GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – If you live in the Greater Green Bay Area, the world’s largest estuary research site could be in your backyard.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and UW-Green Bay are heading the research, as part of a partnership.
Soon Brown County will be home to a natural resource research area and hub for ecotourists.
The site still needs a location, which will likely end up somewhere along the banks of the Bay of Green Bay or the Fox River.
“There are a lot of positives,” said Brown County Conservationist Mike Mushinski.
Mushinski says the county is still working to improve the Great Lakes river system.
He says The Green Bay Ecosystem National Estuarine Research Reserve Project will help the county monitor the water and let the existing ecosystem flourish.
“Once we know what the issues are we can really tail our solution to fixing things so sentiment reduction or phosphorus reduction or flooding should help us find out what is happening out here,” said Mushinski, “It would take five or ten years to really get results back. I would like to understand in detail what’s happening out there.”
“It helps people and students coming through here to learn what’s happening here, then as UW Green Bay students come and research it helps them and their careers and only helps the community and our water quality,” said Mushinski.
“Work with property owners along the riverfront to find suitable locations that can host this future visitor center and research housing capacity,” said Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach.
Streckenbach says he doesn’t know how much the potentially 10,000 square foot facility is going to cost, but the estuary will bring more tourism dollars into the Greater Green Bay economy.
“The state of Wisconsin just concluded a report saying fishing in the Bay is worth to the economy over 260 million dollars annually,” said Strechenbach, “The reason we have that is because we’ve worked to continue improving the health of this river system.”
Brown County wants to see even more people enjoy what the coast has to offer.
UW Green Bay along with local officials and NOAA are hosting a virtual event on April 12 for the public to learn more about the estuary.
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