{"id":32385,"date":"2020-06-24T11:32:46","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T15:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/?p=32385"},"modified":"2021-10-30T11:19:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T15:19:48","slug":"lessons-learned-from-35-years-of-aoc-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/lessons-learned-from-35-years-of-aoc-restoration.htm","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned from 35 Years of AOC Restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This spring, palm warblers, rose-breasted grosbeaks, tree swallows and great blue herons fill Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve with their songs or stately presence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1997, the preserve was a dump.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The community partnerships and restoration efforts that turned a dump in one corner of Muskegon Lake in west Michigan into a haven for plants, wildlife and recreational fishers ran parallel to other efforts around the lakeshore and the Great Lakes since 1985.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1985, the United States and Canada chose to focus environmental cleanup efforts on 42 highly polluted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/great-lakes-aocs\">areas of concern (AOCs<\/a>) around the Great Lakes, including Muskegon Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thirty-five years later, that decision has changed environmental remediation and benefited Great Lakes communities. A recent retrospective article published in the Journal of Great Lakes research (<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0380133020300824#s0080\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and free to read there<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) shows these efforts led to huge economic benefits, scientific advancements and a more effective, holistic approach to environmental restoration.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\">A new approach for Great Lakes restoration<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Great Lakes region is a center for manufacturing and trade and has been for a long time. As a result, certain places around the Great Lakes have been dump or release points for industrial pollution, sometimes for decades or centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32387\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32387\" class=\"size-large wp-image-32387\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_2-600x450.jpg\" alt=\"Learning from AOC restoration\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_2-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_2-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_2.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-32387\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Buffalo River waterfront before restoration. (Credit: Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is, in some cases, a hundred and two hundred year old problem,\u201d said John Hartig, a visiting scholar at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uwindsor.ca\/glier\/\">Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research<\/a> at the University of Windsor, who was the lead author of the article.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When American and Canadian leaders woke up to the pollution around the Great Lakes and decided to clean up 42 AOCs, these long histories of pollution and the complexity of these sites prompted them to adopt a new framework for remediation: an ecosystem approach.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An ecosystem approach acknowledges each site is a system in which natural resources, plants, animals and humans rely on the health of the system as a whole. Because humans are included as members of the ecosystem, their ability to safely use the sites is a measure of ecosystem health, too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cUp until that point, humans were thought of as separate,\u201d Hartig said. This new approach showed that \u201cwhat we do to an ecosystem, we do to ourselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The restoration goals were defined by beneficial use impairments. Any number of fourteen possible impairments\u2014like degradation of benthos, restrictions on fish and wildlife consumption or beach closings\u2014could apply to each AOC. Once they were determined, communities devised and enacted remedial action plans to remove them. After removing each impairment and receiving approval from EPA or, in Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the AOC could be delisted.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\">A shift in approach to restoration<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A new ecosystem approach and thirty five years of restoration work taught researchers like Hartig a lot about how to best restore local environments and the striking benefits to be gained.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An ecosystem approach requires ground-up collaboration. Actionable science, science which includes all stakeholders from planning to implementation of cleanup interventions, was a hallmark of the AOC cleanup process.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32389\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32389\" class=\"size-large wp-image-32389\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"Learning from AOC restoration\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-32389\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve in Michigan. Muskegon Lake is one of 27 areas of concern remaining in the United States Great Lakes basin. (Credit: Andrew Blok)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s what the study calls the \u201cco-production of knowledge and co-innovation of solutions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Besides new, collaborative approaches to science, the cleanup standards asked questions that hadn\u2019t been answered or even asked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research aimed at the cleanup of AOCs led to better water pollution control, established phosphorus load targets, a better understanding of nonpoint pollution like combined sewer overflows, and a greater understanding of habitat loss and invasive species impact on food webs.<\/span><\/p>\n<span class='bctt-click-to-tweet'><span class='bctt-ctt-text'><a href='https:\/\/x.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fondriest.com%2Fnews%2F%3Fp%3D32385&#038;text=One%20significant%20advancement%2C%20according%20to%20Hartig%2C%20is%20a%20mass%20balance%20framework%20for%20addressing%20toxic%20contamination.%20Under%20a%20mass%20balance%20framework%20sources%20of%20contaminants%20for%20an%20area%20are%20catalogued%20and%20interventions%20planned%20to%20have%20the%E2%80%A6&#038;via=FondriestEnv&#038;related=FondriestEnv' target='_blank'rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">One significant advancement, according to Hartig, is a mass balance framework for addressing toxic contamination. Under a mass balance framework sources of contaminants for an area are catalogued and interventions planned to have the\u2026 <\/a><\/span><a href='https:\/\/x.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fondriest.com%2Fnews%2F%3Fp%3D32385&#038;text=One%20significant%20advancement%2C%20according%20to%20Hartig%2C%20is%20a%20mass%20balance%20framework%20for%20addressing%20toxic%20contamination.