Last year came the kind of moment we always plan for, but hope never happens.

Many had braced for yet another summer of toxic algae on Lake Erie with no real solution at hand. But no one truly expected that for more than two days in August nearly half a million Toledo-area residents would be without clean drinking water, with others losing water for weeks.

Within days we sent a team to meet with local water quality experts, scientists and environmental partners, assessing the crisis and forming a response that struck at the root of the problem. Our staff

testified at public forums in the wake of the crisis and we brought a photojournalist to the scene, documenting the muck and gathering stories to show the world just how bad algae run-amok can be. We did this because we know that headlines — even from a crisis — fade from memory. Part of our job is to remind the people of the Great Lakes: If we lose our drinking water, we lose everything.

Our ability to respond immediately and build a response for the long run is a barometer of what we’ve done right in recent years. The inroads we’ve made against the sources of toxic algae would not be possible without your generous support. Our ability to turn on a dime — to mobilize our policy, science, local outreach and communications experts — was a turning point in shaping critical Great Lakes policy that will resonate for a decade.

You made it happen.Like the solutions to stopping algae blooms, the

groundwork for our work in 2014 wasn’t laid hastily overnight, but slowly and deliberately over time. Last year was a testament to you and the many who stand with us in safeguarding our Great Lakes year after year, in good times and bad.

I look forward to a day when the noble act of growing food makes the lakes cleaner. I believe the power to solve complex problems rests with the people living in our region. And I am certain that protecting and restoring our lakes is the key to the health and well-being of the next generation of Great Lakers.

We are making these ideas real with your support. Thank you.

Joel Brammeier, President & CEO

AnnuAl REPORT 2014

150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 700Chicago, IL 60601

Return Service Requested

NonprofitU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDChicago, IL

PERMIT NO. 2125 www.greatlakes.org

Who We AreThe Alliance for the Great Lakes is the largest organization dedicated solely to protecting and restoring the Great Lakes. We work hand in hand with tens of thousands of volunteers, advocates and supporters around the region to pursue protective policies, advance on-the-ground action and educate our communities.

Photo by Lloyd DeGrane

Growing Great Lakes StewardsStudents learn about the lake next door

“It was like the apocalypse”Toledo a flash point for toxic algae

Championing the Chicago River A vision of what could be

INSIDE

ForLoveLakes

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WaterMarks

BIKInG FOR BETTER lAKES Tim Frick has been finding inspiration along the Lake Michigan shoreline since he was a young man bicycling up the Chicago lakefront. “A lot of my best thinking as a business owner came from getting on a bike and going up and down that Lakefront Trail,” recalls Frick, who says some of that inspiration led to the startup of his own web design business, Mightybytes.

So it was only natural that when Frick was asked in 2011 to join Climate Ride’s board as its Midwest representative, he’d push for an event that takes advantage of Lake Michigan’s beautiful vistas. “If you’ve ever biked up and down the lakefront in Chicago you know what an amazing ... just gorgeous, thing that is,” he says.

Climate Ride was the first organization to take the charity bike ride concept and apply it to environmental causes, and the regional bike tour was already under way on the East and West coasts. Frick’s dream became reality

last September when the first Climate Ride Midwest wheeled through the Great Lakes region: a three-day, 300-mile ride from Grand Rapids, Mich., to Frick’s beloved Chicago lakefront. Six cyclists represented the Alliance for the Great Lakes in the event, raising nearly $20,000 for our lake protection work — which

includes helping communities prepare for and adapt to the changing precipitation patterns and more frequent flooding associated with climate change.

“I wanted to make sure we could bring the ride to the Midwest and support the organizations that would have the most impact on a sustainable future here,” says Frick, who made the Alliance a beneficiary of his 2014 ride and again for this year’s event. “The Alliance for the Great Lakes is at the top of that list.”

For decades the Chicago River and adjoining waterways have been stuck on the receiving end of billions of gallons of combined raw sewage and runoff that overflow the area’s labyrinthine canal system during heavy rains.

In times of flooding, the polluted water is sent to Lake Michigan, closing beaches, turning the water brown and foul-smelling, and ferrying a host of so-called “floatables.”

Those from Chicago are familiar with the well-worn story of a Chicago River at the center of a decades-old plan to rescue it from years of abuse. The onslaught of untreated and partially treated sewage is just one of myriad insults that also include a legacy of industrial contamination and the threat of invading Asian carp.

