EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Billions of dollars on the table for Great Lakes

DATE: Sept. 17, 2003

TIME: 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

EVENT: Great Lakes Restoration Priorities Workshop. With leadership from the Great Lakes Governors, many sectors of the Great Lakes community are working together to secure funding for Great Lakes restoration, equal to or better than the multibillion-dollar Everglades Restoration Package passed two years ago by Congress. Determining spending priorities is an important step toward funding and this will be addressed at the event at the University of Michigan.

“This workshop is an important step in developing a large-scale plan to guide resource allocation,” said Michael Donahue, president and CEO of the Great Lakes Commission. “When we have those parameters in place, then we can better approach Congress to say ‘here’s how much we need and here’s why.” Similar workshops will be held in other Great Lakes states, followed by a regional forum to consolidate comments.

Jim Diana, associate dean of the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment, will discuss pollution cleanup and prevention. “Thirty million people get their drinking water from the Great Lakes. It’s the largest freshwater ecosystem on the planet. Securing its health is critical,” he said.

PLACE: The Alumni Center, at the corner of Fletcher and Washington streets, on the U-M campus in Ann Arbor.

SPONSOR: Michigan Office of the Great Lakes, Great Lakes Commission and Michigan Sea Grant, with funding support from the National Sea Grant College Program and the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment. Policy makers and opinion leaders representing diverse sectors of Michigan’s Great Lakes Community have been invited.

FEE: There is no charge, however advance registration is required. The registration deadline is Sept. 10.

For more information visit www.glc.org/announce/03/08restoreworkshop.html.

WEB LINKS:

For more information about the Office of the Great Lakes: www.deq.state.mi.us/documents/deq-ead-guide-oglguide.pdf (pdf – requires Adobe Acrobat reader).

For more about Michigan Sea Grant, visit www.miseagrant.org.

For more on SNRE, visit www.snre.umich.edu.

www.glc.org/announce/03/08restoreworkshop.html