This position is based in the greater Chicagoland region. Applicants must be able to occasionally (or more frequently if preferred) work from, access supplies, and host meetings at the Alliance’s downtown Chicago office when it is safe to resume normal office operations.

Application Process

Please e-mail a cover letter, resume and references to: hr@greatlakes.org. Include job title in the subject line.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled, with a desired start date of July 1, 2021. Materials should be compatible with Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat. Applicants will receive confirmation of receipt of their materials and further guidance and updates about the hiring process by e-mail, with interviews provided for finalists. No phone inquiries please.

About the Alliance for the Great Lakes

The Alliance for the Great Lakes is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The search process will reinforce the Alliance’s belief that achieving diversity requires an enduring commitment to inclusion that must find full expression in our organizational culture, values, norms, and behaviors.

The Alliance’s vision is a healthy Great Lakes for people and wildlife, forever. Its mission is to conserve and restore the world’s largest freshwater resource using policy, education and local efforts, ensuring a healthy Great Lakes and clean water for generations of people and wildlife. For more information about the Alliance’s programs and work, please visit us online at www.greatlakes.org.

2020 was a year like no other. But volunteers still showed up in a big way for the Great Lakes.

Wednesday night, the Alliance celebrated everything our volunteers accomplished – and honored 3 special volunteers who helped make it happen.

Alliance Ambassadors Connect Online

Alliance Ambassadors work to connect community members to the Alliance and our Great Lakes work through tabling events and speaking engagements across the Great Lakes basin. This past year we moved all of our speaking events online. This allowed Ambassadors to attend events that we may not normally have engaged with – a sliver of good news during the global pandemic.

Brian O’Neill, Alliance Ambassador of the Year

“Brian O’Neill spoke at more events this past year than any other Alliance Ambassador,” says Olivia Reda, Alliance Volunteer Engagement Coordinator. “He is an active participant in our deep dive trainings and reading discussions. And when the Alliance showed Ambassadors our Voter Toolkit in 2020, Brian followed up with creative ideas on how Ambassadors could effectively distribute the information. I am very happy to announce him as our Alliance Ambassador Volunteer of the Year.”

I volunteer with the Alliance because of the knowledge that the Lakes are both more magnificent and powerful than we can imagine, but also terribly vulnerable to our impact as humans. The Alliance works to protect them and the network of species that make up our world…and in doing so protects everyone who lives near, benefits from, draws their living from, stares in humble artistic awe at, or just plain loves the Lakes. Being a part of this, and being connected with people who are dedicated to this shared heritage, is rewarding, inspiring, and a spur to keep doing more.  ~ Brian O’Neill

Adopt-a-Beach Volunteers Keep Cleaning Up

The Adopt-a-Beach program looked pretty different in 2020 than it usually does, but it still had a huge impact. Volunteers were able to collect more than 8,500 pounds of trash with more than 420 cleanups – all of this during a global pandemic.

Volunteers also helped the Alliance launch a new website and database for the program in 2020. This was a huge undertaking which took several months of building and testing.

One volunteer in particular rose to the occasion, helping lead cleanups and testing the new website.

Mike Jabot, Adopt-a-Beach Team Leader of the Year

“Mike Jabot is a long-time Team Leader who led 6 cleanups last year totaling 58 pounds,” says Tyrone Dobson, Alliance Senior Volunteer Engagement Manager. “He also helped us test our website over the course of two months. His feedback ultimately helped us create the great website we are using today. I am incredibly grateful for his work and I am happy to award him the Adopt-a-Beach Volunteer of the Year.”

I volunteer with AGL because they are just such a humble and passionate community of citizens attempting to protect such a precious resource. I have never interacted with group that had such a laser focus on their work as those that partner with the Alliance for the Great Lakes.  ~ Mike Jabot

Young Professional Council Hosts a Virtual Fundraiser

The Young Professional Council is a group of young professionals in the Chicago area who work to connect their networks to the Alliance. Traditionally, the YPC hosts Adopt-a-Beach cleanups, social gatherings, fundraisers, and all sorts of face-to-face engagement opportunities.

2020 really threw a wrench into this type of programming. Despite this, the YPC was able to host a bingo night titled XOXO, The Great Lakes. This event engaged nearly 50 people from all over the Great Lakes, many who are new to the Alliance. The event rose more than $400 – an impressive number for a virtual bingo night.

Victoria Sullivan, Young Professional Council Volunteer of the Year

“Victoria Sullivan, one of our YPC members, took the idea of the bingo night and helped the YPC bring this fundraiser from idea to reality in a short number of weeks. Organizing this effort was no small feat,” says Dobson. “Her leadership on this project made the difference and I am proud to recognize Victoria as the Young Professional Council Volunteer of the Year.”

Water is our most precious natural resource, and as someone who’s passionate about environmental protection, I strongly believe in the Alliance’s mission to protect the Great Lakes for all. Volunteering with the Alliance has been a great way for me to help advance that mission, and working with the YPC offers many different ways to contribute. Whether it’s through cleaning up our beaches, building awareness for community action, or fundraising to support the great work the Alliance does, we’re able to make a difference for people and the environment for generations to come.  ~ Victoria Sullivan

Volunteering Creates a Ripple Effect

Volunteers set a powerful example of what it means to protect the Great Lakes. Their visibility creates a ripple effect that gives their work even more impact.

“Volunteers are visible,” says Alliance President & CEO Joel Brammeier. “People notice what they’re doing. And that visibility is really, really important to the Great Lakes. When one person steps up, the people around them pay attention, and more of those folks step up. Even elected officials and businesses pay attention when they see people working on behalf of the Great Lakes.”

Whether they’re cleaning trash off beaches, speaking to local communities, or raising funds to protect clean water, our volunteers are also building momentum to protect the Great Lakes. Thank you to everyone who volunteers!

Chicago, IL (April 9, 2021) – Earlier today, President Biden released his proposed FY 2022 discretionary budget. In response, Alliance for the Great Lakes Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Programs Molly Flanagan released the following statement.

“The Alliance for the Great Lakes is pleased that the Biden Administration’s proposed FY 2022 President’s Budget continues the Administration’s strong commitment to reinvesting in America. The proposed budget includes much needed increases to domestic agencies and their work in the Great Lakes. U.S. EPA’s base budget is proposed to increase by $2 billion, or 21 percent, over last year’s funding level. This puts the agency in a position to protect and restore one of our country’s most precious resources, the Great Lakes. Furthermore, the additional funding expands the agency’s enforcement capability to hold polluters accountable.

We also thank the Biden Administration for their commitment to righting environmental injustice with their Justice40 initiative, which promises to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of relevant federal investments to disadvantaged communities. We look forward to seeing this plan in action throughout many historically under-served Great Lakes towns and cities.”

###

Media contact: Jennifer Caddick, jcaddick@greatlakes.org

Watching the presidential inauguration yesterday, I was most struck by this gem from National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, that ours is “a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.” Despite the tribulations of the last year, there is a foundation on which to build. There is much work left to do, and we need everyone pulling together to get the work done.

That’s the spirit in which I’m leading the Alliance for the Great Lakes on our federal Great Lakes work this year. Thanks to your support, we can advocate for federal policies that protect the Great Lakes and the people who live here. We need to make sure the new administration and Congress follow through on the commitments they have made to clean water. And we will work to make sure every person who depends on Great Lakes water has a voice in protecting this irreplaceable resource.

So much remains unfinished in our Great Lakes.

Read our Top Five Great Lakes Priorities for the Biden Administration
and Top Five Great Lakes Priorities for Congress.

We must start with the basics and make sure everyone who lives in the Great Lakes region has access to safe, clean and affordable drinking water. We live next to 20% of the world’s fresh surface water. We all should demand that the Biden administration use executive action along with the laws and rules on the books to stop the pollution that fouls our drinking water supply, whether from the end of a pipe or a farm field. Congress needs to make sure federal agencies have the resources to do the job. Just getting back to basics will feel like a step forward.

Data shows that drinking water stresses like pollution, unaffordable rates, and shutoffs fall disproportionately on minority and low-income communities – both urban and rural. We see the same for the impacts of polluted floodwater that rages down streets, sends sewage into homes and the lakes, and destroys property. The Biden administration can follow through on its commitments to address environmental justice and systemic racism in part by relieving the water stress that weighs heavily on Black, brown, and less wealthy communities in the Great Lakes.

Doors remain open to threats like Asian carp and other aquatic invaders. The noxious critters already in the lakes cost the Great Lakes region more than $200 million every year. Thanks to hard work by the Alliance and our many partners over the last decade, those doors are closing. We need the administration and Congress to prioritize and fund the projects already on the books to shut the door permanently on aquatic invasive species.

Anyone standing on a Great Lakes shoreline in 2020 could see climate change bearing down in the form of record-breaking high water. But it’s not just about lake levels. Climate change makes agricultural pollution, invasive species, and polluted flooding worse and more costly to fix. This administration and Congress need to make sure Great Lakes programs and dollars are giving our communities the tools we need to adapt.

Finally, of course all of this requires investment. The Great Lakes region has a great track record of maximizing return on spending, with more than $3 billion in Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding going to clean up toxic contamination, restore habitat, and stop invasive species over the last decade. Just keeping that work going won’t be enough. This should be a down payment on the dollars needed to restore healthy water for everyone across the Great Lakes, water that can right environmental injustices, create thousands of good-paying jobs, and ready us for a changing climate.

We are ready for the work, and we will work with the Biden administration and Congress to make sure they are as well.

You can read about our 2021 federal priorities in detail with our Top Five Great Lakes Priorities for the Biden Administration and our Top Five Great Lakes Priorities for Congress.

As the nation faces unprecedented challenges, clean water is more important than ever. The deepening COVID-19 crisis reminds us daily of the deep connection between clean water and public health. Investments in clean water programs support getting people back to work and protect public health, a win for everyone.

The Great Lakes and our communities face serious challenges, from crumbling water infrastructure to the threat of invasive Asian Carp. Thanks to strong, bipartisan efforts over the past decade, we have made significant progress toward our collective vision of safe, healthy Great Lakes accessible to all.

But much more remains to be done. We need to address places where systemic racism is undermining the protection of safe and clean water for all. Our vision of a healthy, safe Great Lakes for everyone includes addressing environmental injustices. It also means recognizing that a changing climate will make existing Great Lakes problems worse for the foreseeable future. There is no time to waste.

We have identified our top five priorities for President Biden’s administration for their first year in office. We look forward to working with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the members of their administration to move forward protection of one of our nation’s most precious resources, the Great Lakes.

1. Prioritize Environmental Justice

Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by pollution. Environmental justice seeks to address this unfair distribution of pollution and repair the harm that it causes. It requires the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of people of color and low-income communities in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. The Great Lakes region has the opportunity to lead the way, to show how environmental justice can be achieved. There are specific actions the administration can take to address environmental justice in the Great Lakes region right now.

President Biden should ensure that environmental justice is centered in the work of all federal agencies and administrative decisions that impact the Great Lakes and the communities and residents that are dependent on them for drinking water, jobs, and recreational opportunities. To start, the administration should:

• Repeal Executive Order 13950 that bans racial sensitivity and diversity and inclusion training for federal agencies and contractors;
• Revitalize and promote the work of the Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group, expanding its membership and participation;
• Reconvene the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration to update the “Strategy to Restore and Protect the Great Lakes” and set new goals for policies, programs, and funding with a focus on specific actions that can be taken across federal agencies to combat environmental injustice in the Great Lakes region;
• Propose the funding necessary to support staffing and implementation of environmental justice work across federal agencies;
• Establish an Environmental Justice Director or team in U.S. EPA’s Region 5 (and other regional offices) to coordinate with U.S. EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and provide capacity, expertise, and accountability across programmatic efforts;
• Provide grants through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) to communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-income communities to address disproportionate impacts of environmental harm.

2. Increase Drinking Water & Wastewater Infrastructure Funding & Stop Water Shutoffs

Clean water is a basic need. No one should be without clean, safe, affordable water in their home. No one should have to worry about sewage backing up into their basement or community flooding that damages property. Yet, communities across the Great Lakes region continue to grapple with crumbling, antiquated drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive these problems will be to solve.

