Alliance for the Great Lakes

Constituent engagement. the Alliance provided more than 20,000 volunteer experiences through our adopt-a-beach program. Our beach volunteers removed more than 54,000 pounds of litter from Great Lakes beaches, 90% of which was plastic (or 700,000 individual pieces). Nearly 200 people are now Alliance ambassadors who have received deep training to speak on a variety of Great Lakes issues in their communities. We generated more than 20,000 advocacy actions where individual constituents sent letters and made phone calls to elected officials in support of Great Lakes policy in our three programs.

Clean water for people. the Alliance is working to ensure that Great Lakes communities can access resources to invest in drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure that creates clean, safe, and affordable water for all people and a healthy Great Lakes. During 2019 we co-led creation of an economic analysis demonstrating that each federal dollar invested in the Great Lakes is returning more than 3 dollars in economic impact. Through this and other efforts, the Great Lakes received full funding of $300 million through the Great Lakes restoration initiative and minimized cuts proposed to federal water infrastructure funds. We conducted clean water "education to action" workshops throughout the state of Ohio to listen to feedback from community members on what water issues are important to them, and to build momentum for state-level clean water policy advocacy. In detroit, we created a platform for green infrastructure linked to transportation policy which ...

Aquatic invasive species/agriculture & water. Aquatic invasive species (ais) pose a serious threat to the ecology and economy of the Great Lakes region. the Alliance led the fight at the federal and state levels to: 1) maintain strong standards that protect the Great Lakes from contaminated ballast water in ships; and 2) prevent asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes through the chicago area waterway system. During 2019 we educated members of congress on the importance of maintaining and strengthening pollution standards that require reductions in the amount of biological pollution discharged to the Great Lakes. Congress passed legislation that ensured the federal clean water act would continue to apply to ballast water discharged from all ships operating on the Great Lakes despite industry efforts to weaken these standards and even secure exemptions. We also worked to educate the incoming pritzker gubernatorial administration on the importance of stopping asian ...