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Contact:
Tom Crane, tcrane@glc.org The release of the
Great
Lakes Regional Collaboration’s strategy for restoring and protecting
the Great
Lakes is being hailed as a major step towards securing the future of
the
resource by the chair of the Great Lakes Commission, one of the first
organizations to call for such a plan. “We have been
looking forward
to this for a long time,” said Tom Huntley, chair of the Great Lakes
Commission. “The Great Lakes Commission has long been an advocate of a
comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan, as exemplified by our Great Lakes Program to Ensure Environmental
and Economic Prosperity, and we’re pleased to see that the Regional
Collaboration has embraced many of the same priorities.” The Great Lakes
Regional
Collaboration’s strategy, released Monday in Chicago, represents the
culmination of a year of work by more than 1,500 Great Lakes experts
and
stakeholders to come up with a comprehensive assessment of the Great
Lake’s
major needs and make recommendations for addressing them. The effort
was
initiated by an executive order from President Bush that recognized the
lakes
as a national treasure. Huntley said the
next step is
to secure the necessary resources to begin implementation of the
strategy. To
maintain the momentum generated by the Regional Collaboration, he urged
Congress
and the administration to implement $300 million in short-term actions
in FY
2007 called for by the Council of Great Lakes Governors and the Great
Lakes
Cities Initiative. “The
Great Lakes community, both public and private entities, has responded
to the
President’s call with a huge investment of staff time and other
resources in
developing this strategy,” Huntley said. “The states and cities have
pledged to
come up with $140 million to cover their share of short-term actions.
Now, we
urge the President and Congress to respond in kind with the necessary
federal
support we need to meet their share.” Released
in Chicago on Dec. 12, the strategy outlines a detailed set of
proposals for
addressing eight major challenges facing the Great Lakes, as identified
by the Council
of Great Lakes Governors. A broad range of public agencies and private
stakeholders participated in the Regional Collaboration process and in
drafting
the eight-part strategy. Among them was the Great Lakes Commission,
which
provided staff to all eight strategy teams, including a team co-chair. The
Commission’s annual Great Lakes Program
to Ensure Environmental and Economic Prosperity, first released in
2001,
was one of the first efforts to assemble a comprehensive package of
legislative
and appropriations priorities for restoring the Great Lakes. The
full text of the strategy is available online at: http://www.glrc.us/strategy.html
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