GLHI Background
On 18 May 04, President Bush signed Executive Order (EO) 13340. The EO established the Great Lakes Interagency Task Force, composed of Secretaries from the Departments of State, Army, Agriculture, Commerce, HUD, Homeland Security, Interior, Transportation, the ministrator of the EPA and the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality.
In March 2006 Mr. John P. Woodley, Jr., the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works announced the selection of the Great Lakes Habitat Initiative as the largest of five projects to be funded for analyses of complex water resources issues within large, multijurdictional watersheds. The Great Lakes Habitat Initiative is a 2-year, $1 million project will develop an implementation plan for the protection and restoration of wetlands and aquatic habitat that builds upon the recommendations of the Strategy of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration.
Great Lakes Regional Collaboration
Over 1,500 people from eight states participated in a one-year effort that culminated on December 12, 2005 with the release of the Strategy for the Protection and Restoration of the Great Lakes. Representing state, local tribal and federal agencies, along with industry, business, and civic groups, these stakeholders joined to form the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. This Collaboration developed a Strategy that focused on eight priority issues identified by the Great Lakes Governors and Mayors.
Purpose of the Great Lakes Habitat Initiative
This Initiative will identify site-specific actions that can be implemented under existing funding programs to protect and restore wetlands and aquatic habitat in the Great Lakes region. This project will bridge the gap between the regional needs identified in the Strategy of the Regional Collaboration and the programs that provide funding for "on-theground" actions.
Products
Four products will be developed that support the goals of the Initiative:
- The first product will be a compilation of information about all existing funding programs that may be used to plan, design, construct, and manage site-specific projects or actions to protect and restore wetlands and aquatic habitat in the Great Lakes region, their program requirements and recent funding history.
- The second product will be an inventory of place-based actions to protect and restore coastal wetlands and aquatic habitat in the Great Lakes that have been proposed to federal, state, local, tribal and nongovernmental programs, but not implemented because of funding limitations. These would include actions to acquire and preserve properties with valuable habitat and actions involving construction to restore or enhance degraded habitat. Actions will be reviewed to screen out those no longer applicable, and the information on actions updated to include comparable data on costs and implementablity.
- The third product will be an analysis of performance measures for prioritizing actions based on their ecological value or benefits. These metrics will enable wetlands and habitat protection and restoration actions to be evaluated based on their merits and identify the actions that can deliver the "best bang for the buck."
- The fourth product will be an analysis of some of the potential actions in the inventory, prioritization using the performance metrics, and identification of existing governmental and non-governmental programs that could implement them.