Less familiar is the story of the many behind the scenes who champion this would-be Chicago gem and see reflected in its waters a glimpse of what could be: a vibrant waterway safe for swimmers and boaters alike, with water so clean some of it could even be returned to Lake Michigan instead of diverted down the Mississippi River. A 2013 study by Openlands and Friends of Chicago River found that a restored Chicago River has the potential to be a multi-billion-dollar economic driver to the city and surrounding area, with each dollar invested generating a 70 percent return through business revenue, tax revenue and income.

This vision is still a long way from becoming a reality. Steps toward this transformation have been taken, but are incomplete and delayed. On the plus side, the city and Chicago Park District have invested millions in land acquisition, improvements and access, bringing thousands of people back to the river. In the prior decade, in order to protect public health, the Alliance and many environmental partners convinced the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to adopt the same treatment standards as most other major U.S. cities and disinfect its wastewater before discharging it to the Chicago River.

More recently, the Alliance’s efforts have included focusing on speeding up a 43-year-old behemoth project to fix the city’s sewage overflow problems. The multi-billion-dollar plan involves building a massive tunnel and reservoir system capable of handling the excess swell of stormwater that flows into the area’s combined sanitary and storm sewers during rain events.

Dogged by delays and facing water-quality discharge violations for the overflows, however, the MWRD in 2011 reached a settlement with U.S. EPA and Illinois that allows the status quo for now. The consent decree sets the project’s completion at 2029 or later and leaves the Chicago Area Waterways System and Lake Michigan to swallow at least another 15 years’ worth of combined sewage and runoff.

In 2012, the Alliance and its partners — the Environmental Law & Policy Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Prairie Rivers Network — successfully intervened in the case, arguing that the government settlement shouldn’t preclude the public from pushing to speed up the construction timeline in the interest of a cleaner Chicago River and Lake Michigan. The Alliance and its partners also argued that the district’s plan wouldn’t stop violations of the federal Clean Water Act, even if it were completed in 2029.

Though the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ultimately affirmed the consent decree, it also made clear that the Alliance has the legal power to enforce it, something the Alliance will pursue vigorously.

Throughout the case, the Alliance has had a heavy hitter on its side, aided by pro bono legal assistance from a committed and tenacious team of Jenner & Block lawyers. In the last several years, the firm has devoted more than 5,800 hours to this complex case, and work on the case resulted in the firm dedicating more pro bono hours in 2014 than to any other pro bono case — significant for a national firm recognized by American Lawyer as the No. 1 pro bono law firm in the country in six of the last eight years.

The case is important, says Jenner & Block partner Gabrielle Sigel, because it seeks to protect Chicago’s waterways and Lake Michigan from untreated sewage. But there’s more at stake. “It’s important more generally in terms of the rights of citizen groups to litigate violations under the federal Clean Water Act.”

As the challenges facing the Great Lakes continue to grow in different areas, so has the support of our advocates and champions. During the last few years, this increased support has enabled us to successfully carry out longer-term lake restoration and renewal projects, while also addressing urgent threats like headline-grabbing toxic algae and microbead pollution. We are so very

grateful to the multitude of supporters who made 2014 our best year yet.

I would like to thank the Finance Committee — Gerry Bilek,

Paul Culhane, David Keller and Frank Washelesky — for its continued commitment and oversight. As the financial resources of the organization increase, the Finance Committee remains focused on managing and utilizing those resources to support the Alliance’s work in furthering Great Lakes protection and restoration. Thanks also to Joel Brammeier, president and CEO, and Janet Hanley, our accountant, for continuing to improve the Alliance’s operations and controls and smoothing the way for the committee to carry out its responsibilities.

Respectfully,

Sue Conatser, Treasurer

Resources supporting Alliance’s work still growing

TREASURER’S REPORT

Championing the Chicago River

0 $500K $1M $1.5M $2M $2.5M $3M $3.5M

ExpensesRevenues

0 $1.5M $2M $2.5M $3M $3.5M

81%

PROGRAM $2,217,620

TOTAL $2,739,552

$2,000,272

$1,947,537

$2,782,295

$2,186,183

$2,816,669

$3,347,064

$2,739,552

$2,402,198

$2,429,991

$3,127,856

$1,359,7732011

2012

2013

2014

2011

2012

2013

2014

$1,979,564

ADMINISTRATIVE $273,936 FUNDRAISING $247,996

10%9%

REVENUES vs. EXPENSES

EXPENSES

NET ASSETS

Photo by Lloyd DeGrane

Photo by Lloyd DeGrane

Photo by Lloyd DeGrane

Frick

A real-life nightmare played out in real time last summer when a toxic algal bloom on Lake Erie contaminated and shut down Toledo’s drinking water supply for more than two days.

