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2015 Freshwater Future Grant Recipients

Spring Project Grants

Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership, Inc.

Amount: $1500

Project Title: Restore the Shore: Restoration of Lake Michigan Coastal Habitats

Project Description: The project will work with partners on restoration and invasive species control in beach, coastal wetland, forested shoreline, and riparian habitats along the shore of Lake Michigan.

 

Native American Educational Technologies, Inc.

Amount: $3500

Project Title: Protect Lake Superior Watershed

Project Description: Native American Educational Technologies will use our treaty rights and local units of county and township governments to organize permanent community rights solutions and focus our cameras and attention on decision makers locally, regionally and statewide.

 

Great Lakes Community Conservation Corps.

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Protecting All Beachgoers

Project Description: This project will conduct weekly water quality sampling at accessible, informal beach areas along the coastline in Racine County where beachgoers and recreational users are swimming. It will communicate the monitoring results and usage of the beaches to the surrounding residential community by mailings, signage and social media to yield awareness of water conditions and hazards to users at these sites and institutionalize the long-term monitoring of these informal beaches.

 

respectmyplanet.org

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Report on Gas Drilling in the Antrim Formation

Project Description: Report on Gas Drilling in the Antrim Formation

 

Pointes Protection Association

Amount: $3500

Project Title: Lake Superior Coastal Wetland Protection

Project Description: The Pointes Protection Association will participate in the appeal of a decision by the Ontario Municipal Board. The group will work to defend the protection of an important and rare Lake Superior coastal wetland.

 

Farms not Factories

Amount: $3500

Project Title: Impacts of CAFOS in Western Lake Superior

Project Description: In Fall 2014, the first proposed swine Concentrated Animal Feed Operation (CAFO) in the Lake Superior basin was proposed in Bayfield County, Wisconsin. The pig factory, with 26,000 hogs and an estimated 6.8 million gallons of manure a year, is proposed in a water-rich watershed that empties into a recreational bay of Lake Superior 8 miles downstream. The project will develop simple outreach tools to take messages about human health and environmental impacts to wider audiences in the region, especially to small-scale farmers, visitors, the general public in Bayfield and Ashland counties.

 

Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association

Amount: $3500

Project Title: Keuka Outlet: Citizen Stream Monitoring

Project Description: This community project will add the Keuka Outlet, an 8 mile long stream that starts at the outlet of Keuka Lake and empties into Seneca Lake, to the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association streams that they monitor through their Community Stream and Seneca Lake monitoring program.  SLPWA is adding this stream to their stream monitoring program to investigate the increasing number of complaints about algae and smells near the mouth of the stream. Their goal with this funding is to identify the source and advocate for correction.

Fall Project Grants

Committee to Preserve Finger Lakes

Amount: $2500

Project Title: Keuka Outlet:  Citizen Ash Landfill Assessment

Project Description: The Committee to Preserve Finger Lakes will use funding to provide laboratory testing for metals in stream monitoring locations above and below a coal ash landfill discharge into the Keuka Outlet, a stream that empties into Seneca Lake. This location is near an inactive coal burning power plant that the State is considering an application to reopen.  This will provide baseline information to understand contamination, if any from the plant.

 

CROP-PLUS

Amount: $2000

Project Title: Coalition to Solarize Chautauqua County

Project Description: Funding from Freshwater Future will be used to build a local campaign to minimize the use of polluting coal and natural gas as an energy source from the local power company. CROP Plus aims to educate community members about pollution to our waters from fracking related activities and waste associated with natural gas extraction and the burning of coal. Through this education CROP Plus will facilitate citizen participation in the use of solar opportunities in communities serviced by the local power company. Funds will be used on materials for an outreach campaign.

 

Glencoe Community Foundation

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Promoting public access to Lake Michigan

Project Description: The Glencoe Community Foundation will bring together experts on the Public Trust doctrine of Illinois to answer questions about beach access to promote the beaches of Illinois on Lake Michigan.

 

Save Our Sky Blue Waters

Amount: $2100

Project Title: Administrative Challenge to the PolyMet USF Land Exchange Decision

Project Description: Save Our Sky Blue Waters will help cover legal/technical help regarding the USFS land exchange that is needed in order for PolyMet to open pit mine on what is now part of Superior National Forest.

