Coastal Services Center

The biggest difference between the shoreline that Great Lakes coastal resource managers oversee and the rest of the nation's is that you can drink the water. While this distinction creates some unique challenges for managers, many of the issues they have successfully addressed or anticipate for the future are remarkably similar to those faced by other regions.

"Our reason for protecting the lakes and water quality is so important because Lake Erie has 11 million people drinking water from it every day," says Jeff Reutter, director of the Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory at Ohio State University.

"We have the same issues as the ocean, just on a different scale," notes Catherine Cunningham, chief of the Michigan Coastal Management Program. "We have a very diverse shoreline that includes everything from bedrock cliffs to sand dunes to wetlands."

In fact, the Great Lakes shoreline in the U.S. and Canada is equal to almost 44 percent of the circumference of the earth, and Michigan's Great Lakes coast totals 3,288 miles, more coastline than any state but Alaska. And no two of the lakes are the same. For instance, Reutter says Lake Superior is a cold water lake that is 1,333 feet deep. Lake Erie has warm water and is only 210 feet deep. "They all have very, very different characteristics and resources."

The past decade has seen the establishment of federally approved coastal zone management programs in Ohio and Minnesota, and the pursuit of a program in Indiana. The states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin already had approved coastal management programs. The region has six Sea Grant programs and one national estuarine research reserve, Old Woman Creek. Thunder Bay is a proposed national marine sanctuary in Michigan with a focus on submerged cultural resources, such as shipwrecks.

Regional Cooperation

With all the differences within the region, it is surprising that collaboration between states and programs was cited by most of those interviewed for this article as one of their biggest coastal management success stories.

"Regionally, we do collaborate and cooperate a lot," Reutter says. The example he noted was the creation of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, the nation's first multistate environmental endowment. The governors of seven of the eight states that border the lakes created a $100 million endowment to support research and efforts to improve the health of the region's environment.

Mike Colvin, manager of the Ohio Coastal Management Program, says there is a comprehensive approach underway to address coastal hazards in the region. Working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, hazards issues are being identified "state by state and in the region," research is being conducted, and information technology developed that will "provide excellent access to information on coastal hazards assessment and mitigation for coastal decision makers."

Mike Donahue, executive director of the Great Lakes Commission, an eight-state compact agency, notes successful regional efforts addressing prevention and control of aquatic nuisance species (see related article in November/December 1999 Coastal Services) and point source pollution.

Collaboration isn't just limited to states within the region. For instance, Jim Tabor, manager of the Pennsylvania Coastal Management Program, says his program developed close working relationships with agencies in New Jersey and Delaware when the states partnered to help establish the Delaware Estuary Program as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Estuary Program. The workgroup was so successful they joined forces again to address coastal nonpoint source pollution.

Great Lakes coastal resource managers also are finding that cooperation between agencies, local governments, and nongovernmental organizations within their states is leading to successes in addressing numerous issues, including the establishment of greenways in Michigan, stream management and restoration in Ohio, and educating property owners about bluff erosion in Pennsylvania (see related article in January/February 1999 Coastal Services) and Wisconsin.

"We're finally starting to do holistic coastal management," says Allen Miller, assistant director for Advisory Services at the Wisconsin Sea Grant Program. "We're starting to put the pieces together, which was the original intent of the Coastal Management Act."

Looking to the Future

Coastal resource managers in the region say the partnerships they have developed will be relied upon in the coming decade to address the numerous challenges presented by issues such as urban sprawl, the restoration of brownfields, nonpoint source pollution, and water quality. Future issues specific to the region include the fall of lake levels for the first time in 30 years, which is causing problems with the shipping and recreational industries, and the question of making the lakes' water a commodity to meet the freshwater needs of other communities and nations.

"There are a lot of challenges out there," says Gene Wright, manager of Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve. He notes that the Reserve will have to address watershed issues in the future. "We aren't impacted by just what's inside our boundaries. We're downstream from everything, so we have to go upstream. We have to figure out a way to go outside our boundaries and not step on the toes of other agencies and researchers. We have to learn how to completely coexist."

"The experience in the Great Lakes has been in terms of government continuing to evolve from a top down, regulatory approach to more of a bottom up and partnership approach," says Donahue. "It's not enough to have federal and state partnerships. You need to fully involve the municipalities and citizens and industry groups. Collectively, you have more impact on the system. That kind of approach is becoming increasingly important."