Buchanan joins Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Published 5:00 am Tuesday, January 23, 2024

BUCHANAN — The City of Buchanan announced on Monday that is it is a new member of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative.

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative is a binational coalition of over 244 municipal and regional U.S. and Canadian mayors and local officials working to advance the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin.

The City of Buchanan Community Development team has been working for the last several months with the team at Great Lakes and St. Lawrence in conjunction with a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to create an ecological restoration plan for the public access areas at Riverfront Park in Buchanan.

The grant will look at best practice strategies to create a healthy and thriving environment for our local residents and flora and fauna while employing best practices such as nature-based solutions. The plan will propose strategies for shoreline erosion, stormwater management, the introduction of native plant species, and the removal of invasive species, and other measures that will result in cleaner water in the St. Joseph River and Lake Michigan.

“We all must do our part to protect our critical natural resources, the Great Lakes, which make up 20 percent of the freshwater on the planet,” said Buchanan Mayor Sean Denison. “We are thrilled to be a new member of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative and look forward to implementing many of these best practices that will result in cleaner water for all.”

“We are very happy to be included in this community of cities who are working every day to protect the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River Basin not only to preserve and enhance our quality of life and but to improve the economic well-being of the people of the region,” added Community Development Director Richard Murphy.

Murphy said that the work on the Buchanan/St. Joseph Ecological Restoration Plan will continue for the next several months with opportunities for members of the public to comment and provide feedback on the plan.