The eight Great Lakes states need $188 billion over the next 20 years for improvements, upgrades, and repairs to this infrastructure. Paying for water infrastructure projects is expensive. Yet the costs to fix them are often not shared equitably, which underscores the importance of financial support from the federal government.

Clean water and water infrastructure are ever more critical in the midst of the COVID-19 public health crisis. Investing in clean water infrastructure is a win-win, creating jobs and protecting public health.

President Biden should propose dramatically increased funding in FY2022 and other federal support to fix our failing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems.

Additionally, President Biden should include the following in his infrastructure proposals:

• Enact a federal ban on residential water shutoffs due to nonpayment and require reconnection of water service;
• Make permanent and clarify the implementation of federal assistance programs for low-income communities and ratepayers passed by Congress in 2020;
• Increase funds available as grants to utilities, with a particular emphasis on construction funding for lower-income communities, and flexible support to state and local governments in supporting affordability and assistance programs;
• Allocate a percentage of infrastructure funding for resilient nature-based infrastructure solutions.

3. Fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and Restore & Strengthen Clean Water Protections

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) provides funding for on-the-ground restoration projects, from wetland restoration to cleaning up toxic hotspots, throughout the Great Lakes region. In addition to improving the Great Lakes ecosystem, the GLRI results in more than 3-to-1 in additional economic benefits across the region.

To build on the past success of the GLRI:

• President Biden should include at least $375 million for the GLRI in the FY2022 budget request to Congress, consistent with the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Authorization Act;
• U.S. EPA should ensure that GLRI funding is used to address issues of environmental justice across the region;
• U.S. EPA should consider climate change impacts when making funding decisions about projects to ensure projects remain relevant in a changing climate and to fund projects that improve climate resiliency across the region.

President Biden should also restore and strengthen the clean water protections eliminated by the last administration and remove harmful regulations or Executive Orders proposed by the last administration to ensure that our environment and public health are protected, including:

• Set a policy goal for the administration to restore basic water enforcement and monitoring practices for the Great Lakes to be at least as strong as what was in place in 2016;
• Revoke U.S. EPA’s October 2020 proposed ballast water rules that leave the Great Lakes less protected than they are now;
• Propose increased funding for federal agencies that work to protect public health and the environment in the President’s FY2022 budget. In particular, U.S. EPA needs increased staffing for basic day-to-day monitoring and enforcement of clean water, drinking water, and other critical environmental laws.

4. Fund Efforts to Stop Invasive Asian Carp

Invasive Asian Carp pose a clear threat to the Great Lakes. Established populations of these fish are only 50 miles from Chicago and Lake Michigan. But it’s not too late to prevent them from reaching the lakes.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed the construction of additional invasive Asian Carp measures at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, located near Joliet, Illinois. After years of study and public debate, this project has been identified as the best step in stopping the fish from entering the Great Lakes and has wide bipartisan support.

To stop invasive Asian Carp, President Biden should:

• Direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to proceed immediately to pre-construction engineering and design (PED) for the Brandon Road project;
• Direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to include funds for the Brandon Road project’s PED in its FY2021 work plan and direct the Office of Management and Budget to approve the use of these funds for PED;
• Include specific funding necessary for PED in the President’s FY2022 budget.

5. Address Agricultural Pollution that Drives Harmful Algal Blooms

Nutrient pollution that fuels harmful algal blooms is a significant threat to the region’s drinking water, quality of life, and economic well-being. Runoff from agricultural lands is a significant contributor to the phosphorus pollution that drives these blooms.

Farm Bill conservation programs are critical to addressing water quality problems caused by agriculture. But these voluntary programs are not enough to prevent this pollution. Farm Bill conservation programs should link funding with accountability to ensure that they are achieving clean water goals. To accomplish this goal, the Biden administration can start with the following:

• President Biden should propose full funding for Farm Bill Conservation Programs as authorized in Title II of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 in his FY2022 budget;
• U.S. EPA should require states to prioritize Clean Water Act Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) in Harmful Algal Bloom prone watersheds and step in to fulfill those obligations if states fail to do so. Additionally, the U.S. EPA should work to strengthen the TMDL program by requiring implementation plans and timelines for achieving nutrient reductions;
• U.S. EPA Office of Water should lead and work with Region 5 staff and the Great Lakes National Program Office to oversee the development and coordination of regulatory, management, and restoration activities, including data management and reporting by agencies working to reduce harmful algal blooms on Lake Erie;
• President Biden should direct U.S. EPA to exercise its responsibility under the Clean Water Act to establish numeric water pollution standards for nutrients and other pollutants.

Read our Top 5 Great Lakes Priorities for the United States Congress.

As the nation faces unprecedented challenges, clean water is more important than ever. The deepening COVID-19 crisis reminds us daily of the deep connection between clean water and public health. Investment in clean water programs supports getting people back to work and protects public health, a win for everyone.

The Great Lakes and our communities face serious challenges, from crumbling water infrastructure to the threat of invasive Asian Carp. Thanks to a strong, bipartisan focus on moving forward Great Lakes protections over the past decade, we have made significant progress toward our collective vision of safe, healthy Great Lakes accessible to everyone.

But much more remains to be done. We need to address places where systemic racism is undermining the protection of safe and clean water for all. Our vision of a healthy, safe Great Lakes for everyone includes addressing environmental injustices. It also means recognizing that a changing climate will make existing Great Lakes problems worse for the foreseeable future. There is no time to waste.

We have identified our top five priorities for Congress for 2021. We look forward to working with the 117th Congress to further advance Great Lakes protections.

1. Prioritize Environmental Justice

Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by pollution. Environmental justice seeks to address this unfair distribution of pollution and repair the harm that it causes. It requires the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of people of color and low-income communities in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. The Great Lakes region has an opportunity to help lead the way.

There are specific actions the federal government can take to address environmental justice in the Great Lakes region right now including:

• Congress should reinstate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and fund it at $100 million per year. The office centralizes U.S. EPA’s environmental justice policy and decision making. It also ensures that communities of color and low-income communities have access to U.S. EPA’s expertise and can benefit from agency programs and funding. This office can provide leadership and support to U.S. EPA Region 5 and the Great Lakes National Program Office to ensure environmental justice objectives are set and met throughout programs that affect the Great Lakes.
• Congress should provide the U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office with additional staff and funding to improve its outreach to communities of color and low-income communities. This will provide more opportunities for the public to learn about Great Lakes protection and restoration efforts and provide input and ideas to U.S. EPA about projects that would benefit their communities.

2. Increase Drinking Water & Wastewater Infrastructure Funding & Stop Water Shutoffs

Clean water is a basic need. No one should be without clean, safe, affordable water in their home. No one should have to worry about sewage backing up into their basement or community flooding that damages property. Yet, communities across the Great Lakes region continue to grapple with crumbling, antiquated drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive these problems will be to solve.

The eight Great Lakes states need $188 billion over the next 20 years for improvements, upgrades, and repairs to this infrastructure. Paying for water infrastructure projects is expensive. Yet the costs to fix them are often not shared equitably, which underscores the importance of financial support from the federal government.

Clean water and water infrastructure are ever more critical in the midst of the COVID-19 public health crisis. Investing in clean water infrastructure is a win-win, creating jobs and protecting public health.

Congress should pass an infrastructure package that invests more than $100 billion over the next five years to address failing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems.

Congress should also protect households and communities by:

• Enacting a federal ban on residential water shutoffs due to nonpayment and requiring reconnection of water service;
• Making permanent and clarifying the implementation of federal assistance programs for low-income communities and ratepayers passed by Congress in 2020;
• Increasing funds available as grants to utilities, with a particular emphasis on construction funding for lower-income communities, and flexible support to state and local governments in supporting affordability and assistance programs;
• Allocating a percentage of infrastructure funding for resilient nature-based infrastructure solutions.

3. Fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative & Increase Federal Agency Support for Clean Water Protections

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) provides funding for on-the-ground restoration projects, from wetland restoration to cleaning up toxic hotspots, throughout the Great Lakes region. In addition to improving the Great Lakes ecosystem, the GLRI results in more than 3-to-1 in additional economic benefits across the region.

Congress should invest at least $375 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in FY2022, consistent with the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Authorization Act that reauthorized the program through FY2026.

However, the GLRI on its own is not enough to protect and restore the Great Lakes and the communities that depend on them. The Great Lakes also need strong agencies to implement and enforce environmental laws. Congress should increase funding, including increased staffing for monitoring and enforcement of clean water, drinking water, and other critical environmental laws, for the U.S. EPA and other federal agencies that work to protect public health and the environment.

The U.S. EPA plays a critical federal role in safeguarding the Great Lakes, protecting our public health, and keeping our water safe and clean. It is essential that Congress support U.S. EPA to fulfill its mission to ensure that progress in restoring the Great Lakes is not undermined by the weakening of bedrock laws that protect clean water and the Great Lakes.

In recent years, regulatory rollbacks and staff cuts undermined the ability of the federal government, and in turn state governments, to protect the environment and people’s health. Cuts also undermined scientific research in government decisions and reduced U.S. EPA’s capacity to coordinate important regional projects like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement with Canada.

4. Fund Efforts to Stop Invasive Asian Carp

Invasive Asian Carp pose a clear threat to the Great Lakes. Established populations of these fish are only 50 miles from Chicago and Lake Michigan. But it’s not too late to prevent them from reaching the lakes.

To keep these fish out of the Great Lakes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed the construction of additional invasive Asian Carp measures at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, located near Joliet, Illinois. After years of study and public debate, this project has been identified as the best step in stopping the fish from entering the Great Lakes and allowing waterborne commerce to continue moving through the lock. The project has wide bipartisan support and is authorized by Congress. To continue efforts to build Asian carp protections at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam:

• Congress should fund pre-construction engineering and design (PED) for the Brandon Road Lock & Dam project, a critical line of defense against the advance of invasive Asian Carp into the Great Lakes;
• Congress should adjust the non-federal cost-share requirement to allow for the construction of the project at full federal expense.

5. Fund Farm Bill Conservation Programs

Nutrient pollution that fuels harmful algal blooms is a significant threat to the region’s drinking water, quality of life, and economic well-being. Runoff from agricultural lands is a significant contributor to the phosphorus pollution that drives these blooms.

Farm Bill conservation programs are critical to addressing water quality problems caused by agriculture. But these voluntary programs are not enough to prevent this pollution. Farm Bill conservation programs should link funding with accountability to ensure that they are achieving clean water goals. To achieve this Congress should:

• Provide full funding for Farm Bill Conservation Programs as authorized in Title II of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018;
• Link federal conservation funding with measurable water-quality improvements and achievement of Clean Water Act Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) goals;
• Fund water quality monitoring and annual reporting on whether existing pollution control targets are being achieved in western Lake Erie and Green Bay.

Read our Top 5 Great Lakes Priorities for the Biden Administration

For years, thousands of Great Lakers have written letters, made calls, and attended public meetings to urge our state and federal leaders to act to keep invasive Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.

There’s been a major step forward in the fight to stop invasive Asian carp.

Late last week, Illinois and Michigan took two big steps that bring us closer to installing new protections to stop invasive Asian carp, which are only about 50 miles downstream from Chicago and Lake Michigan.

Illinois Governor Pritzker signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin the initial phases of an invasive Asian Carp prevention project at Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois. This location is a critical chokepoint to stop these fish before they reach Lake Michigan.

Additionally, Michigan has agreed to pitch in $8 million to help Illinois pay for the non-federal cost of the project. This action, led by Michigan Governor Whitmer, is a model of partnership that we hope to see more of in the future as we work to protect our region’s greatest natural resource.

Chicago, IL (January 7, 2020) – Alliance for the Great Lakes President & CEO Joel Brammeier released the following statement in reaction to yesterday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol:

“What happened yesterday was a direct attack on American democracy. It is an outgrowth of ongoing desperate efforts by President Trump to disenfranchise voters. We condemn the white supremacy and racism that drove and was on display in this violent insurrection at the Capitol.

