NEWPORT, R.I. — Marisa Desautel joined the Southeast New England Program Network (SNEP), an organization committed to building resilient ecosystems and connecting communities through action, collaboration and innovation.
The guiding vision for SNEP is to form a collaborative network of partners utilizing mutually reinforcing strategies to deliver technical assistance and training to municipalities, organizations, and tribes, and creating improved norms of practice and financing to advance stormwater management, water quality and habitat improvements, and enhanced climate resiliency across Southeast New England.
“Anyone who knows me, knows I’m an environmentalist at heart, so being a part of this organization was a no brainer,” said Desautel, managing attorney at Desautel Law. “I’m looking forward to working with everyone for the betterment of this area. It’s the place I call home, and we all have a responsibility to care for it, not only for us, but for generations to come.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Southeast New England Program awarded a grant to the New England Environmental Finance Center at the University of Southern Maine (EFC) in October, 2019 to form and lead a cohesive Network of partners with conservation, water quality, habitat, and watershed-scale restoration, stormwater management, green infrastructure, low impact development, and financing expertise in the SNEP region. The funding is for five years, with yearly allocations from EPA.
EFC takes the lead on coordinating the partners’ work and finding opportunities to work synergistically and to achieve more together than any partner could achieve alone. Underlying the collaborative effort is the understanding that no one organization or entity can solve the region’s complex stormwater, water quality, and habitat problems, and that collective success is achieved from integrated efforts informed by a diverse set of stakeholders and end users united by a common vision.
A key focus of the network is to build capacity of communities to fund and to ultimately finance these needs through innovative financing methods already being successfully used around the nation and globally.
To learn more about SNEP, visit https://estuaries.org/snepgrantprogram. Click here to view the biographies of the SNEP Advisory Committee.
