Living shoreline project, Tifft Nature Preserve; Credit: Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper/W. Patterson.

Contact:

Megan Kocher, NYSG Great Lakes Outreach Coordinator, E: mk2236@cornell.edu, P: (716) 270-2490

Small grants produce significant results for Great Lakes region communities

Buffalo, NY, March 25, 2024 - Since its inception in 2015, the New York Great Lakes Basin (NYGLB) Small Grants Program has awarded more than $1.8 million to projects addressing the needs and issues identified in NY’s Great Lakes Action Agenda (GLAA). Grants up to $50,000 have been awarded to more than 60 projects in partnership with 40 distinct not-for-profit organizations, municipalities, county and local government or public agencies, regional planning and environmental commissions, and educational institutions.

Funded projects focus on the implementation of ecosystem-based management (EBM) to balance the needs of people, nature, and the economy through science-based decision-making and stakeholder participation. In 2022 and 2023, funding priorities focused on projects that implemented goals of the GLAA and actions specifically named in locally supported community plans pertaining to water quality, natural resources, or sustainable land use.

Eight projects received grants in the 2023-2024 funding round, totaling $388,289. The projects aim to apply EBM to implement community-identified actions that will benefit local economic, social, and natural systems:

• Odessa Green Infrastructure Initiative: Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart & William Smith College

• Protection of Lake Ontario Water Quality Through Consumer Education: Cornell Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County

• Build-Out Analysis Modeling for Scenario Planning: City of Ithaca

• Environmental and Socio-Economic Impact of Community Pier Locations: Village of Sodus Point

• Sediment Transport Modeling at Sturgeon Point Marina: Town of Evans Department of Planning and Community Development

• Lake Erie Watershed Regulation Review: Erie County Dept. of Environment and Planning

• Ellicott Island Park Living Shoreline Restoration: Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper

• Enhancing the Digital Presence & Outreach Efficacy of Shoreline Associations in a Headwaters Sub-Watershed of the St. Lawrence Seaway: Northern Forest Canoe Trail, Inc.

Summaries of past NYGLB small grants projects are posted online at https://nyseagrant.org/glsmallgrants.


Approximately 155 acres of restored native grassland in the 1000 Islands region; Credit: Thousand Islands Land Trust

Project Partner:

• New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Funding: 

• New York State Environmental Protection Fund under the authority of the New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Act


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.