The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Great Lakes Advisory Board reestablished
Northeast Ohio’s Dreyfuss-Wells to co-chair
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reestablished Great Lakes Advisory Board will be cochaired by a Northeast Ohio-area leader.
Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District CEO Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells will serve as co-chair of the 14 member voluntary board. DreyfussWells previously served as director of the Willoughbybased Chagrin River Watershed Partners.
The Great Lakes Advisory Board was first established in 2012 by the EPA to ensure “transparent, credible and diverse views in guiding the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative’s investments.” Its charter expired in June 2018 and was re-established in December 2018. The EPA sought nominations for the board last year. The selected members were announced in early June.
Dreyfuss-Wells said her background gives her two perspectives to bring to the board. She joined the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) in 2008 after serving as the director of the nonprofit Chagrin River Watershed Partners. She became CEO of NEORSD in 2017. NEORSD provides sanitary and stormwater management services to Cleveland and 61 suburban communities in Northeast Ohio.
“I bring the understanding not only of the importance of infrastructure, the cost of infrastructure and the issues related to aging infrastructure, but I also bring a watershed perspective,” she said. “The quality of the water in the Great Lakes is really indicative of the landuse practices that we all have. So the land-use practices lead to water quality, and it’s having that understanding of the role of the watershed and how we manage land (that) is so important to understanding the health of the Great Lakes.
Dreyfuss-Wells is one of four Ohioans serving on the board. Joining her are
Ohio Department of Natural Resources’s Chief of the Office of Coastal Management Scudder Mackey, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation Senior Director Larry Antosch and Hull & Associates founder and chairman John Hull.
The advisory board will meet about twice per year, according to its charter. The charter also outlines its three major objectives, which are providing advice and recommendations on:
• Great Lakes protection and restoration activities
• Long-term goals, objectives and priorities for Great Lakes protection and restoration
• Other issues identified by the Great Lakes Interagency Task Force/Regional Working Group.
Dreyfuss-Wells said one of her goals is to ensure it’s an effective board, ensuring members work well together, know each other and understand the expertise and background each person brings.
“It’s so important that advisory boards be wellfunctioning groups of folks that work really well together,” she said. “Obviously as co-chair, part of my role is to facilitate the free exchange of ideas and conversation among the board.”
Dreyfuss-Wells added it’s
“essential to articulate the pressing issues of the Great Lakes.”
“We’re talking about an abundant supply of fresh water, and we’ve seen between Flint (Michigan) and Toledo the importance of fresh water,” she said. “You have folks on that board representing tribal interests, agriculture, infrastructure, urban, suburban to talk about the real decisions and conversations we have to have to protect that abundant supply of fresh water.”
The reestablishment of the board was applauded by U.S. representatives from Ohio who serve communities along Lake Erie.
“By re-establishing the Great Lakes Advisory
Board, EPA took an important step forward in our critical effort to protect and preserve the Great Lakes,” Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Bainbridge Township, said in a statement.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, DToledo, said in a statement, “Great Lakes are the lifeblood of our region and will be served by the expertise and key insights of the diverse experience of the advisory board.”
Dreyfuss-Wells said she’s honored to be named the co-chair of the board.
“I think there’s a lot of very important work that the Great Lakes Advisory Board needs to do, and I think we got the right folks on the board to do that,” she said.