Green Bay Is Home To The World’s Largest Freshwater Estuary. It’s In The Running To Be A National Research Reserve. | Wisconsin Public Radio
Green Bay is the largest freshwater estuary in the world, and now the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is leading the search for a site between Marinette and Door County to become a National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR.)This is the second step toward creating a NERR in Northeast Wisconsin. It would be the third on the Great Lakes and the 30th across the country.Reserves receive most of their funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with a local agency managing day-to-day operations. In this case that would be UW-Green Bay.The future site will be located on land that’s publicly owned. Unlike a proposed NOAA sanctuary that met pushback from residents of Manitowoc, Sheboygan and Ozaukee counties, the reserve wouldn’t come with new federal regulations, according to Emily Tyner, director of freshwater strategy at UW-Green Bay.”The Natural Estuarine Research Reserve is completely non-regulatory so, no, absolutely no new regulations are imposed,” she said. “There’s no changes in how people can fish or hunt, or major boat traffic.”