As a civic organization focused on advancing safe and clean water for all, we depend on the integrity of the democratic process to advance our work.  Water should not be partisan, and neither should this moment.

As we said last year, social, racial, and economic justice are inseparable from environmental justice.

Advancing safe and clean water for all requires a strong democracy with duly elected leaders in Washington. The democratic process is under genuine threat, and we are committed to using our voice to support democracy.”

###

Media contact: Jennifer Caddick, jcaddick@greatlakes.org

(Chicago, IL) January 7, 2020 – Earlier today, Illinois and Michigan signed an agreement to advance an invasive Asian carp prevention project at Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois. In reaction, Alliance for the Great Lakes Chief Operating Officer Molly Flanagan issued the following statement:

“The Alliance applauds Governor Pritzker for his support for the Brandon Road project and signature on the agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers. With the stroke of a pen, the Governor has brought us one step closer to installing protections that will help keep dangerous Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

We also extend thanks to Michigan Governor Whitmer for her leadership in the fight to protect the Great Lakes. The intergovernmental agreement signed by Michigan and Illinois will not only close the non-federal funding gap and allow the Brandon Road project to move forward to the next stage, it is a model of partnership that we hope to see more of in the future as we work toward a common goal of securing the health and longevity of our states’ greatest natural resource.”

###

For media inquiries, contact Jennifer Caddick at jcaddick@greatlakes.org

Summary

The overall responsibility of the Federal Government Relations Director is to provide leadership and analysis to achieve the Alliance’s legislative and regulatory objectives across our program areas. Specific objectives will include: ensuring satisfactory federal funding and implementation of clean water and drinking water programs and policies; advancing policies to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species; defending attacks on foundational water laws and policies; and creating new opportunities for bipartisan support in areas such as water infrastructure investment, water services affordability, and agricultural pollution reduction. This position is based in the Washington, DC area. This position reports to the COO and serves on the management team.

In a given week, this position might meet with congressional staff about Alliance’s policy and funding priorities, network and collaborate with national environmental organizations on shared goals, work with the Alliance’s communications team to highlight opportunities for sharing our policy work with the public, read and analyze legislation and regulations and provide summaries to inform the Alliance’s strategic role, and participate in several internal team meetings to identify opportunities and obstacles to achieving programmatic objectives while navigating competing priorities.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes sets a protection agenda for the Great Lakes, a resource of global significance and the world’s largest source of surface freshwater. The Alliance seeks to protect the Great Lakes from their greatest threats, build a resilient future for communities, and instill the value of clean water throughout the region. Learn more about the Alliance at www.greatlakes.org.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and track pending legislation, executive orders, and regulations related to the Alliance’s federal priorities; follow Congressional committee hearings and mark-ups, on funding and other issues; and provide support in monitoring the federal budget and appropriations process to identify current funding issues that relate to or may impact the Alliance’s priorities.
• Ensure that the Alliance weighs in at appropriate times during the legislative and appropriations processes.
• Draft letters to congressional members, working to educate offices about Alliance positions on key water policy issues and getting them to express public support for our positions.
• Provide input to leadership level staff at relevant agencies on implementation of key statutes and regulations.
• Participate in national water and environmental coalitions to leverage strength of partners and explore opportunities for joint advocacy.
• Provide quick analysis of the budget, appropriations bills and other legislation we care about so the Alliance can create timely public communications about our legislative work.
• Position the Alliance as a leader on particular issues as reflected by reference of our support in member communications, requests for assistance in drafting legislation, asking for our opinion on issues, etc.
• Identify when to elevate issues and opportunities up to organizational leadership for further action.
• Identify opportunities for federal policies and programs to shift to address the needs of communities disproportionately impacted by water problems.
• Ensure that policymakers consider the Alliance as a resource in the development of policies and messaging on issues in which the Alliance has expertise.
• Actively identify and pursue opportunities to promote the Alliance’s staff  as expert witnesses for congressional hearings, briefings, and meetings.
• Assist the Alliance’s campaign teams in creating policy reports and rapid-response documents that are relevant to policymakers.
• Advise the Alliance’s program staff on how to most effectively address local and state needs through federal policy initiatives.
• Support, develop ideas, and organize Congressional briefings, meetings, and events involving high-level federal and non-governmental participants and stakeholders to highlight the Alliance’s work.

Knowledge/Skills

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree and 5 years’ related experience
• Able to independently analyze legislation, propose changes and determine when additional technical and legal resources are needed
• Strong relationships with Great Lakes House and Senate offices
• Strong relationships with relevant committee staff
• Solid existing relationships among environmental NGOs
• Understanding of and ability to communicate about how pollution and environmental injustice disproportionately impacts Black and Brown communities and low-income communities
• Demonstrated ability to communicate and engage authentically across cultures, identities, races, life experiences, and knowledge systems
• Experience navigating and advocating on administrative processes with key agencies including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Office of Management and Budget
• Positive relationships with other relevant sectors including agriculture, labor and health
• Social and outgoing mindset, with an interest and passion for network building through events, receptions and similar activities
• Ability to work independently and enjoy job satisfaction working with a remote team outside of a traditional office environment

Job Parameters

• This position is full-time and consistent with Alliance employment policy.
• Excellent benefits including health, dental, and vacation, along with a retirement plan after 1 year of service.
• This position will occasionally work outside of normal business hours, possibly on nights or weekends, to support communications needs for breaking news situations or fundraising events.
• The Federal Government Affairs Director will travel approximately 6-8 times per year to the Chicago headquarters and other places in the Great Lakes region to attend meetings and events.

Application Process

Please e-mail a cover letter, resume and references to: hr@greatlakes.org. Include job title in the subject line.

Applications will be accepted in a rolling basis until the position is filled. Materials should be compatible with Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat. Applicants will receive confirmation of receipt of their materials and further guidance and updates about the hiring process by e-mail, with interviews provided for finalists. No phone inquiries please.

About the Alliance for the Great Lakes

The Alliance for the Great Lakes is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The search process will reinforce the Alliance’s belief that achieving diversity requires an enduring commitment to inclusion that must find full expression in our organizational culture, values, norms, and behaviors.

The Alliance’s vision is a healthy Great Lakes for people and wildlife, forever. Its mission is to conserve and restore the world’s largest freshwater resource using policy, education and local efforts, ensuring a healthy Great Lakes and clean water for generations of people and wildlife. For more information about the Alliance’s programs and work, please visit us online at www.greatlakes.org.

(Chicago, IL) Dec 22, 2020 – Molly Flanagan, Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Chief Operating Officer & Vice President for Programs, released the following statement in response to the passage of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) Authorization Act of 2019 on Monday and the omnibus bill in Congress last night, which includes the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) and other key initiatives:

“The Great Lakes received some important gifts to end 2020 with the passage of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) Authorization Act on Monday and the inclusion of critical project authorizations and funding in the omnibus spending bill passed late last night.

The GLRI Authorization Act passed unanimously in the Senate on Monday. The House of Representatives passed the bill earlier this year by a vote of 373 to 45. It allows Congress to keep funding this critical program and increases its authorized funding for the next 5 years beginning at $375 million in FY 2022 and increasing by $25 million per year until it culminates at $475 million in FY 2026. These funds provide direct support for on-the-ground restoration projects across the region. It’s great news for Great Lakers who depend on the lakes for their drinking water, jobs and recreational opportunities. We’re also pleased that Congress has set the GLRI up for success in FY21 with a $330 million appropriation in the omnibus bill — a $10 million increase over last year’s funding. The Alliance for the Great Lakes thanks Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) and Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and David Joyce (R-OH) for their leadership in this successful effort to continue prioritizing the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes.

The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) passed as part of the omnibus bill also includes key initiatives that will help protect the health and vitality of the Great Lakes and the communities that rely on them. The bill authorizes the Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency study with a focus on natural infrastructure as a way to help communities deal with fluctuating lake levels. Notably, it also authorizes construction of a project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fortify the Brandon Road Lock and Dam in Joliet, IL to help stop invasive Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan. If they break through, these harmful fish would damage our regional economy and devastate the Great Lakes ecosystem and we’re encouraged to see Congress is serious about addressing the problem.

WRDA also adjusts the cost sharing for the project to put more of the onus on the federal government than impacted Great Lakes states (80% federal/20% non-federal) which will decrease the financial burden on states that are already seeing budget shortfalls as the economy continues to struggle. This is also important because the new technologies being developed to stop Asian carp and other aquatic invasive species will ultimately benefit many other states across the country as they deal with their own threats.

Safe and clean water for the Great Lakes has taken on even greater importance in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. In this turbulent political climate, it’s heartening to see that champions from both sides of the aisle came together to help ensure the long-term health of the Great Lakes for next year and beyond.

As we look to the future, we are eager to work with the new Congress to continue to advance these priorities and others — in particular addressing our rapidly crumbling water infrastructure and clean water and water affordability crises — and we call on the incoming Biden administration to include funding for these projects in his proposed budget next year.”

###

For media inquiries, contact Jennifer Caddick at jcaddick@greatlakes.org

Thanks for all you did to support and protect the Great Lakes this year. We made progress together during what was for many of us our most difficult year ever.

Here are a few highlights:

You organized Adopt-a-Beach cleanups on all 5 Great Lakes despite challenging logistics related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Events were held on beaches as well as in neighborhoods and parks this year, recognizing that litter anywhere in the region can end up in the lakes.

You got involved during the 2020 elections, using our nonpartisan Great Lakes Voter Toolkit to ask candidates questions about clean water issues and our Great Lakes Voter Information Center to get state-specific voting information to help safely cast your ballot.

You supported our efforts to halt drinking water shut-offs that disproportionately hit low-income communities and communities of color across urban and rural parts of the Great Lakes region. With partners in Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and elsewhere, the Alliance focused on the essential connection between clean water and health, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You joined hundreds of parents and teachers who used our new H.O.M.E.School curriculum. As families and students stayed home due to COVID-19, online lessons helped kids in K-8th grade learn about the Great Lakes, from food webs to watersheds.

Your strong voices helped secure critical bipartisan Congressional support for stopping invasive Asian carp. Legislation in Congress authorized the first steps toward construction of new Asian carp protections and funding to support the project.

Last but certainly not least, the Alliance for the Great Lakes celebrated our 50th anniversary this fall.

Looking back to our founding in 1970, I’m proud to report that the Great Lakes are far healthier and better protected than they were 50 years ago. Plus, more people like you support the Alliance today than ever before in our history. To me that is no coincidence.

Thank you for all you did to help the Great Lakes in 2020, a year that we can say without exaggeration is unlike any other we’ve experienced.

Together, you and the Alliance have big opportunities to advance safe and clean water for the Great Lakes in 2021. I’m looking forward to it!

The pandemic slowed but couldn’t stop Great Lakers from volunteering this year.

While taking precautions, volunteers throughout the Great Lakes region cleaned beaches and neighborhoods and helped spread the word about threats facing the lakes. One even circled Lake Michigan by bike.

“We moved online and opened new ways for folks to get involved,” Senior Volunteer Engagement Manager Tyrone Dobson said. “In a time that feels isolating, we found a way to connect people with our topics and issues and with each other.”

Clean where you are

The extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19 put a damper on this year’s Adopt-a-Beach cleanups. The total – 417 cleanups across all 5 lakes – was somewhat lower than in other years. But the volunteers who turned out came to clean! They cleared 10,000 pounds worth of trash.

For the first time, we held inland neighborhood cleanups, stopping trash that might have flown via sewer drains or other paths to the lakes.

Liuan Huska, mom to two young children and a baby, organized one of the first of these neighborhood cleanups.

She lives 40 miles west of Chicago’s North Avenue Beach. Focusing on a cleanup close to home made a big difference for her and her neighbors, Huska says.

“I have a book coming out in December, my three kids are partially e-learning and partially home schooling — so I have my hands full,” Huska says.

Her family cleaned alongside railroad tracks near their home. Meanwhile 8 or 9 neighbors did the same, sharing photos and recording their trash haul via a Facebook event page.

It all made for a low-effort, high-impact cleanup, Huska says. “Because we are all social distanced and missing human contact, it was a small way to connect with others in the community.”

