About Us

Are You a Poster Child for Great Lakes Restoration?

The 2010 Healing Our Waters Coalition – Great Lakes Restoration conference is offering an innovative showcase for restoration projects. On September 23, 2010 during the conference in Buffalo, NY there will be a Happy Hour where firms and organizations engaged in on-the-ground restoration efforts in the Great Lakes region can highlight their projects with a poster.

The foyer of the HOW Coalition conference will be transformed into a sparkling show room accentuating successful restoration activities around the eight state region. This will be a tremendous opportunity to share resources and professional services among conference participants at Read More » »

Results, Results, Results

Great Lakes Czar and Keynote Speaker Cameron Davis and HOW Co-Chair Andy Buchsbaum repeatedly urged attendees at the Healing Our Waters Annual Meeting to do everything possible to show Washington that investing in Great Lakes restoration gets results.

 “It is incumbent upon all of us to make the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative  (GLRI) a success,” Davis told the coalition.

 For the first time, the US President and Congress have committed a significant amount of money to Great Lakes restoration. The American Recovery Act and Clean Water State Revolving Funds are providing $1 billion for sewage upgrades – a major element of the Read More » »

Follow the Healthy Lakes Healthy Lives Campaign on Twitter

Hey you guys – tweeting? Count us in, with your RTs and your @replies and your #hashtags. Follow @healthylakes on Twitter and help spread the word on efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes.

Not on Twitter yet? It is pretty cool – you can keep in touch with your friends, make new ones, and engage in causes you believe in with less of a time commitment than other social networking websites.

Want to know how to get started on Twitter? The site itself is pretty self-explanatory. This video is also Read More » »

Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Coalition – 100 Strong

The Healing Our Waters (HOW) Great Lakes Coalition reached a milestone recently, growing to over 100 groups throughout the Great Lakes region. The HOW Coalition continues to grow and diversify. This growth symbolizes the importance of restoring the health of the Great Lakes, which are essential to the economic and cultural identity of our region.

HOW Coalition members recognize we have manageable solutions contained in the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy to Restore and Protect the Great Lakes. It is time to use them. Every day we wait, the problems get worse and the solutions get more costly. We Read More » »

Genesis of Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition

The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition which administers the Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives public awareness campaign was launched with the generous support of the Wege Foundation and Peter Wege, a Michigan philanthropist and former CEO of Steelcase Inc.

Since its inception in 1968, the Wege Foundation has supported a number of causes, including the environment, education, health care and community development.

In May 2004, the Foundation helped to convene a meeting of more than 70 leading environmentalists, ecologists, scientists and academicians. During the two-day summit, these leading conservationists worked together to outline a plan for restoring and protecting America’s greatest freshwater resource, Read More » »

Coalition Members

Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition Members:

Steering Committee
National Wildlife Federation
National Parks Conservation Association
Alliance for the Great Lakes
American Rivers
Audubon New York
Biodiversity Project
County Executives of America
Ducks Unlimited
Freshwater Future
Great Lakes United
Michigan United Conservation Clubs
Ohio Environmental Council
Sierra Club- Great Lakes Program
Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council
Trout Unlimited
U of M SNRE
U.S. PIRG
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation

Coalition Members
Audubon
Audubon Minnesota
Audubon Read More » »

Healing Our Waters Advertising Campaign

The Healing Our Waters ad campaign features a full page newspaper ad, as well as underwriting announcements on public radio stations.

On September 16, the full-page ad appeared in major daily newspapers throughout Michigan, including: the Ann Arbor News, the Bay City Times, The Flint Journal, The Grand Rapids Press, the Jackson Citizen Patriot, the Kalamazoo Gazette, The Muskegon Chronicle and the Saginaw News. The ad also ran in the Lansing State Journal, as well as in Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

Underwriting announcements are airing on public radio stations in Michigan, including those in Ann Arbor (91.7 FM), Detroit Read More » »

About the HOW Coalition

More than 90 organizations representing millions of residents in the Great Lakes have joined a new coalition whose goal is to restore and protect the Great Lakes.

Formed in 2005 with support from the Wege Foundation, Joyce Foundation, and others, the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition reflects a growing public awareness about the urgent need to protect the Great Lakes.The Coalition seeks to secure a sustainable restoration plan and the billions of dollars of state and federal funding needed to implement it.

Led by the National Wildlife Federation and the National Parks Conservation Association, the coalition seeks to Read More » »