De-complexing the Compact

Our new friend Jim Rowen at The Political Environment has been blogging about the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin, and the politics surrounding its passage, since February 2007. For many of us, the Compact elicits an easy, “Sure, I think the Compact is important. Let’s pass it! I love the lakes!” But once you delve into the eight states, complicated implementing legislation that varies from state to state, amendments, diversions, permits and pending Congressional re-districting after the census in 2010 – it starts to get a little muddy.

Never fear, Jim has been keeping it all straight. For instance, here’s a great summary of the bill Wisconsin just passed that will untangle the web of complexities and make you go, “hmmmm.”

And here’s a list of Compact-related resources he’s compiled, from around the region.

We’ve got Jim in Wisconsin, and the Great Lakes Blogger in Minnesota (and watching the region at large). Who else is doing this in other states?

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Biohabiwhats?

Our buddy Melissa in Chicago sent us a map from Biohabitats, a national ecological restoration firm. It shows a number of the projects they’ve completed in our dear watershed. As Melissa reminds us, “A crucial part of revitalizing the basin is restoring ecosystem services (aka, the things that nature does to provide us the conditions that allow us to exist).” Uh, yeah, that does seem important. Check out some of the amazing things they’re doing here.

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Great Lakes Day? It sounds so–relevant

GLUE friend Hugh McMullen, of Valerie Denney Communications in Chicago, sent us the below message regarding a not-to-be-overlooked event that, while in DC, is close to the Great Lakes heart. Hugh is going to be producing live reports on the events of Great Lakes Day, which you can check out at a blog created just for the occasion. From Hugh:

Great Lakes Day in Washington is when folks from all over the region go to DC and lobby their representatives to support Great Lakes Restoration efforts. This year GL Day is Thursday, February 28, although people are already in DC meeting and gearing up. We thought we’d use the event this year to spread the word online about Great Lakes Restoration and how people in the region can help out. We’ll be hearing from campaign leaders about legislative efforts, reports and new findings, and what people in specific cities and areas are doing for the cause. We’ll also be covering a report from Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative that examines how much local governments are spending to clean up the Lakes versus how much the federal government is spending.

We hope to generate materials you can use to talk about the issue and helpful information from leaders about getting the word out politically.

So check out the blog, grab our RSS feed, check out our YouTube page, and check back here throughout the next few days. Also leave some comments and let us know what you’d like to hear about. Thanks!

We’ve gone ahead and grabbed that RSS feed, and will feature it in our sidebar so long as they keep posting. Enjoy!

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