Cleanups became places to connect

Adopt-a-Beach cleanups became some of the only times people got to see each other in (socially-distant) person this year.

“This was really our comeback event,” says Matt Belcher, a Chicago chapter leader for the national service group Gay For Good. “We were — I won’t use the word desperate, but I will say anxious to do something when it was OK to do so.”

About 300 Chicagoans on the group’s membership list normally turn out to volunteer events. But they’d been on hiatus since March.

For Adopt-a-Beach, the group of 18 found less trash on the sand at Osterman Beach on the city’s far North Side, and more where the beach meets the grass. They also found a wallet that Belcher was able to return to its grateful owner the day after the cleanup.

Adopt-a-Beach was a chance to connect for students from Arrupe College of Loyola University of Chicago, too.

“Students talk to me about how hard it is to make friends and connect online, so we’re trying to be creative in how can we meet and also give back to the community” says David Keys, assistant dean for student success at the school.

Many who had not gotten to know each other before made connections at the cleanup. “They came in groups of 1 or 2 and left in socially distant but larger groups as they realized they were heading for the same train or bus,” he says.

Keys also notes the Alliance made it easy to organize the event, including a registration form students used to RSVP on the new Adopt-A-Beach website.

He says it was “eye opening” for students at the cleanup to hear from Dobson at their event about the smaller items of trash that make their way into the lakes so often. Students have already requested the chance to do a beach cleanup again, he adds.

In Cleveland, Americorps volunteers Sara Morgan and Grace Vishnick had a similar experience. They organized about 50 people to clean Cleveland’s Euclid and Edgewater beaches for Make A Difference Day October 27.

COVID-19 meant extra planning for the event, the two recent college grads say, but was worth it. It was their first beach cleanup, and the biggest surprise for them and their volunteer group was the amount of plastic – the most common item they cleaned was plastic tampon applicators.

“I knew the conditions of Lake Erie and that it needs a lot of work,” Morgan says. “I know the lakes are a big part of our ecosystem… there’s definitely a lot to do in terms of trash along the lakes.”

Ambassadors spread the message

Cleanups are not the only way volunteers have been connecting despite the pandemic to help protect the Great Lakes.

Alliance Ambassadors – volunteers who speak about the Great Lakes and the issues facing them with various groups – have continued to be active, as well.

The most unusual outreach by an Ambassador during the pandemic is likely Tristyn Von Berg’s bike ride around Lake Michigan. Von Berg nicknamed his Trek commuter bike “Richard Gears” after his father. A South Africa native, he had recently moved to Chicago when he decided to make the 950-mile journey.

Von Berg took along a shoebox to hold a change of clothes and not too much else. He shares the details in an interview with journalist Allison Devereaux on her Great Lakes Unsalted podcast. He also documents his journey in an epic series of Instagram posts.

The interview makes clear the trip was solitary most of the time. Von Berg shares how the beauty of the region and connections with people who helped him along the way inspired him.

“Maybe you take for granted how great your Great Lakes are, but they are an incredible natural landscape,” he says. “The beauty of the landscapes and change as I went north and then back down south was quite breathtaking. I also got to meet strangers along the way who showed such amazing hospitality and kindness.”

Blair Tatrault became an ambassador after retiring a few years ago.

“In a normal year, I do a few events a year,” Tatrault says. He has spoken at elementary schools, environmental science classes at UW-Madison, and a public lecture at Lourdes University in Ohio, to name a few.

Now, he’s working on speaking at virtual gatherings – connecting via Zoom can bring troubles all its own, he laughs. But in person or via the Internet, the connections are essential to bring home the challenges facing the Great Lakes, Tatrault says:

“There’s no replacement for face-to-face discussion. We’re just kind of facilitators – we’re educators in a way, but we have to acknowledge that not everybody views the world through the same lens as we do and we need [all of us] to help solve the problem.”

For our 50th anniversary, we commissioned author and journalist Kari Lydersen to look at the Great Lakes and clean water issues that have shaped our region. Read the rest of the series here. 

Toxic pollution spurs founding of Lake Michigan Federation

From the industrial revolution onward, the Great Lakes region was a thriving hub of industry thanks to the lakes and rivers that allowed easy transport of goods and raw materials, and water for industrial processes. By the 1960s, as a result, the waterways were also laden with toxic waste, much of it settling into the sediment, from steel mills, factories, tanneries, breweries, paper mills, coal plants, and countless other industries.

Lee Botts founded the Lake Michigan Federation in part to demand an end to the contamination of the watershed, and to force the cleanup of past toxic pollution. This goal became especially important as the region’s heavy industry was declining and emerging economies — recreation, tourism, and cleaner industries like advanced technology, education and health care — depended on rivers and lakes as amenities to attract people.

43 areas identified for cleanup

In its early days, the Lake Michigan Federation focused heavily on the creation and implementation of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. In 1987, as part of that agreement, the U.S. and Canada designated 43 Areas of Concern (AOCs) in the Great Lakes that held dangerous pollutants and could not support recreation, or habitat for wildlife. The biggest need was the removal of copious amounts of the toxic sediment that keeps releasing carcinogenic and neurotoxic heavy metals, PAHs, PCBs and other compounds into water and wildlife for decades.

The AOCs include the Grand Calumet River emptying into Lake Michigan just southeast of Chicago, where an industrial menagerie of steel mills, oil refineries, pharmaceutical manufactures and more contaminated the sediment with PAHs, PCBs, oil and grease, and heavy metals. Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the Fox River that leads into it were rife with PCBs and other contaminants from paper mills, particularly from the making of carbon-free copy paper. White Lake, Michigan, in Muskegon County near Lake Michigan, was deeply contaminated from years of dumping by a tannery and chemical company. And Presque Isle Bay on the southern shore of Lake Erie was laced with PAHs and heavy metals from steel mills, a foundry and other industry.

Cleaning up toxic sediment is a laborious and expensive job, involving expansive testing to find where pollution is worst, then physically removing massive amounts of contaminated sediment, drying it and transporting it to and storing it in secure facilities.

Lake Michigan Federation pushes for action

When Cameron Davis became executive director of the Lake Michigan Federation in 1998, the AOCs were a major priority.

“These AOCs had been languishing,” Davis recounts. “We had all the right policies in place, we knew what we needed to do scientifically, we just didn’t have the resources to kick these cleanups into high gear.”

As the country headed for the 2000 presidential elections, Davis remembers, public support for Great Lakes cleanup was accelerating. Davis volunteered to work with Congress to craft a plan. With close allies including Congressmen Vern Ehlers, Republican from Michigan, and James Oberstar, Democrat from Minnesota, they ultimately drafted legislation and Davis proposed a name: the “Great Lakes Legacy Act.”

“The title had two meanings,” he explains. “We wanted to rid the Great Lakes of these legacy pollutants and thereby leave a stronger, more vibrant legacy for future generations.”

Testifying before a congressional subcommittee in 2001, Davis noted that almost 15 years after the designation of AOCs, only one had been delisted, in Canada. “Contaminated sediment is not a glamorous issue,” he testified. “But therein lies the danger of this problem. It is one that continues to permeate the Great Lakes. It is one that continues to permeate the health of the people in the Great Lakes. And because it is not glamorous and does not really get front page attention, it makes it all the more important that we do something about it.”

Another thing caught Davis’s ear. Some representatives contended that the country couldn’t afford to fund the bill because there wasn’t enough money. “Yet here we were in the middle of the largest economic expansion in world history,” Davis recalls thinking while at the witness table. “It was a great lesson that, as advocates, we have to be diplomatic and determined.”

In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Great Lakes Legacy Act. The EPA worked with groups on the ground to assess the needs, develop cleanup plans and begin the hard work of removing decades’ worth of contamination. But the process was still frustratingly slow.

Lake Michigan Federation becomes Alliance for the Great Lakes

The organization was poised to channel that frustration into accelerated progress for the Great Lakes. In 2004, with unanimous approval of the board of directors, Davis transitioned the Lake Michigan Federation into the Alliance for the Great Lakes. And, in 2008, as president and CEO of the Alliance, Davis was back testifying before the same subcommittee, again working closely with Reps. Ehlers and Oberstar, making the point that only one of the American AOCs had been cleaned up. More funding, more flexibility and other changes were needed to jumpstart the cleanups and keep them going long into the future, Davis and others argued.

The success of the Legacy Act was the foundation for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that President Barack Obama signed and Congress began funding in 2009, a sweeping measure that included ongoing funding for toxic sediment removal as well as habitat restoration and other goals. Even in our current highly polarized political environment, the initiative has continued to enjoy strong bipartisan support from Congress, with funding of more than $3 billion since inception.

Toxic pollution cleanups accelerate

In 2013, Presque Isle Bay on Lake Erie became the second American AOC delisted, and in 2014, White Lake and Deer Lake in Michigan were also delisted.

Management actions have been completed on multiple AOCs stretching from Waukegan Harbor and the Sheboygan River on Lake Michigan’s western coast to the Ashtabula River on Lake Erie to the Rochester Embayment on Lake Ontario.

The Canadian government also has a program to clean up Areas of Concern, developed in cooperation with the U.S. Canada has cleaned up and delisted AOCs including Collingwood Harbor and Severn Sound on Georgian Bay. Five AOCs are joint U.S.-Canadian efforts.

In all, the Great Lakes Legacy Act has meant the cleanup in the U.S. of 4.3 million cubic yards of sediment, with $362 million in federal funds spent on cleanup. Those funds have also leveraged $251 million in non-federal spending from state, county, municipal and private partners since under the act, the federal government matches non-federal spending in a 65%-35% split.

New types of pollution emerge as threats

New types of toxic pollution are threatening the Great Lakes today. Non-point-source pollution including agricultural and urban runoff create toxic algal blooms and other health and ecological threats, as discussed in the next blog in this series. And other types of industrial and consumer waste are also a problem.

Among them, microplastics — plastic from straws, bottles and other items that break down into tiny pieces — are being consumed by bottom-dwelling organisms and fish. These plastics can absorb chemicals, so consuming them passes the chemicals up the food chain. And harmful bacteria can grow on them, making them a conduit for this bacteria to potentially affect humans or aquatic organisms. Microplastics have even been found in cormorant chicks who get them through regurgitated fish from their parents. About 22 million pounds of plastic enter the Great Lakes each year, most of it in Lake Michigan, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology. Microplastics are found in drinking water drawn from the lakes, and even in beer. If plastic breaks down into even smaller pieces — nanoplastics — it can enter the bloodstream of fish and of humans. Last year Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law mandating the state EPA examine the impacts of plastics in water on human health.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are also a major concern. These are manmade chemicals — sometimes called “forever chemicals” — from non-stick cookware, waterproof fabric, packaging and flame retardant that don’t break down in the environment, or the human body. They’ve been found in water bodies, groundwater and drinking water across the Great Lakes region, and states have developed regulations and response plans. But even as some harmful PFAS are phased out or banned, replacement chemicals are also raising serious concerns. And there’s little understanding of the exact impacts of many chemicals, though in general they are known to cause kidney or testicular cancer, fertility problems and other impacts.

PFAS and microplastics in drinking water drive home that our dependence on the Great Lakes doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. “There are real, serious threats to the health of countless people who never visit the lakes but depend on their water every day,” notes Joel Brammeier, Alliance president & CEO.

Lead pollution in drinking water is another serious health threat, and a pressing environmental justice issue, in cities across the Great Lakes, most notoriously in Flint, Michigan. Lead in drinking water comes from archaic water service lines, and is another signal that people in this most water-rich part of the world still cannot count on safe water in their homes and businesses for their families and friends. That’s just not sustainable.

Past successes can inspire future solutions

As challenging as newer toxics are, the past offers hope. If we could successfully tackle decades of contamination that happened before society was even aware of the dangers, then we can address threats emerging in real time.

Davis says the Great Lakes Legacy Act and related work should continue to be an inspiration: an historic achievement that shows the potential for bipartisan cooperation and long-term thinking. That same attitude will be required to solve things like PFAS, microplastics and failing pipes.

