MILWAUKEE, WI, July 7, 2009 -- The Southeastern Wisconsin Watersheds Trust (SWWT) -- also known as the "Sweet Water Trust" -- received a major boost in its campaign to improve water quality in the Milwaukee River Basin with a three year $1.9 million grant from the Joyce Foundation.
The grant supports seven state and local environmental groups and the Sweet Water Trust to develop projects that will produce measurable improvements in water quality and habitat starting with the Menomonee and Kinnickinnic River Watersheds. This is a unique collaborative effort among nonprofits, governments, universities and other entities working to use waters natural boundaries, or watersheds, in making improvements in water quality and habitat. The grant will help build the collaborative effort to establish project priorities, support sound science and analyze complex policy issues, all toward improving water quality and habitat and the health and economic strength of communities in the Greater Milwaukee Watersheds.
"This investment provides enormous momentum toward making measurable improvements in our water quality," stated Pat Marchese, Chairman of the Sweet Water Trust Executive Steering Council. "The grant will enable the Trust and its environmental partners to work collaboratively to build community support for implementing cost effective water quality improvement projects in the Greater Milwaukee Watersheds."
In addition to the Trust, the environmental partners receiving funding are: 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, Clean Wisconsin, Midwest Environmental Advocates, Milwaukee RiverKeeper, River Alliance of Wisconsin, River Revitalization Foundation, and Sixteenth Street Community Health Center.
This grant represents the Joyce Foundation's second substantial commitment to watershed restoration. The first was a three-year, $5 million effort in the Maumee River basin in Northeast Indiana, Northwest Ohio, and Southeast Michigan. This effort focused on urban stormwater pollution, agricultural runoff, wetland protection and restoration, and contaminated sediment clean up.
Sweet Water Trust is a collaborative effort to achieve healthy and sustainable water resources throughout the Greater Milwaukee Watersheds.
Based in Chicago, the Joyce Foundation supports efforts to protect the Great Lakes, to reduce poverty and violence in the region, and to ensure its residents have good schools, decent jobs, a strong democracy, and a diverse and thriving culture.
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