%20Under%20a%20mass%20balance%20framework%20sources%20of%20contaminants%20for%20an%20area%20are%20catalogued%20and%20interventions%20planned%20to%20have%20the%E2%80%A6&#038;via=FondriestEnv&#038;related=FondriestEnv' target='_blank' class='bctt-ctt-btn'rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The study lists multiple advancements in each of 10 areas of scientific inquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ecosystem approach also forced greater attention in areas often overlooked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe like to say habitat had no home,\u201d Hartig said, because care for habitat was split among so many agencies that it was often overlooked or dealt with in an inefficient way. By designating loss of habitat for fish and wildlife as a beneficial use impairment, wildlife issues were brought into the collaborative process that defines AOC cleanups.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further, an ecosystem approach requires action on issues not specifically listed. Although no beneficial use impairment targets the ill effects of contaminated sediments, sediment is often cleaned up because of its deleterious effect on other beneficial uses, like fish health and water quality.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Restoration spurs economic development<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The study found that since 1985, $22.8 billion has been spent on restoring all AOCs, a large amount, but only 0.4% of the annual $5.8 trillion economy of the Great Lakes region. Hartig argues that a higher priority needs to be placed on preventing pollution, consistent with the \u201czero discharge\u201d philosophy to avoid such future cleanups.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And, it\u2019s apparent the AOC cleanup was good, not just for the local environment, but also for the local economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.glc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Habitat-Muskegon-Lake-economics-GVSU-Jan-2018.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A 2017 study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> found that a $10 million grant to restore Muskegon Lake would create $60 million dollars in value through a restored environment, improved home values and increased recreation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Estimates like these can range, but Hartig\u2019s study catalogues strong returns on investment around the Great Lakes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cleaning up the Buffalo River in New York spurred $428 million of development from 2012-2018. In Cleveland, Ohio, the Cuyahoga River \u2014which famously caught fire\u2014has seen $750 million in development with millions more planned. In Toronto, a revitalized waterfront has generated millions of dollars in tax revenue and more than 14,000 years of employment.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32388\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32388\" class=\"size-large wp-image-32388\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_3-600x450.jpg\" alt=\"Learning from AOC restoration\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_3-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_3-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AOC_restoration_3.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-32388\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Buffalo River waterfront after restoration. (Credit: Joe Cascio)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s amazing,\u201d Hartig said. One of his favorite projects, the <a href=\"https:\/\/detroitriverfront.org\/riverfront\">Detroit RiverWalk<\/a>, was built with an $80 million investment. In 10 years, it has driven another $1 billion in public and private investment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These large economic benefits are, in part, the result of restoring land with the community&#8217;s use of it in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat\u2019s the one thing that was a surprise in this. For the first couple of decades everyone was just focused on understanding the problems and figuring out how to clean them up and chasing money. The whole emphasis was getting our act together,\u201d Hartig said. \u201cBut then, as that moved forward, people started to envision what their waterfront could be post clean up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Community involvement and lasting support<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The significant value of these economic benefits is, in part, due to transforming AOCs into areas people want to use.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many of the study\u2019s listed lessons learned are geared toward engaging people: research scientists, investors, local leaders and the community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAn investment in this cleanup is an investment in these communities,\u201d Hartig said. Engaging communities throughout the process, which is long, initially costly and slow-moving in nature, ensures support for the duration of the cleanup.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the EPA, only seven AOCs have been fully cleaned up and delisted. Nine more have had all improvement actions completed, though impairments have not yet been removed. Muskegon Lake has five of nine beneficial use impairments remaining. Three AOCs\u2014two in Michigan and one in Wisconsin\u2014have yet to remove their first beneficial use impairment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Progress has accelerated in recent years, thanks to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which, in 2010, became a new and steady source of funding for restoration initiatives. The program, which has been threatened with funding cuts before\u2014most recently a proposed 90% cut by the Trump administration in 2019\u2014has maintained strong support. The Trump administration proposed a slight increase to the budget in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That might be because big economic returns from environmental restoration have been seen all around the Great Lakes, even if it takes many years and a lot of work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is tough work,\u201d Hartig said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But his research shows that it pays off in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For thirty five years, Great Lakes communities have been restoring polluted areas, learning and reaping the economic benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":32391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32,8,49,510],"tags":[2152,1688,656,2155,517,75,125,2156,2154,2157,523,176,2153,503],"class_list":["post-32385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-articles","category-lakes-reservoirs","category-newsfeed","category-rivers-streams","category-water-quality","tag-aocs","tag-buffalo-river","tag-canada","tag-cleanup","tag-conservation","tag-epa","tag-great-lakes","tag-john-hartig","tag-muskegon-lake","tag-muskegon-lake-nature-preserve","tag-restoration","tag-top-story","tag-university-of-windsor","tag-water-quality"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ 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