“These Great Lakes helped deliver this country through two World Wars, through different economic downturns,” fueling industry and providing jobs that benefitted the whole country, Davis muses. “It’s our time to give something back to the Great Lakes.”

For our 50th anniversary, we commissioned author and journalist Kari Lydersen to look at the Great Lakes and clean water issues that have shaped our region. Read the rest of the series here.

A warning rallies the region

In 1998, an obscure Canadian consulting company announced its intention to ship 158 million gallons of Lake Superior water to Asia.

Though that specific plan seemed unlikely to materialize, it was a warning that in a world increasingly plagued by droughts and warming temperatures, fresh clean Great Lakes water is an invaluable and potentially very lucrative commodity.

“There had been a fear for decades that with global water scarcity, sooner or later thirsty industry and people would come calling on the Great Lakes to their peril, to send Great Lakes water all over the continent or all over the world potentially,” says Peter Annin, author of The Great Lakes Water Wars.

“That really rallied the region to create a legal water management paradigm to keep Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes watershed. It wasn’t that 158 million gallons would harm Lake Superior, it would be virtually immeasurable. But it would have set a legal precedent. If you can send Great Lakes water to Asia, where can’t you send it?”

An epic battle begins

Thus was launched an epic battle to keep Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes Basin. The Alliance (then the Lake Michigan Federation) and other lakes advocates began working tirelessly to persuade lawmakers and officials of the imminent threat, and craft policy to prevent diversions of Great Lakes water.

Alliance Vice President for Policy Molly Flanagan remembered that “there was this sense of scarcity in other parts of the country and fear in the Great Lakes region that those places might start to look to the Great Lakes as a source of water. In reality it would be astronomically expensive, but even the specter of that was enough to unify the region to say, ‘This is a really important resource for our communities, our economies, our way of life, and we’re keeping it here.’”

The effort required participation and ratification by all eight Great Lakes states and the federal government, including passage by Congress. Each state had to pass its own implementing legislation.

Flanagan, at the time working for the National Wildlife Federation, spearheaded collaboration with industry, farmers and other stakeholders to shepherd passage of the legislation in each state.

“In retrospect it was as challenging as you can imagine going into eight states and telling them they have to pass a piece of legislation exactly as written, and no they can’t change any word, no they can’t add or subtract anything,” Flanagan said. Despite the challenges, “the ratification of the Compact happened really rapidly, because there was a good understanding by each of the states that we really have a resource in the Great Lakes that’s worth protecting.”

Success: A shining example of bipartisanship

After ratification by each state, on Oct. 3, 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin Compact, which banned almost all diversions of water out of the basin. It also included a host of “remarkable,” in Annin’s words, sustainability and conservation measures.

The Compact was a shining example of bipartisanship, hashed out and adopted by both Republican- and Democrat-led states. Likewise after being signed by Bush, the provisions have been respected by subsequent administrations.

There were many thorny philosophical and practical questions. Could bottled water and beer be made in the Great Lakes — with Great Lakes Basin water — and sold outside the basin? How to deal with Chicago, which had been diverting millions or billions of gallons per day since the reversal of the Chicago River a century ago — by drawing drinking water from Lake Michigan and then sending treated wastewater out to the Mississippi River. What about municipalities that straddled the basin perimeter or lay just outside it?

Waukesha: Proving the Compact works

One such case presented a key legal and political challenge to the Compact. Waukesha, Wisconsin, just a mile and a half outside the basin near Milwaukee, is within a county that straddled the basin. Its water supply drawn from the ground was becoming increasingly contaminated with naturally occurring radium. The town wanted to be able to tap Lake Michigan water. Waukesha was eventually approved for an exception under the Compact, allowing it to use Lake Michigan water as long as it returns treated wastewater to the basin and meets stringent requirements for water conservation, efficiency and treatment.

Crafters of the Compact counted the resolution of the Waukesha matter as a victory, a logical and realistic solution that kept the Compact strong while providing a legal water supply to Waukesha if it plays by the rules.

The process that created the Great Lakes Compact also involved Canada, and U.S. governors work with Canadian premiers on protecting Great Lakes water and keeping it in the basin through an official agreement signed in 2005. The two Canadian provinces are also able to weigh in on any requests for diversions in the U.S.

Annin notes that the Compact is still seen “as a global model for international transboundary water management. And perhaps more miraculously, we had this bipartisan, multi-jurisdictional effort to protect one of the most important freshwater resources in the world on behalf of future generations, passed in the absence of a crisis. That doesn’t happen often.”

Climate change presents new challenges

When the Compact was signed, Great Lakes water levels were at nearly historic lows. Docks were left high and dry, barges were stranded in low rivers, and sport fishing and recreational boating were jeopardized as harbors drained. The appearance of the lakes receding before people’s eyes lent an even greater sense of urgency to the Compact.

Today, lake levels are high, in some lakes at record high levels. Last year neighborhoods around Lake Ontario were flooded, and shipping was jeopardized on the St. Lawrence Seaway flowing out of the Great Lakes. The lakefront running trail in Chicago is sometimes underwater. Lakefront properties are swamped with water or buffeted by waves causing massive erosion.

Fluctuation in lake levels is natural and ecologically healthy. But the fluctuations are expected to be more drastic — with higher highs and lower lows — and to happen more quickly because of climate change.

And lake levels are far from the only way that climate change is affecting the Great Lakes. Warming temperatures are likely to worsen harmful algal blooms, and increased heavy rains will likely increase the runoff of fertilizer from farms that feeds those blooms. Heavy rains will also likely cause more combined sewer overflows — overwhelming sewer systems and forcing municipalities to release untreated sewage into the lakes or tributaries. Warmer temperatures may favor some invasive species and harm important native species.

“In this era of big [lake level] swings and rapid change, it is all the more important and very fortunate to have something like the Great Lakes Compact in force so that in a period of high water, short-sighted officials don’t rush out and propose deals that end up looking terrible when we go back into a period of low water, which we always do,” Annin says. “We have more volatility, more uncertainty, so the importance of a stabilizing factor like the Compact is arguably more important than ever.”

The Compact as a model for addressing climate change

The Compact was an historic effort and symbol of bipartisan collaboration across jurisdictions. Hence it offers hope and best practices regarding how Great Lakes stakeholders can forge ahead to meet the challenges of climate change — both adapting to the inevitable and helping to curb climate change.

“How do we ensure we are as resilient as possible in the face of climate change?” asked Flanagan. “We’re seeing that exposed pretty starkly with high water levels and coastal erosion. We need to be thinking together about how to address these issues. It’s about taking a long view and looking at the resources as a whole instead of as individual pieces of property.”

Major infrastructure upgrades are needed to handle increasingly fluctuating lake levels and increasingly powerful storms — to protect shorelines and water systems from damage and to protect the lakes from increased pollution brought on by storms and flooding. It’s more important than ever to clean up legacy contamination, since storms could stir up contaminated sediment.

And with increased heat and economic and social stress related to climate change, Great Lakes communities will need to make sure the most vulnerable have access to the lakes themselves and to that most precious commodity: clean drinking water.

“The Compact is doing its job of keeping our Great Lakes water here where it belongs,” says Alliance President & CEO Joel Brammeier. “Our challenge remains to make sure everyone who lives here can enjoy that water safely — in their homes, their businesses and in the outdoors.”

For our 50th anniversary, we commissioned author and journalist Kari Lydersen to look at the Great Lakes and clean water issues that have shaped our region. Read the rest of the series here. 

“Shut up and listen.”

It’s a mantra for Alliance vice president of policy and strategic engagement Crystal Davis, guiding her work with communities on the ground, and shaping policy proposals that meet these communities’ needs.

Environmental and conservation groups have increasingly realized the importance of really listening to a diverse range of residents and stakeholders, and taking their cues from people’s needs and desires rather than leading from the top.

It’s a lesson the Alliance has taken to heart, as it redefines the definition and scope of Great Lakes issues and partners with community organizations and others to try to ensure that all Great Lakes residents can enjoy the benefits of the lakes, from recreational access to economic vitality to clean, affordable drinking water.

“The Alliance is listening to communities and then integrating what we’ve heard into our water priorities,” explains Davis, who is based in Cleveland. “And we do more than listening. We are now actively supporting the communities that we engaged by advocating for legislation that addresses the issues that they identified.”

Residents lack access to safe, affordable drinking water

While the lead crisis in Flint, Michigan, made international headlines in 2015, thousands of residents across the region don’t have dependable access to clean, safe and affordable drinking water, even as they live amidst the world’s largest repository of fresh water.

Toxic lead in service lines is a crisis across much of the Great Lakes, with people in lower-income neighborhoods often most affected and most burdened by the necessity of buying bottled water. PFAS — often called “forever chemicals” — in drinking water are increasingly an issue of concern across the Great Lakes and the nation. Algae blooms can create toxic byproducts that foul water supplies. Water shutoffs are also a crisis for many from Chicago to Cleveland to Detroit and beyond, an issue highlighted during the coronavirus crisis.

“People care about affordability, about drinking water, and they want it to be connected to health and kids and families,” Davis said.

Davis notes that a report on water affordability commissioned by the Alliance and Ohio Environmental Council in 2019 shows how it’s an issue affecting both urban and rural communities. The report notes that in 80% of Ohio communities, a month of water and sewer service costs the equivalent of 8 hours of labor at minimum wage, and many families are forced to make tough economic choices to afford water.

In urban areas, communities of color long affected by disinvestment and systemic racism spend a disproportionate amount of their income on water, while in rural communities, lack of infrastructure and economies of scale mean residents pay especially high rates for water service.

Amplifying voices from urban and rural communities

“Diversity means that we are authentically collaborating with urban and rural communities so that their voices are amplified and positioned to influence water policies at all levels of government,” Davis said. “We’re trying to let people know it’s an income inequality issue. People are suffering in silence — we don’t know a lot of those stories until people feel comfortable enough to talk about it. We are partnering with a lot of organizations that already have ready-made audiences since we don’t have the capacity to do door-to-door ourselves.”

Davis works with community organizations including We the People of Detroit, Junction Coalition in Toledo and the youth development organization MYCOM in Cleveland to help people fight for laws and policies ensuring clean and affordable water, and more. Among other things, they work with youth to educate state elected officials on water bills.

MYCOM network director Kasey Morgan noted that during the pandemic, “Kids are home all day, taking more showers and baths, water bills are going up, and once the state of emergency lifts, these companies are going to be looking for their money.”

The Alliance and MYCOM have together been heavily focused on water affordability, and helping people bring their concerns directly to elected officials.

“We did a webinar talking about how to advocate, who do you speak to, what are some of the things you need to know,” Morgan noted. The Alliance and MYCOM also work together to teach students and others about the Great Lakes system and how issues like nutrient pollution in Lake Erie impact people’s daily lives.

“We learn about different creeks and bodies of water, is it safe to swim in them? And if it’s not safe to swim, how is the water filtered into drinking water?” Morgan noted.

Chicago: Pursuing sustainable, healthy approaches to land use and water infrastructure

Educating people about the implications of infrastructure and policy — and understanding how those things affect daily lives — is also central to the work of Alliance community planning manager Olga Bautista in Chicago.

Bautista has long been an activist on the city’s Southeast Side, where among other things she helped lead a fight to remove towering piles of petroleum coke stored near residential streets along the Calumet River, a Lake Michigan tributary.

With the Alliance, she works with community advisory councils, residents, policymakers and other stakeholders to push for a sustainable and healthy approach to land use and water infrastructure. A major focus has been the city’s plans to relocate a metal scrap shredding operation from the North Side to the Southeast Side. Bautista and her neighbors say that instead of such dirty industry, they want to see formerly industrial land used for green space, education or clean job-creating industries, including related to renewable energy. Part of her mission is helping residents envision how the Calumet River and local lakefront — long heavily industrialized — could become accessible to them, assets for recreation and even tourism.

Bautista wants policymakers and residents to understand, “How does land use, zoning and permitting connect to immigrants’ rights, how is it connected to organizations that work with special needs children, things that you don’t typically think about when you think about land use” and lakes.

