Environmental Quality program
Project Updates: Spring 2007

1. Support for the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration
   Staff from the Environmental Quality Program continues to track the status of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration’s (GLRC) Area of Concern (AOC) and Habitat/Species recommendations. Matt Doss, program manager, participates on the Federal-State Areas of Concern Coordinating Committee, established pursuant to the GLRC’s AOC recommendations. Doss facilitated the Areas of Concern session at the Second Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference convened by the Healing Our Waters Coalition in September 2006. He also will present on the U.S. AOC program at the Great Lakes United annual meeting in June 2007. Doss serves on the Project Delivery Team for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Great Lakes Habitat Initiative and is also providing support to the GLRC’s Wetlands Initiative.

2. Support to Great Lakes Remedial Action Plans and Lakewide Management Plans
   The Commission continues to provide staff support to the Statewide Public Advisory Council (SPAC) for Michigan’s Areas of Concern Program with funding provided by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). The Council currently is focusing on implementing new statewide delisting guidance for Michigan’s AOCs, completed in January 2006. Commission staff has assisted MDEQ in presenting the delisting guidance to local public advisory councils and identifying specific actions that need to be taken, at both the statewide level and for individual AOCs, to implement the guidance. A key challenge is to develop AOC-specific delisting targets for fish and wildlife impairments. The Commission convened a work session in November 2006 to discuss MDEQ’s process for developing these targets. The Commission currently is administering funding under the SPAC grant to nine AOC public advisory councils to develop or implement delisting targets consistent with MDEQ’s new statewide guidance.

   In April the SPAC released its 2007 Status Report and Legislative Agenda for Michigan’s Great Lakes Areas of Concern Program and convened meetings with Michigan state legislators to urge continued support for the program. SPAC officers have testified before state legislative committees to highlight accomplishments in Michigan’s AOCs and to urge continue funding for MDEQ programs and services that support AOC cleanup efforts. Conducted annually by the SPAC, this year’s outreach is particularly important given the budget crisis impacting state government in Michigan.

   At a regional level, Commission staff convened representatives from the U.S. AOCs in February to discuss and solicit support for legislative priorities for the AOCs. The Commission used this forum to recruit AOC representatives to participate in Great Lakes Day in Washington. With support from the Healing Our Waters Coalition, many AOC representatives participated in Great Lakes Day events and met with their Congressional representatives. They provided a valuable, local voice to support the Great Lakes Commission’s legislative agenda.

   Finally, the Commission is collaborating with U.S. EPA, Ohio EPA and the Cuyahoga River RAP to sponsor a conference for the U.S. AOC program. Titled Great Lakes Areas of Concern: Achieving Restoration Targets and Sustaining Stewardship, the conference will be held June 28-29, 2007 at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. The conference will convene participants from the U.S. AOCs to review the status of the AOC program, identify opportunities to expedite progress on key AOC tasks, and exchange information among AOC participants. The Commission is administering funding to help representatives from local AOC groups participate in the conference. This is the third regional AOC conference that the Commission has coordinated. The conference program and registration materials will be distributed in late May and will be posted online at www.glc.org/rap/aocconference.

3. Lake Michigan Monitoring Coordination Council
   The Commission continues to support the Lake Michigan Monitoring Coordination Council, formed in 1999 by federal, state and local agencies to facilitate coordination among groups involved in ecosystem monitoring activities in the Lake Michigan basin. The Council hosts workgroups that focus on ten issue-based monitoring networks in the Lake Michigan basin, including tributaries, wetlands, wildlife and groundwater, among others. Each group is working to establish strategies to better coordinate data collection, sharing and reporting.

   Lake Michigan has been chosen as one of three pilot study sites to support development of the National Water Quality Monitoring Network for U.S. Coastal Waters and their Tributaries (commonly known as the National Monitoring Network, or NMN). Lake Michigan was selected as a NMN pilot in response to a Statement of Interest submitted by the Lake Michigan Monitoring Coordination Council. The pilot study will be coordinated by the Great Lakes Commission as part of its support for the Council. Other partners include the four Lake Michigan states, U.S. EPA and the Great Lakes Observing System, among others. The initiative will test and refine the NMN design and may serve as a catalyst for enhanced monitoring coordination throughout the Great Lakes basin. The Council is hosting an initial workshop to kick-off the pilot study on May 10 in New Buffalo, MI. For more information, see http://acwi.gov/monitoring/network or http://wi.water.usgs.gov/lmmcc.

