Great Lakes Climate Corps Builds Community Resilience, Workforce | Article

When Lakeshore Boulevard in Marquette, Michigan, began to fall into the waters of Lake Superior, the road had to be shut down for months.

Suffering 1-2 feet of shoreline loss each year, Marquette’s initial strategy to combat erosion included placing boulders along the shoreline to break up waves. This method proved unsustainable, however, as lake levels in recent years reached all-time highs. The lake’s powerful waves continuously washed away the boulders, and the waters eventually took over the road and adjacent coastal infrastructure.

In response, the Superior Watershed Partnership, a nonprofit working to prevent pollution of the Great Lakes, is mobilizing their Great Lakes Climate Corps (GLCC), a group of seasonal workers specializing in hands-on climate adaptation, resilience, and conservation projects. The GLCC will move the road 300 feet from the coast and assist with the re-naturalization of the area. The work began last summer and was funded through a $2.5 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a private grant-maker that supports conservation efforts throughout the United States.

The Great Lakes Climate Corps. Photo courtesy of the GLCC.

Currently in the second phase of restoration, the Corps and city are planning to use a “living shoreline” strategy to restore the eroded coastline, allowing the lake water to rise and fall more naturally, and improving public access to the shoreline.

Before the GLCC began the project, Dennis Stachewicz, director of planning and development for the city of Marquette, said that the community wasn’t able to use the road or see much of the lake because of the boulders, thereby losing their connection to the natural area. Now, with the newly restored coastline, community members are able to better understand natural processes.

“And when they understand [those processes], they are definitely more willing to make some form of commitment [to connect with nature], whether it's monetary or just personal choices,” Stachewicz said.

The importance of this community engagement component was echoed by Nicole Sczechowski, a current GLCC crew member who worked on the restoration project.

“People kept stopping us and talking to us about what we were doing and telling us we were doing a great job,” Sczechowski said. “It was very rewarding.”

Drawing in young adults from around the Great Lakes and other parts of the United States, the GLCC is able to implement climate adaptation strategies by bringing together participants of different backgrounds and connecting them with partner organizations in need of assistance. Crew members are hired seasonally for about three months during the summer or fall, totaling seven crews made up of about 30 workers each season. Many of these corpsmembers remain in low-carbon careers, creating a long-term pipeline into the environmental workforce.

“Both the client and the corpsmembers ... get to learn about each other and a different way of life. It's rewarding to see,” GLCC Coordinator Tyler Penrod said.

Crew members learn a range of skills, such as how to use different tools and how to weatherize homes. They work with an array of partners to help prepare for their desired future career.

Some of the Corps’ partners include the Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with numerous local partnerships, including local units of government, state agencies, and each of northern Michigan’s five tribes. Because of these partnerships, crew members build relationships with different organizations and often go on to work for them full-time.

On top of participating in climate adaptation projects, corpsmembers also learn to install solar panels around the Northern Great Lakes and assist on pollution prevention projects, such as a scrap tire collection project that repurposes tires into new products to divert toxic chemicals from leaking into the environment.

Crew members help install solar panels for low-income families struggling to pay electricity bills. According to Penrod, families can achieve between 50 to 70 percent reductions in their energy bills and sometimes are able to sell electricity to the energy company for profit.

“It's really rewarding to see people make progress financially, but it's also great environmentally speaking,” said Penrod.

A nationwide Civilian Climate Corps similar to the GLCC could be developed in the future, as President Joe Biden proposed in May the revival of the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, a conservation jobs program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“I think there's room for a [national] Civilian Climate Corps—an individual program of its own,” Penrod said. “But the resources should also be going to local organizations that are accomplishing a lot of the work that they're striving to do. There's a lot of them just like us.”

“We are a local organization so we have a good feel for what our communities need ... We consider ourselves a resource and a tool that, given additional funding or resources, we could put to work right away,” Penrod noted.

The organization plans to continue its work as the effects of climate change on the Great Lakes become more pronounced.

“We see a really great opportunity in partnering with the Civilian Climate Corps proposed by the Biden Administration to help us continue to grow those programs locally,” Penrod said.

Author: Irina Costache