Tapping into community strengths

A key to effective community partnerships, she notes, is “starting from a positive place — talking about all the strengths in the community, the networks that already exist, and how to fortify those networks.”

She notes that in places like Chicago’s Southeast Side, “there are roots from people who came here who were sharecroppers, people who came from Latin America who were ranchers, who had a really deep connection to the land. It’s in their blood, it’s part of their heritage and culture, then they come to a country where they aren’t included in those issues that have to do with land, water, stormwater management.”

Tapping the knowledge and power of people in under-resourced or challenged communities, she notes, means leveraging “those strengths that people have and meeting them where they are — not the other way around. We’re not asking people to come downtown to talk about issues in their neighborhood. We have to go where they are and meet them on front porches, church basements, school cafeterias. Those are places where people feel the most comfortable.”

Northeast Wisconsin: Working to reduce nutrient pollution from agriculture

Meeting people where they are is also key to the work of Alliance senior policy manager Todd Brennan in northeast Wisconsin, where he works closely with farmers, NGOs, industry, academics and policymakers to reduce nutrient pollution from agriculture, through getting farmers and policy-makers to see value in innovations in the use of fertilizer and tilling, land conservation and other practices.

Brennan partners with organizations like the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance to learn from farmers about the nuances of their work, their economic and logistical needs and how practices to curb nutrient pollution and otherwise protect water can fit in. Early on in this work, he realized that there were a lot of misconceptions about farmers’ willingness to address nutrient pollution.

“We did a sweeping set of surveys and kitchen table interviews with farmers across the basin,” he recounted. “We heard that they were very interested, would like a watershed conservation newsletter, and in some cases were embarrassed when they saw the river running opaque brown with their top soil.”

Farmer roundtables lead to a victory for cleaning up Green Bay

He spearheaded annual farmer round tables, where farmers come together with other allies in a banquet hall and discuss their land management practices, ideas and goals.

“We have seen attendance at our forums and events start big and only get bigger every year,” Brennan noted. “Farmers share their stories and implement what they have learned from those events and interactions. These are the things you can’t get second-hand, but they come out when you sit down, build trust, break bread and share learning, perspectives and experiences.”

The round tables helped lead to a major victory for cleaning up Green Bay in 2019. In February, four Green Bay-area counties and the Oneida Nation signed a water quality pact for Northeast Wisconsin, calling for an aggressive 60% reduction in phosphorus by 2040 with an interim goal of 30% by 2030.

In a blog, Oneida Nation Vice-Chairman Brandon Stevens wrote: “Our Nation’s ancestors have utilized these waters since our arrival in the 1800s. The waters here were clean and pristine … a place where wild rice grew and the fish were abundant. It is our hope that one day these waters will once again be restored.”

Brennan and his colleagues are partnering with the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay in building a water monitoring network involving at least 15 agencies, universities and organizations.

And he and his allies work closely with county and local land and water use government agencies, ultimately helping to build policy from the ground up.

“This is a game changer,” Brennan said.

Collaboration is “how you make this work sustainable and lasting”

Paul Botts, son of Lake Michigan Federation founder Lee Botts and former board member of the Alliance, has seen the Alliance’s approach to collaboration evolve over time.

“The Alliance has certainly figured out partnerships,” he said. “It’s very different even than 20 years ago. [In the past] everyone was for it but we didn’t really know how to do it. That’s very different now. Especially with younger professionals coming into these fields, rising into positions of responsibility and leadership, collaborating with other organizations and combining strengths is just how you do it.”

He added that some work could be “faster and simpler if the Alliance wasn’t strongly focused on doing it in a collaborative partnering way. Collaboration is not a free magic bullet. It has costs. But it’s clearly worth it, it’s clearly how you make this work sustainable and lasting, it’s not just stomping out one fire at a time.”

Bautista, Davis and Brennan all agree that listening to and helping to empower people and pushing policy that meets their needs is paramount, and that work naturally dovetails with protecting the Great Lakes themselves.

“People across the Great Lakes region know how important the actual resource is,” Bautista said. “When given the opportunity to engage in its protection and conservation, people will show up.”

For our 50th anniversary, we commissioned author and journalist Kari Lydersen to look at the Great Lakes and clean water issues that have shaped our region. Read the rest of the series here.

Like something out of a horror movie

Fishermen were pulling up lake trout and whitefish with gaping bloody wounds and strange tentacles seemingly hanging from them. Upon closer inspection, the tentacles were sea lampreys, a primordial eel-shaped beast with a suction cup mouth ringed by sharp yellow teeth and a rasping tongue, used to scrape the scales off fish and then suck their blood.

It was like something out of a horror movie.

The economic and cultural devastation sea lampreys soon wrought across the Great Lakes was equally horrifying. Fish stock that family commercial fishing operations had relied on for generations were being decimated. Meanwhile without larger fish to prey on them, invasive alewives proliferated, choking the ecosystem and covering beaches most summers in stinking piles of dead fish.

Sea lampreys: The first devastating invader

More than half a century ago, sea lampreys were the first invasive species to create major problems in the Great Lakes, after traveling from the Atlantic Ocean through canals built to circumvent Niagara Falls.

“In 1921, the first one was spotted in Lake Erie,” says sea lamprey scientist and historian Cory Brants, a researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “From there the Great Lakes is one big flowing system. They had free rein of the entire Great Lakes Basin, and they didn’t waste their time.”

By the 1940s they were in every Great Lake. By the 1950s, they were killing more than 100 million pounds of fish a year.

“Commercial fishing families were already trying to make ends meet, they’d made it through the Great Depression, then World War II, and then sea lamprey came.”

Scientists worked together with fishermen to understand the sea lamprey’s strange life cycle and spread, and figure out where it would be most vulnerable. They experimented with more than 8,000 different chemicals — often placed in pickle jars with sea lamprey larva — in an effort to find one that could kill sea lampreys without harming other organisms. Eventually they found TFM, a lampricide that kills sea lamprey larva buried in the mud, without doing other harm.

Today the population is under control, thanks largely to ongoing strategic applications of lampricide in the rivers where sea lampreys spawn.

Tiny mussels cause major damage

But that’s the exception. Many more problematic invasive species have come in their wake. In all there are more than 180 invasive species of plants and animals in the Great Lakes. The ones with arguably the most devastating impact are much less frightful-looking than sea lampreys: the tiny zebra and quagga mussels, which are believed to have entered the lakes in the late 1980s in ballast water from ocean-going ships. Past invaders from ships are estimated to cause more than $200 million in damage annually.

Innocuous as a single mussel may appear, they decimated the base of the food chain with their prolific filter-feeding on plankton. While the water appears more beautifully crystal-clear because of the mussels, that change means less food for native fish, harmful algae growth and other pernicious changes. Meanwhile the mussels cause major damage to drinking water and power plant water intake structures, as they encrust underwater surfaces.

“Thirty years after the zebra mussel invasion, we’re still coming to grips with what the effects are,” says Marc Gaden, legislative liaison for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. “It changed everything. Whereas sea lampreys are top-down predators, killing grown fish with wounds that are very obvious, zebra mussels are a little more insidious. They are at the bottom of the food web, and their impact ripples throughout the ecosystem. If you don’t eat plankton, you eat fish that eat plankton, and zebra mussels are pulling the rug out from under it.”

Protecting the lakes from invaders in ballast water

There’s no putting the toothpaste back in the tube; once invasive species establish, they are usually here to stay. But the Alliance and other advocacy groups working with elected officials have made sure the Great Lakes are far better protected from invasion than they were a decade ago.

Since 2006 when a federal district court ruled that ballast water should be covered under the Clean Water Act, the Alliance and allies have worked hard on legislation and policy to implement the requirement. After years of contentious negotiations over regulations, in 2018 the Alliance scored a major victory: federal legislation ensuring that the EPA continues to oversee ballast water regulation, that stricter standards can be developed for the Great Lakes, and making sure all cargo vessels that ply the lakes are subject to clean water standards.

Asian carp: Closing in on Lake Michigan

On another front, Asian carp — specifically bighead and silver carp — colonized many Mississippi River tributaries after escaping from fish farms along the Mississippi River in the 1990s. For years they’ve threatened to enter Lake Michigan through the manmade waterways near Chicago that connect the Great Lakes Basin to the Mississippi River Basin. So far, these dreaded fish have not established populations in the Great Lakes. After five years of study and a major effort by the Alliance, last year the federal government delivered a plan to build massive new Asian carp blockades on the waterway system.

The Obama administration recognized Asian carp as such a serious threat that it created a team of federal agencies to focus on the issue. In 2009, Asian carp eDNA — or loose DNA in the environment — was found in the Chicago River, close to Lake Michigan and beyond any barrier that would block the fish. This sparked rounds of state-on-state litigation, as well as intense monitoring of the fish’s progress toward Lake Michigan that persists today.

A plan to stop invasives from spreading through a man-made connection

The Alliance advocated for separation — severing the artificial connection between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes — as the only way to truly prevent the spread of Asian carp and other invasive species. The connection was made with the famous reversal of the Chicago River more than a century ago.

“Dozens of government officials, scientists and advocates like the Alliance see separation as the preferred protection for the lakes, but it is fiendishly complex to make happen” said Joel Brammeier. “Thanks to years of hard work, we have a plan for building real protections for the lakes that Congress and the states are ready to get behind.”

Even if the Great Lakes are protected from invasives entering through ballast or from the Mississippi Basin, managing the ones already here is an ongoing challenge.

“Invasive species are the number one example of why prevention is so important,” Brammeier notes. “Because once they are here, there’s no turning back the clock. We can’t undo the damage. Paying for prevention is always money well spent.”

For our 50th anniversary, we commissioned author and journalist Kari Lydersen to look at the Great Lakes and clean water issues that have shaped our region. Read the rest of the series here.

Fighting point source pollution

In 2002, the Lake Michigan Federation sued the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) regarding untreated sewage that the district was discharging into rivers and Lake Michigan during heavy rainfalls.

Sewer overflows have been a chronic type of point source pollution in the Great Lakes and tributaries across the region, resulting – among other reasons – when rain over-whelms sewer systems that combine stormwater and sanitary sewage in pipes.

Point source pollution was the primary target of the Clean Water Act of 1972 — in addition to sewage, the chemicals and waste that factories, refineries and other industry once dumped into the water with abandon, causing the Cuyahoga River to infamously catch on fire.

Today MMSD has dramatically reduced sewer overflows, thanks to ambitious work building a deep tunnel to store overflow, reducing stormwater runoff through green infrastructure, and Clean Water Act oversight by the state of Wisconsin and local advocates.

The Alliance and MMSD are now both advancing the fight for a cleaner Great Lakes. And MMSD is a model for cities around the region that still struggle with CSOs.

Nonpoint source pollution rears its head

Drops in sewage overflows are a Clean Water Act success story, though they still persist as a major issue, especially with climate change and record-shattering rainfall overwhelming old Great Lakes sewer systems.

But the most problematic type of pollution now may be nonpoint source pollution in the form of runoff from agricultural fields into rivers and then the lakes, carrying nutrients from fertilizer that feed harmful algal blooms. These blooms can make water toxic to drink and touch, and lead to low-oxygen “dead zones.”

Agricultural runoff feeds harmful algal blooms

Algal blooms re-emerged in the 1990s as a serious Great Lakes problem after a respite achieved in the 1980s thanks to bans on high-phosphate laundry detergent adopted under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1972. Founder Lee Botts led the Lake Michigan Federation in advocating strenuously for the bans, and Chicago under Mayor Richard M. Daley became the first city to institute a ban thanks to the Federation’s work.

But while such bans can address phosphorus from wastewater as a point source of pollution, there is currently no meaningful federal regulation of nonpoint source agricultural runoff.

The Clean Water Act doesn’t address it, and it’s not an easy thing to regulate since without one point of release, quantifying and proving the origin of pollution is complicated. But there are steps farmers and communities can take to drastically reduce runoff while providing other ecological and economic benefits. And regulations at the state and local level should mandate and increasingly incentivize best practices be used.