The unprecedented scope of the crisis, coupled with water bans in other Western Lake Erie communities that together affected more than a half million people, called for a commensurate response — from political leaders and lake experts to environmental groups and those who support them.

“All these people had weddings that were canceled. All the catering, all the

restaurants, everything was closed,” recalls Leslie Athmer, who grew up in Toledo and says her parents and friends were caught up in the chaos there. “It ended up being so widespread all the grocery stores were out of water. It was like the apocalypse.”

Toxic algae blooms on Lake Erie and elsewhere in the Great Lakes aren’t new, but have been developing more and more in recent years. Such blooms are fueled primarily by nutrient runoff from farmland, but also from urban stormwater and sewage treatment plants.

The sources of algal blooms already a focal point of our work, the Alliance sent a team to Toledo in the days immediately following

the city’s crisis. The team met with scientists and other Lake Erie experts, then set about building a coalition of partners who would together pressure political leadership to address the root causes of the problem.

Within a week, the Alliance and our partners were calling on the Great Lakes governors and Canadian premiers to commit to cutting by 40 percent the amount of phosphorus — the key pollutant behind Toledo’s algal bloom — to Lake Erie.

“We can move mountains when the region’s environmental leaders, and the thousands of Great Lakes supporters who stand behind us, pull together,” says

Alliance President Joel Brammeier.

The Alliance is working to curb excess nutrient pollution in all the Great Lakes, as algal blooms also occur in places like Lake Michigan’s Green Bay, Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay and many inland waters.

At a water quality summit of Great Lakes mayors last September, Brammeier testified that curbing excess nutrient

runoff from farmland could bring the biggest

bang for the buck in the war on algae. Also needed: adoption of clearly defined federal, state and provincial water quality standards, and measurements to show whether those standards are being met.

Discussions are already under way in Green Bay, Wis., where the Alliance is collaborating with local agricultural professionals to identify farmers willing to take the lead in local water protection. Said one respondent to a survey of Green Bay farmers: “It is good to continue protecting waterways. The proper source of pollution should be identified and addressed, whether it is my issue, the wastewater treatment plant or my neighbor.”

Toledo a flash point for Lake Erie’s toxic algae

Toledo’s drinking water crisis marked a turning point in the lives of many who were touched by it.

For some, the ban on the city’s drinking water brought about a renewed appreciation for clean, accessible drinking water. For others, it underscored a profound desire to protect the waters of the Great Lakes from toxic algae and its sources.

“It was scary,” recalls Leslie Athmer, who grew up sailing Lake Erie with her parents, but now lives in Chicago. “You just take it for granted. I think everybody does.”

Shortly after the Toledo crisis, Leslie says she and her husband, Brian, were inspired to start “Sailored,” an online business selling Great Lakes-themed T-shirts, totes and other apparel, donating a percentage of their profits to the Alliance.

“When the Lake Erie algae

bloom thing happened it just hit me that, ‘This is it. This is what we’re going to do,’” she says.

Others were also moved to do something, or found it affirmed their commitment to help the Great Lakes. Metabolic Studio donated $125,000 that the Alliance will use to help address the sources of algae pollution.

Steve McDougal, son of the late textbook publisher Alfred McDougal, said his father recognized the importance of the Great Lakes and had often sailed Lake Michigan. Making a charitable donation to help the lakes, he says, was a natural fit for the McDougal Family Foundation and its desire to apportion some of its resources to environmental sustainability.

“It just so happened the algae bloom brought some greater attention to the need for action,” McDougal says of the foundation’s $100,000 donation.

“Don’t drink the water”

From out of the mire...

Photo by Lloyd DeGrane

Photo by Lloyd DeGrane

Brian and Leslie Athmer

The Alliance’s Lyman Welch and University of Toledo ecology professor Christine Mayer in Toledo.

