Alliance for the Great Lakes

Engagement: engagement of people is how we grow a credible and lasting voice for the Great Lakes. Our efforts activated supporters to speak out in support of the Great Lakes, sending more than 13,000 letters to members of congress urging them to fund water infrastructure, stop invasive species, and champion the Great Lakes restoration initiative and clean water act. We produced more than 20 episodes of our Lakes chat series of podcasts that were downloaded more than 8,000 times by supporters. the Alliance also recorded more than 500,000 pounds of litter removed from Great Lakes beaches in the history of its volunteer adopt-a-beach program, the largest program of its kind in the region.

Water advocacy: water advocacy is how the Alliance works to improve the federal and state programs, policies and funding necessary to protect, conserve and restore the Great Lakes and healthy water. In 2022, the Alliance worked to secure federal funds through the Great Lakes restoration initiative (glri) sufficient to complete cleanup of some of the most toxic sites in the Great Lakes by 2030. the Alliance advocated for and secured a 90% federal cost share of the brandon road lock & dam project to stop invasive carp from entering the Lakes and helped secure the first year of construction funding. We released new data showing that downstream drinking water ratepayers in Ohio are paying increased costs for improvements to their water systems due to lake erie pollution created by agricultural operators and used this report to urge Ohio decision makers to improve their pollution control plans. We co-convened a national state revolving fund (srf) advocates forum to analyze and make recommendations of how funding is allocated for drinking, sewage and stormwater infrastructure improvements in the Great Lakes to ensure that equitable investments are made in communities that have suffered from decades of disinvestment and poor water quality.

Local partnerships: local partnerships build more capacity for Great Lakes water protection at the community level. In cleveland, in conjuction with local frontline environmental partners, we developed a cleveland-focused civic engagement and advocacy curriculum to support a growing network working toward shared water policy goals. We also worked to strengthen the cleveland environmental advocacy coalition and to develop joint policy priorities and an advocacy strategy. In chicago, we continued to facilitate the calumet connect partnership, which is dedicated to improving clean water outcomes for residents adjacent to the calumet river on the southeast side of chicago.