MMSD is also a leader in such efforts, working with farmers in the Milwaukee region and urban residents to reduce runoff. Among other things, the district has purchased more than 4,000 acres of undeveloped land for its Greenseams program, so that the land will remain as wetland and forest, providing buffers between farmland and waterways.

“The biggest key point is you have to look at this from a watershed perspective,” says MMSD executive director Kevin Shafer. “And we have to partner with farmers — they understand the water cycle as well as or better than anyone. They know that clean water helps them grow crops, feed cows.”

Dan Stoffel farms with his two brothers about 50 miles north of Milwaukee. Almost 30 years ago, he adopted no-till farming — meaning that he doesn’t plow under crop detritus at the end of the season but rather leaves it on the ground, which can mean much less fertilizer running off. Stoffel has also turned strips of his land into habitat for pollinators, growing beautiful native plants that block runoff from entering streams and rivers.

Stoffel says that while he likes helping the lakes and rivers, his main motivation is economic. “We’re trying to make a buck out here,” he says. “We’re finding that all these things dovetail into a profitable venture.”

Urban runoff pollutes the lakes

Urban runoff is also a damaging form of nonpoint source pollution, as water running off streets carries oil, chemicals, salt and debris into waterways and ultimately the lakes. MMSD partners with community residents and groups to help reduce runoff both directly into the rivers and into storm drains. Backed up combined sewers, along with polluting the rivers and lakes, also cause basement flooding that is devastating for many residents.

Shafer notes that older, lower-income neighborhoods tend to experience the worst flooding, so MMSD has prioritized creating partnerships and gaining residents’ trust in those communities — not always an easy task if people see the district as “big bad MMSD.”

Yvonne McCaskill is a retired Milwaukee schoolteacher and administrator who started a community group, the Century City Triangle Neighborhood Association, in North Milwaukee. Basement flooding was one of the big issues troubling residents, as in cities around the region.

So McCaskill began working with MMSD and the environmental group Clean Wisconsin to help residents install rain barrels and plant rain gardens with native plants that effectively soak up stormwater, keeping it out of sewers and the rivers. Clean Wisconsin Milwaukee Program Director and Staff Attorney Pam Ritger noted that over seven years the program has helped provide 53 rain gardens and 571 rain barrels, which are estimated to soak up 2.17 million gallons of rain a year.

“It’s wonderful to connect with communities and neighborhoods, to see how enthusiastic people are to be a part of solving the problem of polluted rivers and polluted lakes,” said Ritger, adding that there’s typically a celebration each summer for participants in the program, and many families come year after year.

McCaskill notes that partnerships between larger organizations and people in the com-munity are crucial, especially since larger policy groups may not understand the local needs and cultural context. For example, many of her neighbors are senior citizens who worried about the labor needed to install and maintain rain barrels. So she and her organization enlisted young people to install and maintain the barrels, and artists worked with locals to decorate them.

Just as reducing runoff has major economic benefits for farmers like Stoffel, working with other groups and agencies to reduce flooding and runoff in cities has to merge with efforts to increase civic participation and empower communities that have too long been marginalized.

“It’s not a one and done, we’re constantly having to respond to what’s going on in our environment,” McCaskill says. “Across the city these coalitions we’re building are really going to be important, and even more important for communities of color, because we have always been left behind. This is a great opportunity and a great time for communities of color to claim our spot.”

Sweeping change in the works for Lake Michigan’s Green Bay

Up the coast from Milwaukee in Green Bay, the stakes are high and sweeping change is in the works, thanks in part to work and collaborations fostered by the Alliance. Green Bay in Lake Michigan and the western basin of Lake Erie are arguably the parts of the Great Lakes most challenged by nutrient pollution, “shallow basins that have pretty large-scale problems” as Alliance senior policy manager Todd Brennan puts it.

In Green Bay and the Fox River that feeds it, much of the pollution emanates from manure from dairies; whereas in Lake Erie the main culprit is fertilizer running off agricultural fields into the Maumee River and its tributaries, with manure playing a significant role too.

One of the reasons tackling nonpoint source pollution is so challenging, Brennan ex-plains, is that the watersheds cut across numerous governmental jurisdictions. In the Green Bay area the Alliance has spearheaded collaborations between government, industry, farmers, and other community members including the Oneida Nation in planning and decision-making with a watershed-wide approach.

“The cities, farmers and businesses weren’t yet acting together, even though all of them were obligated to reduce pollution,” Brennan explained. “And there was a lot of opportunity and power in the different jurisdictions, cities, counties, and villages in the region coming together. Everyone had to come a deep understanding that we share the problem, and we are going to share in the solution.”

For five years the Alliance has hosted an annual farmer round table, where farmers come together for a day in a banquet hall and discuss their conservation practices and learn from each other. One of the Alliance’s partners in working with farmers is the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.

Jessica Schultz, executive director of that alliance, emphasizes that rather than the “doom and gloom and finger-pointing” that often characterize discussions of nonpoint source pollution, they aim to highlight positive work and possibilities. The Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance also helps county land conservation departments secure funds to deal with nutrient pollution.

“We need funding to help [farmers] change the way they are currently doing things, and we also need to make sure everyone who lives here takes ownership of the water,” Schultz said. “We need to provide people the support for change, and we need to build a culture where people want to continue that practice on their own.”

Brennan said it’s important to emphasize both annual actions — like tillage and cover crops — and permanent practices, like the Agricultural Runoff Treatment Systems that the Outagamie County Conservation Department instituted to treat farm field runoff somewhat like urban runoff: capturing, storing and harvesting the nutrients and sediment permanently. ““This is a game changer” Brennan said, “to make progress on our goals we need to get a chunk of reductions that we can count on and the permanent practices are the way to get that.”

Dan Diedrich is one of the Green Bay-area farmers helping to make a difference. His family has been farming there for more than a century; he runs a dairy and grows crops. Diedrich says concern for the environment has long been a family value, and he practices no-till farming as much as possible and has manure from the dairy injected into the ground so it won’t run off. He notes that purchasing equipment for such practices is costly and it can take time for the economic benefits of conservation to kick in. But he sees farmers increasingly moving in that direction.

“Clean water adds a lot to the lifestyle for the entire community,” he noted. “It means a more attractive place to live, which makes it easier to get and keep employees, which impacts every business.”

Lake Erie: a wakeup call and growing momentum

Most summers in recent times, Lake Erie’s western basin turns into a toxic pea-soup-colored broth. In 2014 the city of Toledo had to shut down its drinking water distribution systems and tell half a million people not to drink the water for three days because of toxic contamination from the algae — fueled by fertilizer runoff from farm fields.

That was a wakeup call.

“We’d spent so much time protecting our water supply from diversion in the 2000s. Then one day hundreds of thousands of people woke up and could no longer rely on the Great Lakes for their most basic need – drinking water,” said Alliance president and CEO Joel Brammeier. “There was plenty of water but no one could use it safely. That shocked the Great Lakes region.”

In June of 2015, thanks to strenuous advocacy by the Alliance and other partners, Ohio, Michigan and Ontario agreed to reduce phosphorus in Lake Erie by 40%. Last summer, at a meeting of the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recommitted to the 40% goal, along with Michigan and Ontario again. The work of the Alliance and other stakeholders was crucial to this commitment.

The momentum was driven in part by people directly affected by the Toledo crisis, like Alexis Smith, restorative justice director at the organization Junction Coalition, who went door to door to make sure senior citizens in their community were informed not to drink the contaminated water. Smith notes that historic incidents like the one in Toledo rein-force feelings that their tap water cannot be trusted.

The Alliance and its community partners have continued to keep the pressure on the Ohio government, and last year DeWine created the H2Ohio program, a multi-million-dollar fund to improve Great Lakes water quality, with a particular focus on reducing agricultural runoff. Already about 2,000 Ohio farmers are signed up to receive incentives for adopting best practices in nutrient management, and the program also involves restoring thousands of acres of wetlands to act as buffers absorbing nutrient pollution before it reaches waterways.

“We are absolutely thrilled that Governor DeWine is so invested in the health of Lake Erie and the water quality of Ohio,” said Joy Mulinex, director of the Lake Erie Commission, a governmental body that makes policy recommendations and otherwise works with the governor on protecting the lake. “It’s going to take a number of years to see the fruits of all the work being done — algal blooms will still happen for the next couple of summers. But we’re hopeful we’ll see progress.”

Brammeier notes that in Wisconsin, where there is a clear and measurable path to reducing nutrient pollution across Green Bay, the work of the Alliance is possible partly because of an ambitious regulatory framework that includes a limit on the “total maxi-mum daily load” (or TMDL) of nutrients that can be released into Green Bay, and other mandatory pollution control measures.

In Ohio, the government has committed to creating a TMDL but so far there are not meaningful enforceable limits on nutrient pollution. The Alliance and its allies want such limits, which are critical for two reasons: to hold government accountable, and to communicate to everyone what the expectations are for reducing nutrient pollution and protecting clean drinking water.

Involving the voices and leadership of those most affected

Crystal Davis, the Alliance’s Cleveland-based vice-president for policy and strategic engagement, notes that the state can only truly tackle nutrient pollution if the process includes the voices and leadership of those most affected — the millions of residents of Toledo, Cleveland and other Lake Erie cities who see their drinking water and health at risk because of nutrient pollution.

Along with the health impacts of toxic algal blooms, economic consequences of cleanup are imposed on those who can least afford them. If cities need to spend more to clean and manage water fouled by nutrient pollution and toxic algae, those costs are ultimately passed on to ratepayers. And low-income and minority communities in Ohio and across the Great Lakes region are especially vulnerable to water shut-offs and shouldering the burden of high water bills or bottled water when they can’t trust their tap. The Alliance’s work includes working with residents to understand the full impact and ripple effects of issues like nutrient pollution, and make sure policymakers are aware and take action.

“People are suffering in silence, and we don’t know a lot of these stories until people feel comfortable enough to talk about it,” Davis noted.

Davis and her colleagues help people make their voices heard in various ways. They educate and activate community members young and old on the issues, fight for water service line replacement to reduce lead in tap water, and work to support legislation on safe and affordable water services for all.

Davis hosted an event in Akron called “Water, Women & Wellness Summit,” where women from all walks of life discussed their relationship with water. And she works with community groups on the ground that also focus on issues like police misconduct, youth empowerment and fair housing, exploring the way that water rights are interconnected.

“I’m not a traditional environmentalist. I don’t like going outside unless it’s a tropical beach,” says Davis. “For me to be passionate about this, it has to be not about habitat, but about people.”

Paul Botts — son of Lake Michigan Federation founder Lee Botts, and former board member of the Alliance — works with farmers on reducing nutrient pollution in his role as executive director of the Wetlands Initiative. He knows many stakeholders are leery of regulations targeting nonpoint source pollution, and that developing programs and mandates to address such a multi-faceted and sprawling problem is a huge challenge. But he reminds people that the victories against point source pollution — like the Clean Water Act and Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement — involved balancing complicated and competing interests and bringing diverse stakeholders together.

“Farmers are not a monolith at all — there’s vast differences of opinion in row crop farming about this issue and what they’re up for doing,” Botts says. “There are generational differences, differences of place, that’s normal, that’s human beings, we have to work with it. It is complicated, it’s frustrating in some ways. But I am fundamentally optimistic.”

This year the Alliance for the Great Lakes celebrates its 50^th anniversary. From a tiny but influential startup called the Lake Michigan Federation, the Alliance for the Great Lakes has grown into a leading voice for the protection of the Great Lakes and for all the ways that people and wildlife are dependent on them.

The Great Lakes are far healthier and better protected than they were 50 years ago, and I hope you will share the celebration of this tremendous achievement. The early American environmental movement that launched the Lake Michigan Federation, and many other groups 50 years ago, signaled a fundamental change in respect for our planet. The Great Lakes movement helped lead that change, change with a distinct difference.

Our Great Lakes environmental movement

The Great Lakes and clean water are well understood by the public. It’s probably because the lakes have such a large and diverse presence in our daily lives. Water from the lakes flows into our water glasses at home and work. For many of us, a lakefront park is just a short drive, ride or even walk away. The lakes change our weather, producing legendary gales and snow squalls. We swim, boat, and respect the abundance of nature their waters provide. And the waters of the lakes drive our regional economy. So, it’s not surprising that support for their protection transcends political and geographic divisions like few other environmental issues. It’s a legacy that, like the lakes themselves, is worth protecting.

