Marc Miller, Director of IDNR (photo from http://dnr.state.il.us/)
Marc Miller, Director of IDNR (photo from http://dnr.state.il.us/)

Marc Miller, Director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, recently sent out some good news:

Dear DNR Constituent:

The beginning of a new year is a good time for reflection and for to make plans for the next year. As I reflect on 2009, the outstanding thought is the large number of truly dedicated individuals, conservationists and outdoor enthusiasts, including those who work at DNR, who have helped make a difference at this agency.

One of our highlights from the past year was the Conservation Congress that  was held in October. Over 150 stakeholders gathered to begin the nuts and bolts work of rebuilding this agency that weekend. Thanks to everyone for making this event such a great success.

It has been a pleasure to work with you all.

One of the reasons I accepted this role – and one of the reasons it was offered to me – was my desire and commitment to rebuild this agency. This commitment is not only about restoring DNR’s position of conservation leadership, but also with an understanding that our priorities need to better reflect the challenges – societal and recreational changes – that we face. We need to ensure that the agency and its mission are relevant to constituents, taxpayers, legislators, and appropriators.

Some of the changes we have made or are making to the agency will help us  adapt to these changes and address troubling trends:

* Consolidating three offices (public services, special events and administration) into an Office of Strategic Services;

Creating a Private Lands and Watersheds division within ORC – to focus on the opportunities for conservation on the 96% of Illinois in private hands;

* Considering ways to deliver better public recreational access on private lands (there have been some great ideas from Conservation Congress staff and we are working on details);

* In addition to hiring a youth program coordinator, we will be hiring outreach and education coordinators and creating an Office/Division of Community Outreach. (Still some details to be worked out here, but this will be a new effort to reach youth and engage constituencies.)

We continue to focus on bringing qualified natural resource professionals to  DNR. The unprecedented appointment of John Rogner (DNR has never had TWO natural resources professionals running the agency in appointed slots), and bringing on highly qualified individuals like Dr. Jim Herkert (ORC), Travis Loyd (Strategic Services), and Mitch Cohen (General Counsel) to run their Offices give me great pride in our progress.

 There is more to come. In the next several days and weeks we will be joined  by several more professionals – highly qualified, energetic and committed to the mission of DNR – and there will soon be job postings for positions that  we have deemed critical to our mission (Finally, biologists!).

This budget climate has been and will continue to be a major challenge for  our State. Our agency has made progress on securing new revenue sources  with the legislative approval of our fee increases, and the promise of new  federal dollars for the Great Lakes programs, and we are working on other means of revenue. The passage of a fees bill in veto session was a tremendous victory and one that made many people take notice of our efforts.

Thank you so much for your efforts in Conservation Congress and during veto session to help make this possible.

Because of the passage of the fees bill, we are able to justify these new hires. There are many more critical hires needed throughout the agency, and we will continue to work hard and build a sustainable budget and rationale for these hires. It will take time and progress will not be as quick as we might like, but we will make progress.

At this time last year I would never have guessed that a response to an invasive species such as asian carp would have demanded so much time and energy. Our rapid response effort in December was a shining leadership  moment for our agency, and a prime example of how a small group committed people can make a difference.

DNR led an effort that included multiple international, federal, state, and  local partners to ensure that this invasive species would not enter the Great Lakes and threaten one of the world’s great ecosystems. We poisoned 6  miles of the Ship and Sanitary Canal in support of the electric barrier’s maintenance cycle. This kept any carp below the barrier from moving towards Lake Michigan. Although a difficult decision, it remains vitally important to protect the Great Lakes from this invasive species. As we learn more about how to use and interpret new detection techniques like environmental DNA, there will additional efforts in the canal to keep carp from moving north, and hopefully keep round gobies and other species from moving south.

I am personally excited about the coming year. Clearly the budget, funding  sources, and projects like asian carp will continue to challenge us in the new year, but we also have some wonderful new programs and initiatives we are getting underway and planning to introduce. Thank you for all that you do and let’s continue our great work together.

Yours in Conservation,

Marc

PS – we’ve been making progress on outreach by using Facebook. You may want to join the IDNR FB page here.