Stewardship after delisting: Sustaining long-term progress in Michigan’s Areas of Concern

Abstract

The Michigan Areas of Concern (AOC) program has made significant progress in recent years following the influx of external funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Great Lakes Legacy Act. However, as more AOCs near delisting, community members from Michigan Public Advisory Councils (PACs) are concerned that the loss of programmatic funding will constrain their ability to sustain key public engagement and long-term restoration progress. In order to understand the local community perspectives surrounding delisting, our study presents findings and recommendations that emerged from interviews with Michigan PAC members. We found that PACs recognize the need to transition away from projects with a short-term focus and instead prioritize longer-term, holistic strategies that could help catalyze effective public engagement and produce transformative community revitalization. This study’s recommendations for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) include: (1) dedicating more time to post-delisting planning, (2) enhancing communication efforts with PACs, and (3) strengthening long-term public engagement efforts and PAC organizational capacity. These recommendations add to the growing literature supporting the value of local community perspectives and social dimensions of environmental restoration and may also provide transferable insights to communities outside of Michigan that are currently engaged in similar complex, multi-stakeholder environmental restoration projects.