Lake Erie’s harmful algal bloom has been shrinking for about one or two weeks, but scientists don’t know yet when it will disappear. Last year’s bloom behaved differently from blooms in previous years, so that makes it harder to predict when the bloom will go away. Read the full story by the Sandusky Register.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-algal-bloom-shrink
Revive Environmental, created by Battelle in Ohio, teamed up with Heritage-Crystal Clean, based in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area, to launch the PFAS Annihilator that destroys toxic PFAS chemicals. Once the process is complete, the PFAS-free water is sent to a local Publicly Owned Treatment Works facility, where it’s processed into drinking water. Read the full story by WXMI-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-pfas-annihilator
The U.S. National Science Foundation awarded $5 million to the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor to establish the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters, which will be based at the university’s School for Environment and Sustainability. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-climate-center
A birchbark canoe well over 100 years old has a new home in Kanien’kehá:ka territory south of Montreal, Québec, after spending decades in storage in Québec and Minnesota. While it’s currently on display in the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center, the canoe will eventually be housed in a new museum. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-canoe-returned
StreamGo, a Hamilton, Ontario, company, has developed a process that not only removes PFAS, but also deconstructs the chemicals so they’re no longer harmful to the environment and humans. StreamGo has turned to the Buffalo Sewer Authority to help prove it has developed a system that can be applied to wastewater heavily contaminated with PFAS. Read the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-pfas-removal
U.S. EPA Great Lakes Office director Chris Korleski recently spoke at the Areas of Concern (AOC) conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to emphasize the importance of partnerships in AOC remediation. The conference theme this year was “accelerate,” referring to President Biden’s February 2022 initiative to quicken the pace of AOC remediation by infusing an additional $1 billion over five years. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-remediation-goals
Steel production rose by 16,000 tons in the Great Lakes region last week, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Steel mills in Indiana’s Great Lakes region made 571,000 tons of metal in the week that ended September 16, up from 555,000 tons the previous week. Read the full story by The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-steel-production
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is actively investigating a new PFAS site in Courtland Township, where state officials have not pinpointed the source of the contamination. EGLE has identified several wells with PFAS levels ranging from 50 to 110 parts per trillion (ppt), significantly higher than the regulation levels of 8 to 16 ppt. Read the full story by WXMI-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-pfas-detection
The input will be used for the creation of a city waterfront access master plan that will recommend potential access points along the stretch of Lake Ontario from Lakeshore Road West to Read Road. City-owned properties along the lake are being looked at for the study, including parks, beaches, trails and other spaces. Read the full story by the St. Catharines Standard.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-waterfront-access
Members of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa have netted lake trout in Lake Superior for the first time in more than 160 years. Band members and others say the event marks another chapter in the ongoing success story of Lake Superior’s lake trout resurgence. Read the full story by Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230922-trout-resurgence
In response to industrial-sized agricultural operations polluting waterways, Minnesota’s White Earth Nation is implementing a series of mandatory and enforceable pollution prevention and water conservation measures that challenge the voluntary practices that states and the federal government have embraced for the last half century. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-wild-rice-protection
A rise in the number of blue-green algae blooms in popular lakes close to Thunder Bay, Ontario may be a symptom of climate change, the region’s public-health agency suggests. Blue-green algae, which appears on the water’s surface, can be toxic and harmful to humans and animals if ingested. Read the full story by The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-algae-impacts
This month, two studies on plastic waste in the Great Lakes were published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. In both studies, the authors advised that it would be helpful if a bi-national agency would give some direction; they formally petitioned policy makers to include microplastics as a chemical to be regulated. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-plastic-studies
In Clay, New York, Micron Technology says it may use up to 48 million gallons per day by the time its upcoming project is built. Two experts, one on the utility side and one on the environmental side, recently discussed what 48 million gallons coming out of Lake Ontario would look like, and if it’s safe for the health of the lake and surrounding area. Read the full story by Spectrum News Syracuse.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-water-withdrawal-impacts