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THANK YOU

15,910

EVERYOnE MAKES A DIFFEREnCE

FIVE

$500 Blue Jacket restaurant’s gift from Milwaukee’s first-ever Taste of the Third Coast event

“I don’t really give people an option on donating. I tell them ‘Look, you either want to have clean water for every one of your small- to-large needs in life for a long time — or you can start walking to go find it.’”

Marlo Boyle, Senior Education Planner,

Aveda Great Lakes, who raised more than $18,000 for the Alliance

8

FOUR

Great Lake states with Alliance supporterscreative ways

supporters are raising money for the Great lakes

$138

BIKE RIDESFASHION SHOWS

casual FridaysDOG WALKING T-shirt sales

From Lisa Borton, who donated 10 percent

of Earth month sales at her Fort Wayne,

Ind., massage studio

ALLIANCE SUPPORTERS

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$390,000200

total donations

participating salons

DOZEnS OF SALES AND EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONALS

biggest donor AVEDA

States with donors

supporting the Great

Lakes

36 Age of the youngest donor

$5-$50 gifts from THOuSAnDS of guests and stylists

Years the Alliance has been a 4H charity

lEAVInG A lEGACY OF lOVE FOR lAKE MICHIGAn

There were two things in life that Chicago’s Marion Witte loved more than anything else: Lake Michigan and world travel. And when Witte departed this world in 2013, she left with it a legacy for her Lake Michigan love that will endure for years.

“She loved Lake Michigan,” says her nephew, Joel Peebles. “She was probably the first one in in the spring, and the last one out in the fall. Even when she was 93, she was still in the water.”

Peebles says Witte was “a top-notch swimmer,” swimming in the lake all summer and heading indoors to swim laps in a pool when the weather turned cold.

Originally from Merrill, Wis., she volunteered with WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) after its creation in 1942 as a World War II division of the U.S. Navy. She served five years and, at the time of her death, was buried with Military Funeral Honors.

Peebles says Witte loved to travel, and one of her happiest accomplishments was a two-month solo trip around the world.

A loyal annual donor for decades, Witte made a visionary decision to include the Alliance in her will, leaving a gift of more than $200,000 as her legacy to help further Great Lakes protection. Peebles says his aunt’s loyalty to Lake Michigan was a constant through good times and bad — even when 1960s- and ‘70s-era pollution kept some away. “She always wanted the best for the Great Lakes,” he recalls. “She was always trying to get things cleaned up, but she never gave up going in the lake. It was a second home to her.”

We’ve all seen them: the tiny plastic beads that dot our facial scrubs, hand sanitizers and toothpastes. What’s the rub? Scientists worry about the implications for aquatic life and Great Lakes health because once these “microbeads” go down the drain, their small size allows them to slip through sewage treatment and out into rivers and lakes.

Knowing this, and the fact that some companies already use natural abrasives in their products, the Alliance helped lead a campaign raising public awareness about the proliferation of these beads in the Great Lakes and promoting legislative solutions. Manufacturers were willing to do their part, and a number of large companies voluntarily pledged to remove plastic microbeads from their products.

The first legislative success came early: In June 2014, Illinois became the first state in the nation to ban the manufacture and sale of items containing the beads, setting an example other states are now following and even improving upon, with some imposing earlier phase outs. To completely and uniformly

protect the Great Lakes and other U.S. water bodies, however, the Alliance and its supporters are urging Congress to pass a federal ban on all forms of plastic microbeads in cosmetic and personal-care products, and require that any microbeads labeled as biodegradable meet federal guidelines.

Anyone who questions the value of environmental education should spend an afternoon with Jennifer Potter’s 11th grade class.

At the beach.“It was terrible trying to get them to

leave,” says the John Adams High School environmental science teacher. “They were having so much fun!”

Potter brought about 25 students to Lake Erie’s Edgewater Beach last October as part of a stewardship day filled with lessons, planting and a beach cleanup. As is often the case, many of the students were seeing Lake Erie for the first time. And, for a lot of these youth nearing the end of their high-school years, it was their first field trip.

“Many of them, despite living so close to the lake, had never been there, never interacted with it, and didn’t know that’s where their drinking water comes from,” says Potter.

“Having the funding to get them out to the lake — which is such an important part of their lives — was great,” she says. “And they thought it was fantastic. They just loved being out and seeing the connection with what we’ve been learning.”

Making those connections is a big part of the Alliance’s Great Lakes in My World curriculum, which includes separate Great Lakes curricula for students in grades K-8 and 9-12.