   With funding from U.S. EPA-GLNPO, the Council’s Tributary Workgroup has designed a coordinated tributary monitoring event that commenced last year and continues this fall. Through the workgroup, the Commission is coordinating state and federal agencies to combine monitoring efforts and supplement them with additional monitoring to update pollutant load estimates to Lake Michigan from major tributaries. This intensive monitoring event serves to validate forecasting and update results from the Lake Michigan Mass Balance project. An additional benefit is to provide monitoring resources for three AOCs on Lake Michigan. Field sampling of a set of key parameters, including total mercury, methyl mercury, PCBs, and a suite of nutrients, began in summer 2005 in several tributaries to Lake Michigan by a federal-state agency partnership. Sampling was completed in summer 2006 and detailed analysis of results is in its final stages.

4. Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium
   The Commission continues to facilitate the Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium. The Consortium is comprised of wetlands researchers and resource managers and was developed through a cooperative agreement with U.S. EPAGLNPO. The Consortium’s goal is to develop a long-term monitoring strategy and implementation plan for Great Lakes coastal wetlands. To date, the Consortium has made progress in several areas. It has developed a set of standard protocols for basinwide monitoring indicators. Field testing and metric development have been completed for a number of biological indicators and the results have been published in peer-reviewed journals. A workshop was held in January to compare Consortium-developed indicators with those of the Great Lakes Environmental Indicators project. Both projects are currently working closely to develop the Consortium’s final monitoring plan.

   A collaborative team of Canadian and U.S. experts merged coastal wetlands inventories and classified coastal wetlands into a single, seamless map product. Also, examination of two different methods for collecting coastal data remotely across the basin for assessment of wetland extent and landscape characteristics was completed. A comprehensive database of potential monitoring personnel from federal, state and local agencies has also been developed. As part of the final monitoring implementation plan due this September, Commission staff is investigating the capacity of various organizations to assist with on-the-ground sampling and data collection in coming years. In the fall, the Commission will plan a workshop to assist the Lake Ontario LaMP in developing coastal wetland indicators for Lake Ontario.

   A near-term priority is to complete a data management system to house data from across the Great Lakes basin for coastal wetland monitoring. The Commission continues to administer contractual work, assure the quality of work being done, and maintain the information exchange webpage (www.glc.org/wetlands) and discussion lists.

5. Michigan Clean Water Corps
   The Commission continues to work under contract with MDEQ to administer Governor Granholm’s Michigan Clean Water Corps – MiCorps – volunteer water quality monitoring program. The Commission is partnering with the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC) to consolidate and coordinate three state volunteer monitoring programs – the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program, Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program and Volunteer River, Stream and Creek Cleanup Program. The Commission and HRWC manage MiCorps programs, recruit and train new participants, administer grant funding, oversee quality control, implement a data exchange system, facilitate an annual statewide conference, produce a semi-annual newsletter, and report on results.

   To date, the project team has developed a website (www.MiCorps.net); established a web-based volunteer monitoring program registry and directory; conducted a monitoring program survey; solicited, reviewed and contracted with nine stream monitoring programs; established training materials and held volunteer monitoring training events; developed quality assurance guidance and review protocols; reviewed quality assurance plans; published a program brochure; published the first two issues of The MiCorps Monitor newsletter; conducted the annual MiCorps Conference; developed the MiCorps Data Exchange Network, and drafted the first MiCorps Annual Report and Executive Summary. The Data Exchange Network serves as the central location for all volunteer monitoring data collected through the MiCorps program and includes both an online data entry system for MiCorps members, as well as a data search interface for all interested parties. The next MiCorps conference is being held Oct. 15-16, 2007 at the Ralph MacMullan Conference Center on Higgins Lake.

   Under the Volunteer River, Stream and Creek Cleanup Program, Commission staff sent out the FY 2007 Grant Application Package and received 10 proposals. Staff reviewed the proposals and submitted funding recommendations to the MDEQ. Cleanup projects are located throughout Michigan and are generally completed by the end of October. The program provides small grants ($500 to $5,000) to local units of government to support river and stream cleanup projects. Ten cleanup projects were funded under the program in 2006.

6. Lake Erie Habitat Mapping Webpage
   Commission staff are working with a broad set of partners to distribute habitat mapping products for the Lake Erie basin using new geographic information system (GIS) tools on GLIN. The initiative began in June 2005 when habitat experts from across the region met to review the status of habitat mapping and discuss data needs to complete the process and consolidate efforts. A follow-up meeting was conducted in January 2006. The final web products are to be unveiled in June 2007. See the project website at www.glc.org/eriehabitat for more information or contact Pete Giencke at pgiencke@glc.org