 

Bad River Watershed Association

Amount: $2500

Project Title: Laying the Foundations for National Wild & Scenic River Designation

Project Description: The Bad River Watershed Association has an ultimate goal of having the Bad River and its larger tributaries designated as Nation Wild & Scenic Rivers. Funding will cover researching the federal protections associated with this designation, as well as how, and if, this designation has protected rivers from development activities, like mining. Where vulnerabilities would still exist, solutions will be identified.

 

Tides Canada Initiative Society

Amount: $3400

Project Title: Building public engagement for Lake Erie Alive

Project Description: Funding from Freshwater Future will help Canadian Freshwater Alliance, a project of Tides Canada to help build an engaged Lake Erie consituencey, and support efforts toward collective impact and coordinatied action to address the long-term health of Lake Erie.

 

WaterLegacy

Amount: $2500

Project Title: Protect Downstream Waters & Tribal Resources from Sulfide Mining

Project Description: WaterLegacy will use funds to protect Lake Superior Basin waters and downstream tribes from pollution that would result from the PolyMet project, Minnesota?s first proposed sulfide mine. They willl work with experts to complete the first-ever scientific application of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) guidelines on specific conductivity to protect Northeastern Minnesota aquatic habitats threatened by sulfide mining and with an international expert to analyze PolyMet?s impacts on methylmercury, which bioaccumulates in fish and is toxic to the developing brains of fetuses, infants and children.

 

Flint River Corridor Alliance

Amount: $1500

Project Title: Gaining Public Support for the Flint River Restoration Plan and Chevy Commons

Project Description: Funding will help support the Flint River Corridor Alliance to update the Flint Riverfront Restoration Plan. Through community and civic involvement, their goals are to build momentum and create education on restoration projects so that the city of Flint understands its water resources and continues to improve it. Effort will be placed on creating an understanding that the Flint River is not toxic like their drinking water.

Detroit Climate Grants

Smallville Sustainable Community Farms

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Learning About Rain Catcher

Project Description: Learning About Rain Catcher

 

Detroit Eastside Community Collaborative

Amount: $1000

Project Title: The Gratiot Triangle Bus Stop Project: A Greenway Friendly Bus Stop

Project Description: This project will redevelop the bus stop by using green infrastructure elements to mitigate storm water runoff and to keep the area dry and comfortable for passengers.

 

Pure Detroit Community Association

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Urban Rainwater Conservation: Aquaculture and Farming

Project Description: Pure Detroit Community Association will install rain barrels to reduce runoff and to use the water for farming and develop a plan for future use of the water for aquaponics.

 

Neighborhood Building Urban Gardens

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Neighborhood BUG Rain Wall Catchment System

Project Description: Neighborhood BUG will install a rain wall catchment system to reduce rain runoff at their Monica Street community house on the west side of Detroit, that will provide water for their vegetable gardens and indoor growing facility that includes hydroponics and aquaponics.

 

 Northwest Brightmoor Renaissance

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Water Catchment System Implementation for Community Food Secruity

Project Description: Northwest Brightmoor Renaissance will install a water catchment system to reduce flood waters in their neighborhood and utilize the water to grow food at their community gardens, orchard and market garden.

 

Voices for Earth Justice

Amount: $1800

Project Title: Ulster Street Garden Rain Garden and Water Catchment System

Project Description: Voices for Earth Justice will build a large rain garden and water catchment system at the Ulster Street Garden in north Brightmoor to demonstrate and promote rain gardens as a way to address stormwater problems and adapt to climate change.

 

North Rosedale Park Civic Association

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Using Green Infrastructure in North Rosedale Park to Decrease Stormwater Runoff/Drainage

Project Description: As part of a broader green initiative for the Grandmont-Rosedale Development Corporation?s five neighborhood area, we will develop bioswales in areas of poor street drainage in North Rosedale Park to decrease run off to our storm drains. This helps local residents by addressing standing water and flooding and the Rouge River Watershed by decreasing stress on city?s aging sewage system.  This project will help decrease the risk of excessive storm drainage causing combined sewage overflows and release of raw and partially treated sewage into the Detroit and Rouge Rivers, which negatively impact the Rouge Watershed and the Great Lakes Basin.

