The Task Force, under the lead of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), brings together ten Agency and Cabinet officers to provide strategic direction on federal Great Lakes policy, priorities and programs. Fish and Wildlife’s Midwest Regional Director, Robyn Thorson, says the order will enhance the service’s ongoing efforts.

“The Department of the Interior is going to be a doer by using this cabinet level task force to prioritize, find out everything that’s in the toolkit of all the agencies that are involved and then act.”

Thorson says restoration of habitat is the service’s number one priority in the Great Lakes region including nesting grounds for the Piping Plover. Ron Tull, Interior Department Radio News Service, Washington.