Greetings from the Wisconsin Coastal Resilience Team!

This month's newsletter contains:

• Collaboration Classifieds: Share Your Policy and Planning Projects
• Lake Michigan Water Level Update
• Resource of the Month: Wisconsin Coastal Guide
• Around the Great Lakes: Racine Co. Multi-Jurisdictional Comprehensive Plan
• Profiles
• Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission
• Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission 
• Training/Technical Assistance
• Strengthening Coastal Communities Resilience Challenge
• NFIP 101: Introduction to Floodplain Management

Background: CALM is supporting community-to-community learning by developing case studies of policy-change and planning projects in Wisconsin's Lake Michigan region.

Request: CALM is looking for communities interested in sharing policy-change and/or planning projects with the rest of the network. Information about the projects will be compiled into a case study and shared on the Wisconsin Coastal Resilience website as a resource for the network.

If you interested in sharing a policy-change or planning project with the CALM network, please reach out to Lydia Salus at lydia.salus@wisconsin.gov. 

Lake Michigan water levels continued their seasonal decline, decreasing 2 inches from October to November. Though Lake Michigan is now about 31 inches below the highest monthly water level recorded for November 1986, the Lake is still about 7 inches above the long-term average water level for the month. Water levels are expected to continue to decline throughout the next month.

Wisconsin Coastal Guide

The Wisconsin Coastal Guide is a collection of themed, interactive story maps highlighting the natural and cultural assets found in Wisconsin’s Great Lakes communities. The Guide offers learning resources about coastal issues, recreation access, cultural heritage and more. This is a great resource to share with visitors and property owners within Wisconsin’s Great Lakes coastal communities.

Racine County wants to promote responsible land use and growth and encourage development that supports community and economic growth.

A cooperative, comprehensive planning process was undertaken by Racine County, SEWRPC, and Racine County’s 17 municipalities to address the new comprehensive planning requirements and to reduce planning costs across the County. The multi-jurisdictional comprehensive plan created a single-source reference document for each of the municipalities’ asset inventories and land-use plans.

The plan was completed and adopted in 2009. All of Racine County’s 17 municipalities adopted the multi-jurisdictional comprehensive plan. 

Regional Planning Commissions

Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission



Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission provides planning and technical services through various federal, state, and local programs to their member local governments in northeast Wisconsin. They partner with state and federal governments to help these local governments create and execute successful community projects. The Commission works with Brown, Door, Florence, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Oconto, and Sheboygan County. 

Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission

Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission provides essential information and planning services to help solve technical problems and focus regional attention on key issues of regional consequences. Their regional approach is necessary for properly planning and designing public work systems and addressing environmental issues, such as coastal resilience. SEWRPC serves seven counties in southeastern Wisconsin: Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Walworth, Washington, and Waukesha.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) and its partners have designed the Strengthening Coastal Counties Resilience Challenge to help communities develop policies and plans to improve their community’s resilience to coastal flooding, while building their knowledge and understanding of the tools available to assist them.

The Challenge invites U.S. Great Lakes coastal communities with populations of less than 250,000 to form multidisciplinary teams to apply to join a one-year technical assistance program.

Participating communities will leave the program with:

• One coastal flooding vulnerability self-assessment,
• A set of planning scenarios,
• At least one identified natural or nature-based project for implementation,
• One action plan,
• At least two identified potential funding source(s) to support its implementation, 
• Access to a regional community of practice, and
• Improved hard and soft skills around coastal resilience.

Application Deadline: November 9, 2022 @ 11:59pm ET

NFIP 101: Introduction to Floodplain Management

Hosted in partnership with ASFPM, this training will help new and experienced floodplain administrators, emergency managers, elected officials, and others learn more about the NFIP and its requirements. New floodplain administrators will also learn how floodplain management decisions affect insurance, health, and public safety.

This training can be completed at online, at your convenience.

For more information, visit the Wisconsin Coastal Resilience website.

University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute | (608) 262-0905 | 1975 Willow Drive, 2nd Floor, Madison, WI 53706