 

Neighbors Building Brightmoor

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Brightmoor grassroots storm water abatement

Project Description: Funding will be applied to planning and implementation of sustainable, holistic, multi-functional storm water abatement systems in Brightmoor to address flooding and combined sewage overflow into the Rouge River.

Healing Our Waters Grants

Ducks Unlimited, Inc.

Amount: $15000

Project Title: Wetlands Habitat Restoration Along Lake Michigan and Lake Erie

Project Description: Over the next six months, DU will select additional tracts of land for conservation to address this issue. Project design work will then take place to enhance and protect wetlands. After plans are set, one NAWCA grant will be submitted for conservation work in Wisconsin and research will be conducted on which government grants might be a good fit for our conservation work in the Western Lake Erie region.

 

The Greening of Detroit

Amount: $15000

Project Title: The Detroit Green Corridor Initiative

Project Description: Work directly with communities, grantees, and consultants to collect baseline/reference data and assist with design restoration project and goals.  Funding will be used to aid the community with the necessary and otherwise unfunded pre-assessment for two of these projects through a robust data collection and project monitoring plan.

 

Friends of the Detroit River

Amount: $9101

Project Title: Advancement toward Habitat Restoration GLRI Grants on Celeron and Belle Isle

Project Description: Friends of the Detroit River is focused on habitat restoration work in the Detroit River in an effort to improve the health of fish and wildlife populations and increase/enhance areas of wildlife habitat. Ten targeted projects are in various stages of development and require differing strategies to be moved forward. Necessary actions include further research, stakeholder collaboration and plan development. One project is “shovel ready” and simply needs funding. A HOW grant will fund FDR labor and expenses associated with determining the next project to move forward with GLRI funding and to prepare a GLRI grant application based on this determination.

 

Grand Rapids Whitewater

Amount: $15000

Project Title: Grand River Revitalization—Enhanced Habitat

Project Description: The Grand River Revitalization project will transform the urbanized reach of the Grand River through Grand Rapids, Michigan, from a uniform channel with several low-head dams, into a river more closely resembling the dynamic ecosystem it once was. This project has been in the planning stages for over six years, and is now at a point where funding is needed to complete final designs and construction drawings. This funding will be used to address the most challenging aspect of the design, which is an adjustable barrier that will prevent sea lamprey from migrating upstream.

 

Minnesota Environmental Partnership

Amount: $10000

Project Title: Duluthians supporting St. Louis River restoration

Project Description: Hold a stakeholders forum in Duluth about the St. Louis River AOC. The purpose of this forum is to gather input on the restoration process in a way that will be most useful to agency and elected decision makers as they develop projects and funding requests.

Based in part on the stakeholders forum, produce a high quality educational booklet overviewing the opportunities and benefits of the restoration project.

Promote the AOC project in a full page of MEP?s Briefing Book.

Offer an education event for candidates for Duluth city office, soon after the July filing deadline.

Prepare an op-ed for publication in the Duluth News-Tribune.

 

Western Reserve Land Conservancy

Amount: $15000

Project Title: Snyder Ditch Stream and Wetland Restoration Plan, Grand River Watershed, Ohio

Project Description: The Project will restore ditched streams and disturbed wetlands to improve water quality

in Rock Creek while improving fish, amphibian, wildlife, and waterfowl habitat within

the 1 ,300-acre preserve. The Project has the potential to be one ofthe largest stream and

wetland restoration project in Ohio. The HOW funds will be used by the Land

Conservancy to produce a restoration master plan and write one federal grant proposal.

 

Huron Pines

Amount: $15000

Project Title: Au Gres Watershed: Engaging Communities, Reducing Pollution, Restoring Streams and Beaches

Project Description: Coordinate with landowners, road commissions, resource agencies and other partners to complete high-impact restoration projects throughout the Au Gres River Watershed. Additionally, develop funding proposals for GLRI and other federal sources.

