AWRI, community partnerships lead to restoration milestone for Muskegon Lake

Erin Kuhn, executive director of the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission, commended the AWRI for its commitment in protecting the lake's health.

"This has been something our community has been working on for so, so long," Kuhn said. "I want to thank Grand Valley State University and all the research that they have done to help back the projects that we've done. We created a vision, and we followed that vision, and we revisited that throughout the last 30 years to get to where we are today."

Stuart Jones, the AWRI's executive director, said while the EPA's announcement was gratifying, there remains ongoing work in monitoring the lake.

"We've got local and regional and federal groups working really hard for a long, long time to document along with the help from AWRI these positive changes that have happened in the environment," said Stuart Jones, AWRI's executive director.

"There's still a long road to go, but it's great to see a victory at a large scale like this, and it's really energized me in taking on the next phase of running AWRI and being a partner here at GVSU."