The Institute’s Great Lakes Restoration work falls within the Water and Watersheds policy area, and also overlaps with several other policy areas, including Trade and the Environment/Invasive Species; Revitalizing Older Cities; and Brownfields. The work complements that of the Great Lakes Task Forces.

The Institute has been active in the Great Lakes research and policy arena since its inception in the 1970s. The mission of the Institute's Great Lakes Restoration Project is to make federal policy and programs as responsive as possible to the needs of the Great Lakes ecosystem through research on ecosystem/program problems and policy/technical solutions, and information outreach to policy makers on Capitol Hill and in federal agencies.

Activities of the Great Lakes Restoration Project include building connections between the Great Lakes Task Forces and Great Lakes regional stakeholders to support Great Lakes protection and restoration; conducting policy research on opportunities for improving federal programs to address Great Lakes protection and restoration; and forging collaborative enterprises that are public-private, multi-jurisdictional, and multi-stakeholder to address restoration issues of concern to the Great Lakes region.

Specific technical/policy areas of research include economic valuation of environmental benefits in the Great Lakes region, financing Great Lakes Restoration, the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration, Great Lakes water management, large-scale restoration of the Great Lakes ecosystem, and preventing invasive species.

Current activities:

• Building Connections: The Institute actively supports connections between the Great Lakes Task Forces and Great Lakes regional stakeholders to support Great Lakes protection and restoration activities including hosting the Great Lakes Environmental Summit and Great Lakes Congressional Breakfast; hosting Congressional briefings and as-needed discussions for Capitol Hill staff and stakeholders; posting Washington-based items on Great Lakes policy in Northeast-Midwest Institute Weekly Updates for stakeholders in the region; and co-hosting with the Great Lakes Task Forces in-depth and engaging introductory briefings to inform new Great Lakes Task Force members, state officials, and stakeholders.
• Policy Research: The Institute conducts detailed policy analysis on opportunities for improving federal programs to address Great Lakes protection and restoration activities. These opportunities may arise in the context of ballast water legislation and regulatory development, Clean Water Act reauthorization, Water Resources Development Act reauthorization, climate change program development, or other relevant legislation.
• Collaborative Enterprises: The Institute continues to make significant strides with the Great Ships Initiative (GSI), a public-private, multi-jurisdictional mechanism to address ship-mediated introductions of invasive species in the Great Lakes region. Through the collective talents of many diverse players, the GSI is driving development of technologies that will be safe for use in the Great Lakes and effective at preventing new species introductions. Great Lakes ports have committed significant funds and involvement in order to advance best ballast treatment by ships visiting the Great Lakes. The Institute is also supporting the Great Lakes Task Forces in their efforts to develop federal programs to stem the shipping and ballast water vector.

Technical/policy areas of research:

• Economic Valuation of Environmental Benefits in the Great Lakes: In 2001, the Institute published Revealing the Economic Value of Protecting the Great Lakes, a guidebook to economic analysis of environmental benefits in the Great Lakes region. The guidebook was the result of a multi-year collaborative effort with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to further the economic valuation of Great Lakes environmental benefits. One of the economists featured in the guidebook was Dr. John Braden from the University of Illinois. Working with Dr. Braden and with support from the U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO), the Institute next began a two-year effort to estimate how much the overall value of residential property values in the City of Waukegan, Illinois, and the surrounding county area might be influenced by cleanup of contaminated sediments in the Waukegan Harbor Area of Concern (AOC). This study found that residential property values could increase by as much as $400 million in the City of Waukegan and $7 billion to $12 billion elsewhere in the county if sediment pollution in Waukegan Harbor is eliminated. It was the first study of the benefits of cleanup of contaminated sediments in the Great Lakes. Due to the positive response and outcome of the Waukegan study, GLNPO in 2004 provided sponsorship for two additional studies of Great Lakes AOCs: Buffalo, New York, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. These studies were completed in September 2006, and like Waukegan, were well-received within the Great Lakes community. (Project papers & reports).
• Financing Great Lakes Restoration: As a tangent to the economic valuation studies cited above, the Institute examined tax increment financing (TIF) and other creative financing techniques for their potential to help communities pay for the local share of Great Lakes sediment cleanup (project report). The Institute also recently held a forum on Capitol Hill regarding the feasibility of a new public fund for use in financing Great Lakes restoration objectives, particularly water infrastructure improvement. It was well attended, and provided a road map for moving forward with such a proposal.
• Great Lakes Regional Collaboration: The Institute has continued to participate in the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration (GLRC) by supporting the Great Lakes Task Forces' involvement in GLRC Executive Subcommittee and Executive Committee calls and meetings. The Institute works with the Great Lakes Task Forces, gubernatorial staff, and mayors, and these efforts have resulted in enthusiasm, leadership, and action.
• Great Lakes Water Management: The Institute actively informs Great Lakes Task Force offices on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact ratification process and ways to support it through briefings, newsletter articles, and e-mails.
• Large-Scale Restoration of the Great Lakes Ecosystem: With funding from the National Sea Grant College Program and others, the Institute in 2003 initiated a two-year project to get a better understanding of what influences large-scale ecosystem restoration planning and action. The project’s goal was to inventory restoration initiatives, compare and contrast those initiatives, and evaluate them for lessons relevant to existing and emerging restorations across the country. As such, seven large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives in the United States with similar characteristics such as scale and complexity (the Chesapeake Bay, Florida Everglades, San Francisco Bay-Delta, Columbia River, Great Lakes, Coastal Louisiana, and Upper Mississippi River) were evaluated. Though the project’s report was released in 2005, the work is particularly relevant to continuing regional ecosystem restoration efforts that the Institute is involved with, such as the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration, Chesapeake Bay, Delaware River, and Upper Mississippi River restoration. (Project report)
• Preventing Invasive Species: The Institute advances prevention of invasive species introductions and spread in the Great Lakes ecosystem through policy research, coalition building, and demonstration of effective ballast treatment and monitoring methods in the land-based setting and aboard ships. Specific activities include:
  • Policy research to highlight promising policies that could better prevent and control invasive species in the Great Lakes region;
  • Leadership of the Great Ships Initiative, the region’s unique mechanism for public private and multi-jurisdictional collaboration to solve problems of ship-mediated invasive species introductions;
  • Participation of an integrated research and policy exercise is to generate a practicable approach to assess, detect, and manage the risks to the Great Lakes posed by the introduction and translocation of nonindigenous microbes, particularly human and nonhuman pathogens, by commercial ships and other vectors; and
  • Participation in the Continental Dialogue to Prevent Non-Native Forest Insects and Diseases.