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Restoring
Natural Flow Regimes - Funded Projects
Since 1999, the Fund has invested over $11 million in projects
that demonstrate and promote the use of flow restoration as
a means to improve the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem.
These projects have been developed in response to a series
of supplemental requests for preproposals in addition to Fund's
general funding guidelines. Project teams are working at over
100 different locations in the basin: exploring how new water
uses can help restore the health of natural resources that
depend on the waters of the Great Lakes; testing how dam and
reservoir operations can be modified to restore more natural
flow regimes and restore biological communities in rivers
and lakes; identifying the techniques, costs, and consequences
of removing obsolete structures in rivers; and determining
how new development, when properly designed, might actually
improve the biological condition of basin waterways.
This set of projects is designed to provide practical and
scientific support to the Governors' and Premiers' commitments
made in Annex 2001
of the Great Lakes Charter (111KB PDF file).
Results and Accomplishments of Flow Regime Projects to Date:
- Discovered that dam removals are substantially less expensive
than initially believed.
- Developed a new channel design for agriculture drainage
systems that significantly improves habitat and water quality,
increases biodiversity, and substantially reduces sedimentation
and nutrient loading.
- Collaboratively changed operational regimes for 109 dams
in 19 river basins in New York, Michigan and Wisconsin.
- Improved the health of more than 1200 river miles in the
Great Lakes basin.
- Reduced barriers to fish movement at 38 dam locations.
- Protected more than 10,000 acres of wildlife habitat.
Projects
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