Clean Wisconsin Resilient Communities Director Nancy Retana will become chair of the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern Community Advisory Committee (CAC) in January. Committee members unanimously chose Retana for the role at their meeting on Tuesday.
“I’m honored to help lead this committee and work to ensure community members who have long been underrepresented in or excluded from environmental decision making will have a voice in this important cleanup effort,” said Retana, who has served on the committee since January 2023. “The CAC is really about environmental justice. Instead of assumptions about best use driving decisions made ‘on behalf of’ the community, residents now have clear, accessible and meaningful opportunities to not only weigh in on these projects but to have their expertise about their own community’s needs respected as authoritative.”
“As my tenure as chair concludes, I could not be more pleased about our incoming leader,” said current chair Demetria Smith. “Nancy has the passion, skills and insight to lead the CAC in taking this essential work to the next level. Her dedication to our mission, coupled with her strong leadership qualities, make her the perfect choice to take the reins. I have full confidence that under Nancy’s guidance, the CAC will excel in ways we have yet to imagine.”
The CAC helps community members play an active role in shaping the rehabilitation of the Milwaukee Estuary, one of the most polluted sites in the Great Lakes region. The estuary was once a pristine natural ecosystem where the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic Rivers flowed unimpeded to Lake Michigan. After more than two centuries of development, population growth, and industrial and agricultural pollution, the estuary has been designated as an Area of Concern (AOC) and is the focus of a comprehensive cleanup effort.
In October, the Biden Administration announced a major investment of $450 million to cleanup nearly two million cubic yards of contaminated sediments from the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern. Removingsediments that contain toxic chemicals like PCBs, mercury, lead and chromium will lead to safer water, healthier fish and wildlife, and improved recreation. The investment is accelerating a decades-long effort to restore the area, which has been listed as an Area of Concern since 1987.
“Cleaning up the Milwaukee Estuary is an enormous undertaking, and this investment is key to making real progress. The goals are in sight—clean waterways, restored ecosystems. The CAC is here to ensure community input is at the center of this work as it moves forward.,” Retana says.
For more information on the Milwaukee Area of Concern CAC, please visit cacmke.org.
For more information on the completed, on-going and future projects planned to continue clean-up of the Milwaukee Estuary, please visit the Watershed Restoration Partnership webpage at mkewaterwaypartners.org.