Studies show that adults who were exposed to or spent time learning about the environment as children grow up to be better environmental stewards, and this is at the heart of the Alliance’s educational outreach. But for some youth, a day at the beach is as elusive as a trip to Mount Everest. Lack of transportation, parents who work long, erratic hours and dwindling family time in the face of increasing competition from electronics and video games are all cited as hurdles.

Potter’s students were just a handful of the more than 2,300 students touched by the Alliance’s far-reaching work with the

Cleveland Metropolitan School District in 2014. That work included distributing curriculum kits to nearly 400 teachers in the district, training 86 teachers and sending 10 classrooms on field trips to the Lake Erie shoreline. Four other classes worked with Cleveland Metroparks to plant 200 native species.

Jim Krimmel is a member of the Ohio Environmental Education Fund Council, which helped fund the educational outreach project with a grant for nearly $33,000.

“We like the grants in particular that have field activities involved,” he said. “We like a lot of hands-on activity, particularly for K-12 audiences, and those that can be replicated in other places around the state.”

Krimmel, who attended the steward-ship day with Potter’s class, says the students benefited from presentations about the work they would be doing and its importance to the environment before rolling up their sleeves.

“At the end of the day, they all seemed to be engaged, even those who initially were not,” he says. “That tells you how well the event went.”

For her part, Potter says she hopes to bring all her classes to the lakefront in the future.

“To have them interact with the lake and get a greater appreciation and understanding of this natural resource that is right outside their door — but still unvisited by so many in their particular neighborhood — was just fabulous.”

This newsletter is printed with soy inks on processed chlorine-free paper comprising 100% post-consumer waste content. No recycled fibers have been rebleached with chlorine-containing compounds, and any virgin fibers are totally chlorine-free.

Executive CommitteeLori Colman, Chair

Sanjiv Sinha, Ph.D., Vice Chairman — PolicyBill Sheldrake, Vice Chairman — Development

Sue Conatser, TreasurerPaul Botts, Secretary

Susan MiHalo, Chairwoman — NominationsJoel Brammeier, President & CEO

William Jefferson Black Paul Culhane Ken DeBeaussaert Thomas Denbow Patricia Ninham Hoeft David Keller Larry MacDonald Joy Mulinex Buzz Patterson David Pippen

Joel Brammeier, President & CEOTodd Brennan, Watershed Project Manager, WisconsinEthan Brown, Resilience CoordinatorJennifer Caddick, Engagement DirectorSusan Campbell, Communications ManagerJamie Cross, Adopt-a-Beach™ ManagerNate Drag, Watershed Project Coordinator, New YorkMolly Flanagan, Vice President, PolicyJudy Freed, Marketing StrategistRebecca LaGesse, Database ManagerAngela Larsen, Community Resilience ManagerKatharine Larson, Education ManagerMichelle Liebetreu, Institutional Development ManagerKhalil Ligon, Southeast Michigan Outreach Coordinator

Leolin Bowen, Executive Assistant, ChicagoOlga Lyandres, Research ManagerBettina Marshall, Office Manager, Chicago

Sarah Neville, Stewardship Coordinator

Ruth Perret-Goluboff, Community CoordinatorMary Grace Sartoris, Development Associate

Carolyn Scholz, Individual Philanthropy Director

Stephanie Smith, Vice President of Operations

Janet Taylor, Administrative Assistant, Grand Haven

Lyman Welch, Legal Director

Hyle White Lowry, Ohio Outreach Coordinator

Jeffrey ReutterJoan RothenbergRachel SchneiderJoyce SolbergUnmi SongFrank WasheleskyLee Botts, emeritusHenry T. Chandler, emeritus James Griffith, emeritus

BOARD OF DIRECTORS STAFF

CHICAGO150 N. Michigan Ave.

Suite 700Chicago, IL 60601

312-939-0838 Fax 312-939-2708

alliance@greatlakes.org

Buffalo • Cleveland • DetroitGrand Haven • Milwaukee

www.greatlakes.orgtakeaction.greatlakes.org

Photo by Olga Lyandres

Photo by Hyle White Lowry

Photos from Joel Peebles

Growing young Great Lakes stewards

Scrubbing out microbeads

Shayla Hodge and Treasure Hall, 11th graders at John Adams High School, learned about Lake Erie and participated in a shoreline planting with classmates at Cleveland’s Edgewater Beach.