This book explores the leadership of state and federal environmental agencies and local environmental groups in restoring the degraded rivers that flow into North America’s Great Lakes and other sites in the northeastern industrial corridor of the US.

Chapter 1: Habitat Restoration: An Introduction.- Chapter 2: A Reasoned Process for Restorations.- Chapter 3: Restoring Areas of Concern.- Chapter 4: The St. Louis River Area of Concern.- Chapter 5: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin’s Areas of Concern.- Chapter 6: The “Most Polluted River”: The Grand Calumet .- Chapter 7: Restoration Sites in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula:Saginaw and Muskegon AOCs.- Chapter 8: Ohio’s Areas of Concern and Citizen Involvement.- Chapter 9: Some Other Important Areas of Concern and Their Analyses.- Chapter 10: Some New England Rivers and Their Advocacy Organizations.- Chapter 11: Conclusion: Some Lessons From Local Restorations.   

This book explores the leadership of state and federal environmental agencies and local environmental groups in restoring the degraded rivers that flow into North America’s Great Lakes and other sites in the northeastern industrial corridor of the US. Robinson examines twenty of the forty-eight sites included in the Areas of Concern Program of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the US. These twenty include heavily urbanized locales such as those along the River Rouge and Detroit River, but also more pristine locales such as the St. Louis River that flows through Duluth. Additionally, Robinson examines challenging river restorations within the northeastern industrial corridor which are led by effective local environmental advocacy organizations: the Penobscot Nation of Indigenous People, the Mystic River Watershed Association, and the Housatonic River Valley Association. All of these river restorations are led and managed by the environmental experts of (i) state and federal agencies, (ii) academia, and (iii) environmental NGOs. Local restorations of industrially degraded water bodies now compose a significant segment of the environmental movement and, ultimately, Robinson demonstrates that local environmental advocacy organizations can help marshal state and local funding for those efforts.Richard M. Robinson is Professor of Business at the State University of New York at Fredonia (SUNY Fredonia), USA. He is the author of Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse (2021), Business Ethics: Kant, Virtue, and the Nexus of Duty (2021), and The Imperfect Duties of Management (2018).

Examines the effect of environmental advocacy on watershed restoration in the Great Lakes Utilizes a reasoned discourse framework and an Areas of Concern model Employs nine case studies across the rust belt areas of North America