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Mining Ideas 3

Mining Ideas 2: A Report on 106 Great Lakes Ecological Protection and Restoration Projects

March 16, 2007

Between 2002 and 2007, 82 projects to protect, restore, inventory, assess, classify, monitor, and study ecosystems of the Great Lakes basin were completed. More than $4,851,776 was awarded and $11,866,293 leveraged for these projects. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) Ecological Protection and Restoration Program awarded assistance agreements for the projects, which were supported by federal, state, local, tribal and non-governmental and academic partners. Mining Ideas 3 summarizes each of the 82 final project reports.

In 1996, GLNPO published Mining Ideas, a report detailing the interim progress of 87 ecological protection and restoration projects. By funding projects throughout the basin, GLNPO intended to increase the quality and extent of native ecosystems of the Great Lakes basin, foster a greater understanding of ecosystem processes and functions, increase participation by partners in on-the-ground protection and restoration activities, and increase public awareness of the special and valuable nature of Great Lakes systems, communities and species. The report concluded that the projects were beginning to yield the following results:

• Our knowledge about what ecological communities and species exist and the processes and functions being impacted by project activities were increasing.
•  Project activities were positively impacting vast acreages.
•  New protection and restoration tools were being invented and knowledge was being accumulated and passed on to others.
•  Great Lakes ecosystem gaps in scientific knowledge were being tabulated.
•  An understanding of the importance of partnerships to implement project activities was increasing.
•  GLNPO grant and leveraged dollars were beginning to have an impact, directly and indirectly, on local economies.
•  Communities formerly unaware of the natural resources surrounding them were actively participating in protection and restoration projects.

Mining Ideas established the benefits to continuing to fund good ecological protection and restoration projects. Benefits cited included: funding positive actions delays or stops ecosystem damage while building the ecological knowledge necessary to encourage good land management decisions; opens doors for leaders to protect and restore local natural resources; gives creative ideas a chance, while supporting well-established techniques in appropriate places; provides seed money to begin projects that communities consider important; and helps build networks for sharing ideas.

The Mining Ideas 2 report was a follow-up to the ideas and expectations expressed in the 1996 report. It was prompted by the desire to document changes in the Great Lakes environment resulting from GLNPO funding and to better target opportunities for future funding. Complicating the funding challenge was the reminder that many good proposals that were submitted to GLNPO went unfunded each year. Several of the projects were targeted by GLNPO and other state and federal partners for funding as part of a program to improve the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem.

As a result of the findings of Mining Ideas and Mining Ideas 2, GLNPO helped to initiate and contributes to the Great Lakes Watershed Restoration Grant Program. The Great Lakes Watershed Restoration Grant Program is a partnership of five federal agencies and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to award grants for ecological restoration projects addressing needs identified by the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. With more than $827,000 from five federal agencies (including $510,000 from GLNPO) and approximately $1.3 million in match dollars from grantees, and working through NFWF with whom the agencies have Cooperative Agreements or Memorandums of Understanding, the Great Lakes Watershed Restoration Grant Program awarded two-year grants for 14 habitat protection and restoration projects in 2006. In 2007 the Program awarded $2.2 million from the federal partners and match from grantees for 22 grants. States and tribes assisted the federal partners in reviewing grant proposals. The collaborative grant program was initiated in FY 2006 in response to the President’s Executive Order on the Great Lakes and needs outlined in the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Habitat/Species subgroup.

See tables 1 and 2 for award dollars and leveraged dollars by State and Lake basin. See Appendix A for a narrative summary, the project results, and the project statistics for each of the 82 projects.

These statistics correspond to the grant recipient’s state or province. States outside of the Great Lakes basin are indicated as “Other.”

These statistics correspond to the lake basin where the projects took place.

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