7
C Upper Mississippi
C Lake Michigan
C Greater Chicago
C Gateway (East St. Louis, IL)
Work in the Upper Mississippi relates mainly to water programs, the management of
nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) sediments, and wet weather flows, and ecosystem
issues (habitat losses and restoration), and is described under the Ecosystem joint
priority. To implement its activities in the other priority places, Region 5 has created
multi-media Regional Teams whose role is to evaluate, plan and implement activities
to address the site-specific community issues and environmental problems in
communication and cooperation with all impacted stakeholders, including IEPA. The
Team Managers have developed action plans for FY 2000 containing detailed
information on proposed activities. State activities supporting the Team goals are
described here, under the appropriate state program area or in the Joint Environmental
Priorities section as appropriate. Summaries of the Regional Team plans are provided
as follows:
C Lake Michigan - Both the USEPA Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO)
and the Region 5 Lake Michigan Team contribute to activities which promote the
clean-up, restoration and protection of Lake Michigan, with GLNPO focusing at a
Great Lakes Basin-wide level. USEPA’s Great Lakes Program brings together
federal, state, tribal, local, and industry partners in an integrated, ecosystem
approach to protect, maintain, and restore the chemical, biological, and physical
integrity of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes 5-Year Strategy, developed jointly
by USEPA and its multi-state, multi-Agency partners and built on the foundation of
the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement with Canada, provides the agenda for
Great Lakes ecosystem management: reducing toxic substances; protecting and
restoring important habitats; and protecting human/ecosystem species health.
These objectives closely align with Region 5 and IEPA’s joint environmental
priorities and certain GLNPO activities may be described in those sections as
appropriate. The Lake Michigan LaMP 2000 will include a strategy for TMDL
development for Lake Michigan.
Highlights of Federal activities not covered elsewhere include:
Monitor Lake ecosystem indicators. GLNPO will interpret and report
information about Lake Michigan air, water, sediments, and biota through the Lake
Michigan Mass Balance Study (LMMB), thus enabling the Agency and its partners
to target further pollutant reductions. The joint GLNPO/Canadian atmospheric
deposition network (including air monitoring stations on each Great Lake) will
provide trend and baseline data to support and target remedial efforts and measure
environmental progress under Remedial Action Plans (RAPs) and Lakewide
Management Plans (LaMPs). GLNPO, with its Canadian counterparts, will lead
efforts to establish appropriate Basin-wide environmental indicators in anticipation
of the 2000 biennial State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference which will bring
