The Sustain Our Great Lakes (SOGL) partnership announced $14.8 million in competitive grant funding for 48 projects that will restore key habitats for wildlife, improve water quality and enhance urban greenspace throughout the Great Lakes basin. The grants will leverage approximately $18.3 million in additional project support from grantees, generating a total on-the-ground conservation impact of $33.1 million.
SOGL is a public–private partnership that supports habitat restoration throughout the Great Lakes basin and advances the objectives of the GLRI. The grants represent the largest single grant slate ever awarded by the SOGL program, an achievement that is due to the continued, strong support of program partners and a historic investment from the GLRI.
Collectively, the 48 projects receiving grants will:
- Restore more than nine miles of stream and riparian habitat
- Reconnect 154 miles of river for fish passage
- Remove or rectify 31 barriers to aquatic organism passage
- Restore 2,400 acres of wetland habitat
- Prevent more than 645 tons of sediment from entering waterways annually
- Add 66 million gallons of stormwater storage capacity
- Improve land management using regenerative agriculture practices on 32,000 acres of farmland
The complete list of awards is available here.
Read the full news release