News
Great Lakes Commission to support sediment management efforts in the Great Lakes basin
Ann Arbor, Michigan — The Great Lakes Commission (GLC) is launching a new project to explore the management of sediment in the Great Lakes, and the role it plays in restoration, coastal resilience, and maritime transportation. Over the next three years, the GLC will convene stakeholders and experts to discuss needs, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration related to the full lifecycle of sediment in the Great Lakes basin, from natural and anthropogenic sources to sinks, with a focus in the Eastern Lake Erie Basin, Lake Ontario, and the upper St. Lawrence River.
“Sediment management in the Great Lakes requires a coordinated source-to-lake approach that uses dredged material as a resource rather than waste, to restore coastal ecosystems, strengthen shorelines, support navigation, and promote sustainable economic growth,” said Shannon Dougherty, Great Lakes Program Director for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and alternate Great Lakes Commissioner. “This work by the Great Lakes Commission will support New York’s Great Lakes Action Agenda through activities designed to further multiple goals for ‘clean water, natural resource conservation, and resilient and sustainable communities.’”
To begin, the GLC will organize both an environmental dredging windows workshop, focusing within the New York Great Lakes coastal area, and a convening of Great Lakes small harbors to discuss funding and financing strategies for infrastructure and sediment needs. The GLC will also support an on-the-ground sediment management implementation project that will use nature-based solutions to improve sediment transport issues in a harbor in the New York Great Lakes coastal area.
This project will build on multiple existing and past GLC efforts. For almost 30 years, the GLC has been involved in the Great Lakes Dredging Team and Regional Sediment Management efforts to support the Great Lakes maritime economy, and has convened events such as a 2021 environmental dredging windows workshop in the Lake Michigan basin to support relevant discussions. In addition, the GLC has partnered with NOAA to implement more than 45 habitat restoration projects across the basin. The GLC’s 2022 Action Plan for a Resilient Great Lakes Basin presents a roadmap for implementing climate resilience actions that cross priority topic areas, including maritime infrastructure and coastal ecosystem restoration – both resilience topics will be addressed through this project. This work will also build upon priorities identified by the GLC’s Ad Hoc Committee on Small Harbors and Coastal Communities.
This work is funded by an appropriation of the New York State Environmental Protection Fund, and will contribute to the GLC’s strategic plan goals of safe and reliable waterways, resilient Great Lakes, and healthy aquatic ecosystems. Partners will include The Nature Conservancy, the Water Resources Institute at Cornell University, and the Institute for Conservation Leadership.
More information about this work is available on the Great Lakes Commission’s website.
The Great Lakes Commission, led by chair Timothy Bruno, Great Lakes Program Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, is a binational government agency established in 1955 to protect the Great Lakes and the economies and ecosystems they support. Its membership includes leaders from the eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces in the Great Lakes basin. The GLC recommends policies and practices to balance the use, development, and conservation of the water resources of the Great Lakes and brings the region together to work on issues that no single community, state, province, or nation can tackle alone. Learn more at www.glc.org.