After Year of Legislative Victories, Great Lakes Advocates to Gather in Milwaukee for Conference

Debra Shore, regional administrator for U.S. EPA, to provide keynote address.

Contact: Lindsey Bacigal, BacigalL@nwf.org, (734) 887-7113
Jordan Lubetkin, Lubetkin@nwf.org, (734) 904-1589

ANN ARBOR, MICH. (September 21, 2022)—Hundreds of advocates for the Great Lakes are preparing to gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 18-19, for the 2022 Great Lakes Conference, put on by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.

Learn more and register today on our website: HealthyLakes.org/great-lakes-conference-2022

“Following two years of virtual conferences, we are thrilled to be hosting an in-person conference again,” said Laura Rubin, director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. “We hope to both celebrate and build upon the successes of the year, including passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. And we hope all attendees go home with a renewed sense of passion, knowledge, and optimism to continue the fight to protect and restore the Great Lakes.”

Debra Shore, regional administrator for the U.S. EPA Region 5 in Chicago, will provide a keynote address on Oct. 19, following a day of field trips in the Greater Milwaukee area that highlight local restoration progress, including a boat tour and bike tour.

The Great Lakes conference will delve into issues that impact the waters and communities of the eight-station region of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. This year, topics include community partnership building, coastal resilience, conservation agriculture, water infrastructure, and clean water rights. The full agenda can be found on the Coalition’s website: HealthyLakes.org/great-lakes-conference-2022.

“The collective action of people in the region has helped make Great Lakes restoration and protection a national priority,” said Rubin. “The conference offers us an opportunity to reflect on where we are, discuss urgent issues, and carry our momentum to continue this important work. Federal investments to restore the Lakes have been producing results, but more works needs to be done. We look forward to working together to put forward solutions now, before the problems get worse and more expensive to solve.”

The Coalition welcomes media to this event. Interested media should contact the Coalition’s communications coordinator, Lindsey Bacigal (BacigalL@nwf.org), for further information and to be registered with a press pass.

Major sponsors for this year’s conference include: the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District, the Erb Family Foundation, Fund for Lake Michigan, the Brookby Foundation, and the Great Lakes Funder Collaboration.

Since 2004, the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition has been harnessing the collective power of more than 170 groups representing millions of people, whose common goal is to restore and protect the Great Lakes. Learn more at HealthyLakes.org or follow us on Twitter @HealthyLakes.