 

Center for Environmental Initiatives

Amount: $14899

Project Title: Upper Genesee River Bank Stabilization Plan

Project Description: A monitoring and modeling study conducted by SUNY Brockport (2013) identifies streambank erosion and the presence of agricultural lands without riparian buffers as causes of increased sediment and phosphorus loading in the Genesee River. This project will create a river bank stabilization/restoration plan for a portion of the Upper Genesee River near Houghton, New York. It will identify the segments of the river that need restoration, define feasible restoration options, and the order in which they should be done. This plan and the projects defined will be used as a basis for responses to funding opportunities this year and the next several years.

 

Clinton River Watershed Council

Amount: $10000

Project Title: Restoring the Clinton River AOC: Data Collection and Pre-Assessment for Project Development

Project Description: Work directly with communities, grantees, and consultants to collect baseline/reference data and assist with design restoration project and goals.  Funding will be used to aid the community with the necessary and otherwise unfunded pre-assessment for two of these projects through a robust data collection and project monitoring plan.

Insight Grant Awards

Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust Conservancy

Amount: $1350

Project Title: 2015 Insight Grant CONTRACT ? Fundraising Plan

Project Description: Scope of Work

Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust Conservancy has been awarded Insight Servies for 15 hours of consulting with Freshwater Future for the work outlined in the Scope of Work, dated July 2, 2015. In summary, the tasks to be completed are as follows:

  • Assess current budget and existing revenue generators.
  • Determine how much money you need to raise and likely sources of funds.
  • Identify the most effective and efficient ways for your organization to raise money
  • including developing new strategies.
  • Receive assistance to set realistic goals and create a fundraising plan to achieve the goals and assess progress.
  • Receive guidance and feedback on the creation of fundraising materials and most effective integration with electronic communications.
  • Help with starting and implementing fundraising tasks.

 

Minnesota Chapter of the Wildlife Society

Amount: $412.5

Project Title: Minnesota Chapter of the Wildlife Society Strategic Planning

Project Description: Minnesota Chapter of the Wildlife Society Strategic Planning

 

American Friends of Canadian Land Trusts

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Board Retreat Facilitation and Fundraising Assistance

Project Description: Board Retreat Facilitation and Fundraising Assistance

 

Brule River Preservation

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Organization and Fundraising Planning

Project Description: Organization and Fundraising Planning

 

Central Algoma Freshwater Coalition

Amount: $1600

Project Title: Central Algoma Freshwater Coalition Fundraising Workshop Facilitation

Project Description: Central Workshop Planning and Fundraising Assistance

 

Great Lakes Environmental Alliance

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Organizational Planning

Project Description: Organizational Planning

 

Ohio Chapter Sierra Club

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Strategic Planning and Fundraising Planning

Project Description: Strategic Planning and Fundraising Planning

 

Watersheds Canada

Amount: $900

Project Title: Coaching with Staff at Centre for Sustainable Watersheds

Project Description: Coaching with Staff at Centre for Sustainable Watersheds

 

Kensington Conservancy

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Completion of Executive Review and Board Training

Project Description: Completion of Executive Review and Board Training

 

Farms not Factories

Amount: $1575

Project Title: Strategy Planning

Project Description: Strategy Planning

 

Lake Michigan League of Women Voters

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Strategic Planning

Project Description: Strategic Planning

 

Michigan Lake & Stream Associations, Inc.

Amount: $2250

Project Title: Insight Services to create a Communication Strategy

Project Description: Insight Services to create a Communication Strategy

 

LakeDance

Amount: $1500

Project Title: Organizational Direction Coaching

Project Description: Organizational Direction Coaching

 

Grand Rapids Whitewater

Amount: $4000

Project Title: Fundraising Assistance and Communication and Media Strategy

Project Description: Fundraising Assistance and Communication and Media Strategy

 

Lone Pine Marsh Sanctuary

Amount: $1000

Project Title: Strategic Planning

Project Description: Strategic Planning

 

Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve

Amount: $2025

Project Title: Fundraising Appeals and Strategies for Project Fundraising

Project Description: Fundraising Appeals and Strategies for Project Fundraising

 

Our Air Our Water Our Rights

Amount: $3000

Project Title: Campaign Planning and Online Communications Assessment

Project Description: Campaign Planning and Online Communications Assessment

 

Kalamazoo Nature Center

Amount: $1125

Project Title: Meeting Facilitation for Kalamazoo Climate Change Coalition

Project Description: Meeting Facilitation for Kalamazoo Climate Change Coalition