Michigan Business Beat | Melanie Foose & Sam Noffke, EGLE Invests $10M in Detroit River Restoration

Uploaded June 25th, reloaded July 10th. Chris Holman welcomes Melanie Foose, Supervisor of EGLE’s Great Lakes Management Unit, and Sam Noffke, Aquatic Biology Specialist with EGLE. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, the EPA, and community partners recently announced $10 million in funding to continue restoring the Detroit River. Talk us through the history of the Detroit River, how it’s used today, and how much work has gone into cleaning it up. The $10 million includes $6.5 million from the EPA and $3.5 million from the state of Michigan. What will that funding be used for exactly? Projects like this one take a lot of collaboration. Who are some of the local, state, and federal partners working together? Why is continued work on the Detroit River important for communities across Southeast Michigan? So what is next for the Detroit River? Any additional projects on the horizon? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Watch MBN’s YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: twitter.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Recently, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $10 million in funding to support continued restoration and remediation efforts of the Detroit River. The announcement was made during a press conference at the William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor, a site that reflects the transformation and recovery taking place along Detroit’s waterfront. “The Detroit River is one of Michigan’s most important natural and economic resources, and this investment marks another major step forward in restoring its health and protecting its future,” said EGLE Director Phil Roos. “Through strong partnerships at the federal, state, local levels, we are making real progress cleaning up contamination, restoring critical habitat reconnecting communities to the river. This funding ensures that momentum continues.” The EPA is providing $6.5 million of the total, with an additional $3.5 million in state match supported through Michigan’s Make it in Michigan Competitiveness Fund. The funding comes under the Great Lakes Legacy Act, a bipartisan federal cost-share program aimed at addressing sediment contamination in the Great Lakes. The funding will be used to study and plan cleanup work along the Detroit River, including removing contaminated sediment from the riverbed and restoring natural habitats near Harbortown and other sections of the river. The restoration work aims to improve water quality, restore habitat, expand safe public access to the river for the communities that live, work, recreate along Detroit’s waterfront. Since 2012, EGLE and EPA have worked collaboratively to identify known contamination sites throughout the Detroit River AOC, which extends the full length of the river and impacts communities including Detroit, River Rouge, Ecorse, Wyandotte, Grosse Ile, Trenton, and Gibraltar. The funding announced today will help continue efforts to address Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs), environmental indicators established by the International Joint Commission to measure ecological degradation within Areas of Concern. Restoring the Detroit River remains a collaborative effort involving local, state, federal partners, including NOAA Fisheries, Friends of the Detroit River, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Geological Survey, US Army Corps of Engineers, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Detroit Historical Society, the Belle Isle Conservancy, Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, and the Detroit Zoological Society.