But broad support doesn’t mean those protections have come easy. In conversations informing these articles, Paul Botts, son of Lake Michigan Federation founder Lee Botts, reminded us just how difficult and compromise-laden the work of creating and implementing the Clean Water Act really was 50 years ago. Nostalgia can certainly blind us to fresh opportunities for growing the Great Lakes movement. So, as we celebrate, I also ask “What’s next, and how can we do better?”

Looking forward

Sustainable progress for the Great Lakes depends on many voices from many corners, from the political left and right, from our neighbors to the north, from cities and rural communities. This was true of the campaigns that resulted in landmark pollution protections via the Clean Water Act, the Great Lakes Compact’s ban on most water diversions, and the cleanup of toxic hotspots left over from industrial pollution. Hammering out these agreements took tough conversations. It took leaders willing to sit down with those who had strongly opposing viewpoints. It took a willingness to stay focused on both today and future generations. We face down big problems today, so we better look sharp, stay focused and make sure the table is set for everyone who has a stake in keeping the Great Lakes clean.

After we have reflected on 50 years of progress, what is left is the choice of how we are part of shaping the future. One where each person’s connection to the Great Lakes is reflected and respected in the goals of policy and in the actions we take. Where collaboration comes naturally because we do the hard work to build a cause that is inclusive and just, reflecting the whole of the Great Lakes.

To mark our 50^th anniversary, we commissioned Kari Lydersen, a writer and reporter who’s written about Great Lakes issues for regional and national news outlets, to take a look back on a few issues that shaped the Great Lakes movement. But we didn’t want to just look to the past. The following stories, with in-depth interviews with our staff and regional experts, challenge us to look forward to a Great Lakes movement that’s ready to ensure our lakes are safe, clean, and accessible to all.

Depending on people like you

None of this would have been possible without the support of tens of thousands of people who have donated, volunteered, and spoken out in favor of the Great Lakes over the past 50 years. We are here today because more people support the Alliance today than ever before in our history. This movement depends on people like you. Thank you.

Cities across the country are investing in their water infrastructure systems with hopes of achieving triple bottom line benefits – for people, the environment, and economic return. In the face of a changing climate that brings more extreme wet weather, a combination of gray infrastructure (pipes and tunnels) and green stormwater infrastructure (plants and soil) is a recipe for resilience that many cities are trying to perfect.

Alliance for the Great Lakes, in partnership with the City of Detroit Department of Public Works, identified five cities that have had success implementing green and gray water infrastructure improvements in their cities, with a focus on the public rights-of-way (streets). Streets are ideal for green stormwater management practices because they are already designed to move water, and streets make up a vast majority – up to half – of impervious surfaces in cities.

Check out our case studies on green stormwater infrastructure in the right-of-way to learn more about how these five cities have created policies, programs, design guidelines, and more to help them achieve their triple bottom line goals.

• Case Study: Cleveland
• Case Study: Denver
• Case Study: Milwaukee
• Case Study: Minneapolis
• Case Study: Philadelphia

Trash picked up anywhere can help us have cleaner beaches and lakes everywhere.

While the journey of a piece of trash can be as short as a few feet – from a hand to the beach – some trash can travel miles via storm sewers before it hits the shore. Storm sewers throughout the region that drain toward the Great Lakes can become highways for the bottle caps, cigar tips, cigarette butts, and straws that are among the top 10 items found at Adopt-a-Beach cleanups.

How trash travels from street to shore

While the majority of beach litter is left by beach goers, research has found that rivers and streams flowing into the Great Lakes also transport trash.

During storm events, litter left on streets is washed into storm drains. Those drains don’t always go to wastewater treatment plants. Sometimes they empty directly into nearby streams and rivers or even into the lakes. Especially likely to become traveling trash are the small broken bits of plastic and styrofoam that are the number one item Adopt-a-Beach volunteers find.

Neighborhood cleanups help keep beaches clean

This year Adopt-a-Beach volunteers have the option to join cleanups on the beaches of the Great Lakes and in their own neighborhoods, whether that’s a city block, suburban cul-de-sac, country road, or anywhere in between.

For some, the COVID-19 pandemic is one reason to organize a neighborhood cleanup. Many people have a desire to volunteer, but this year they have to balance that desire with keeping themselves and their families safe.

“But organizing  community cleanups is about more than the pandemic,” says Tyrone Dobson, the Alliance’s Senior Volunteer Engagement Manager. “It’s also the result of broader thinking about stopping litter at its source.”

Others around the country are also thinking about litter more broadly. For example, this year the California Coastal Commission declared “beach cleanups start at your door,” encouraging participants to clean their neighborhoods to help protect the Pacific coast.

“Very few good things have come out of the past year,” says Volunteer Engagement Associate Olivia Reda. “But one positive is that the pandemic has made us think about how we can share the good with the most people. If neighborhood cleanups are a way we do that, then that’s a victory.”

Litter in your neighborhood can find its way into the Great Lakes via storm drains on your street. And litter is gross wherever it falls! Help keep the Great Lakes – and your community – clean by picking up neighborhood litter with your household.

Hosting a neighborhood cleanup is just as easy as hosting an Adopt-a-Beach cleanup. Here are the steps:

1. Register your neighborhood cleanup. You can clean up any day, any time, any neighborhood. All of the cleanups in September 2020 will be included as part of the 2020 International Coastal Cleanup.
2. Plan logistics for your cleanup. Consider where you will start and finish your cleanup. What precautions will you take to remain safe? Where will you dispose of any litter?
3. Gather supplies. Gloves, masks, and bags or pails are required. Decide what other supplies you may need.
4. Hold your cleanup. Have fun and take plenty of photos! Neighborhood cleanups are just as fun as beach cleanups. And we love to see photos of your impact and your team.
5. Record your litter data online. Your data makes a difference. Submit your data within 7 days after the cleanup.

Remember, neighborhood cleanups can start at your door. Register your neighborhood cleanup today!

Summary

We seek a highly motivated individual with a passion for writing and developing cause-oriented communications campaigns. The ideal candidate is a top-notch writer with a diverse portfolio showcasing an ability to write a variety of copy that motivates readers to act. We seek a self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment and collaborates easily with others.

The Staff Writer is on the front lines of reaching tens of thousands of people with the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ water protection agenda every day. They will lead the Alliance’s digital and direct mail fundraising campaigns, manage the Alliance’s social media channels, and develop a wide range of copy including email action alerts, blogs, webpages, and fact sheets. The Staff Writer will need the ability to switch content format, style, and tone as needed to achieve goals.

Above all we are looking for someone who has a passion for non-profit communications, is a curious people-person, and has a strong interest in environmental and water issues. The Staff Writer is a core member of the Alliance’s Communications & Engagement Team and will partner closely with the Alliance’s Development Team. They will also work with staff throughout the organization.

A typical day for the Alliance’s Staff Writer might look like this: The day starts with a quick scan of the Alliance’s social media accounts and Google alerts on key Alliance campaign issues to have a pulse on what’s happening in the news and what’s of interest to our supporters and partners. They’ll then join the Communications & Engagement Team’s daily 30-minute check-in video call, where the team shares out key updates from the previous day and discusses any key project changes. The Writer might then spend time drafting content for an end of year giving season appeal letter, tracking down final approval on a print newsletter article from a staff expert, writing a breaking news tweet announcing a win on a key Congressional vote, brainstorming ideas with the team for the annual report theme, and building a blog page for a profile of an Alliance volunteer.

The Staff Writer reports to the Vice President, Communications and Engagement.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes is a nonpartisan nonprofit working across the region to protect our most precious resource: the fresh, clean, and natural waters of the Great Lakes. The Alliance is a four-star Charity Navigator organization. Learn more at greatlakes.org.

Responsibilities

• Drafts and edits compelling content primarily for the Alliance’s supporter engagement campaigns including but not limited to print and digital fundraising appeals, advocacy action alerts, social media posts, web copy, and fact sheets, while ensuring consistent messaging across all of the Alliance communications channels.
• Manages the Alliance’s social media channels, including development of the social media content calendar and writing and deploying all social media content. Develops and implements strategies to organically grow and maintain online engagement of volunteers, advocates, and donors. Partners with the Alliance’s Marketing Strategist to develop and implement paid social media campaigns.
• Manages production process of the Alliance’s print and digital fundraising appeals, including content development, selection of images/graphics and budget.
• Manages the production process and budget of the Alliance’s quarterly newsletter, Watermarks, and the annual report, including content development and selection of images/graphics.
• Partners with Vice President for Development to set Annual Fund goals, develop strategies and tactics for improving donor acquisition, upgrading and retaining donors, and assessing progress on an ongoing basis.
• Partners with communications and program staff to develop communications strategy and tactical plans for advocacy and volunteer campaigns.
• Provides proofreading and copy-editing for written materials and acts as a quality control point for the organization’s communications.
• Deploys content, including building webpages, emails, etc.
• Keeps up on current news and policy campaigns in the Alliance’s core issue areas.
• Communicates and develops relationships with staff across the organization to stay ‘in the know’ on upcoming Alliance projects and to find interesting story ideas.

Knowledge/Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications, English, Marketing, or Journalism degree preferred.
• 5-7 years relevant work experience in cause-based marketing, non-profit communications, or fundraising with a focus on content development for multiple audiences and platforms.
• Superior writing, editing, and grammatical skills.
• Commitment to mission-driven public interest work.
• Proven experience developing content that relays complex policy or scientific issues that compels audiences to action through advocacy, volunteer, and/or fundraising advertising or marketing campaigns, including tailoring content to motivate specific audiences.
• Proficient with major social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,etc.).
• Demonstrated ability to communicate and engage authentically across cultures, identities, races, life experiences, and knowledge systems.
• Experience working in a collaborative team environment. Solid interpersonal skills and ability to facilitate a team process and collaborate with various stakeholders.
• Experience developing and managing production schedules, working well under pressure, and handling multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Demonstrated ability to adjust communication campaign strategies and tactics as data and external events warrant.
• Available when needed for urgent breaking news situations, fundraising events, or other events, possibly on nights or weekends.
• Knowledge of CMS (such as WordPress) or HTML, email campaign software (e.g., Campaign Monitor, etc.), and photo or video editing helpful.
• Comfortable working in a remote (non-office) environment.
• Environmental, particularly Great Lakes or water-focused, experience or background helpful but not required.

Job Parameters

• This position is full-time and consistent with Alliance employment policy. Salary to be commensurate with experience.
• Excellent benefits including health, dental, and vacation, along with a retirement plan after 1 year of service.
• This position will occasionally work outside of normal business hours, possibly on nights or weekends, to support communications needs for breaking news situations or fundraising events.
• The Staff Writer must be located in the Great Lakes region. If they are not located near the Alliance’s Chicago headquarters, occasional travel, approximately 6-8 times per year, to Chicago for meetings and events will be necessary. Some limited travel, approximately 2-3 times per year, around the Great Lakes region to attend events or meetings may be necessary.

Application Process

Please e-mail a cover letter, resume, references and 3 writing samples or a link to an online portfolio that showcases a variety of copy to: hr@greatlakes.org. Include job title in the subject line.

Applications will be accepted in a rolling basis until the position is filled. Materials should be compatible with Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat. Applicants will receive confirmation of receipt of their materials and further guidance and updates about the hiring process by e-mail, with interviews provided for finalists. No phone inquiries please.

About the Alliance for the Great Lakes

The Alliance for the Great Lakes is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The search process will reinforce the Alliance’s belief that achieving diversity requires an enduring commitment to inclusion that must find full expression in our organizational culture, values, norms, and behaviors. The Alliance’s vision is a healthy Great Lakes for people and wildlife, forever. Its mission is to conserve and restore the world’s largest freshwater resource using policy, education and local efforts, ensuring a healthy Great Lakes and clean water for generations of people and wildlife. For more information about the Alliance’s programs and work,  please visit us online at greatlakes.org.