The Conference of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers (GSGP) contracted with Anna Tanski to serve as the organization’s inaugural tourism director to coordinate two GSGP regional marketing initiatives: Cruise the Great Lakes and Great Lakes USA. Tanski brings more than 32 years of experience in tourism and hospitality management. Read the full story by Seatrade Cruise News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-tourism-director
In Saginaw, Michigan, the Saginaw Children’s Zoo partnered with the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort to help incubate, rear, and release plover chicks across the Great Lakes Bay region. Piping Plovers are tiny birds that live on the coast of the Great Lakes and have been an endangered species since 1986. Read the full story by WNEM-TV – Bay City, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-plover-recovery
A new access point east of the city at Silver Harbour Conservation Area on Lake Superior saves divers a long swim, and having to scramble over rocks with their gear in order to reach a spot where half a dozen small, intentionally-submerged boats can be viewed. Read the full story by the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-diving-access
Another season of the Lake Huron Coastal Centre’s Coastal Conservation Youth Corps has wrapped up its activities along the shoreline from coastal clean-ups to monitoring water quality and shoreline conditions. Read the full story by CKNX News Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-conservation-youth-program
Central New York’s Water Authority has opened a new exhibit about the treatment and transmission of water at the Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) in downtown Syracuse. The Ontario Clean Water Agency educational exhibit, called How Your Water Works, will be on display through November 26 and features a water pipe display, historical timeline, and an interactive water table for children to enjoy. Read the full story by WSTM-TV – Syracuse, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-water-treatment-exhibit
Milwaukee-based multimedia production studio FuzzPop Workshop is presenting “Deep Lake Future,” an immersive and otherworldly art experience to showcase how invasive species have expanded beyond the Great Lakes into all facets of our lives. Read the full story by Milwaukee Record.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230901-invasive-species-exhibit
Cleanup crews are trying to determine how much runoff from an industrial fire in Etobicoke, Ontario, has made its way into Lake Ontario. Although containment measures along Mimico Creek were reinforced last Wednesday, Thursday’s rain enabled the spill to move further down the creek to Lake Ontario. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-spill-runoff
Low water levels are critical for manoomin, a sacred crop for the Ojibwe people of the Great Lakes region. But climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels is bringing more rain and flooding to Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, making harvests of wild rice less reliable. Read the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-manoomin-threats
Cruise ships provide a valuable commodity to the tourism areas of Georgian Bay in Lake Huron, but also produce non-garbage waste in the form of sewage or grey water. Transport Canada announced voluntary environmental measures for cruise ships in April of this year, before making them mandatory in late June; enforcement and a $250,000 maximum penalty would be imposed on non-compliant vessels. Read the full story by MidlandToday.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-cruise-regulation
City engineers are installing a water retention basin in Montreal, Québec, to end the need to dump excess sewage into the Lachine Canal during intense rainstorms, which happens five times each summer, on average. Every time the sewage water is diverted into the canal, authorities have to close it to recreational use for 72 hours. The St. Lawrence River into which the canal flows is also affected. Read the full story by The Montreal Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-water-retention
Groundwater treatment systems will be installed near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, Michigan, to address contamination from high levels of PFAS, an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in groundwater. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-treatment-installation
In Flint, Michigan, more than 100 hatchery-raised lake sturgeon were released Saturday into the Flint River. The prehistoric type of fish used to be abundant in the Great Lakes but are now Federally listed species of concern. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-sturgeon-restoration
For two decades, scientists have been studying toxic cyanobacterial blooms that have been expanding in the western basin of Lake Erie and causing dead zones in the central basin. The nutrient pollution that causes it, primarily from agriculture, is not regulated. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-algae-reduction
Nearly 80 years after a plane flown by a member of the Tuskegee Airmen went down in Lake Huron, some of the wreckage has been recovered. Although the famed Tuskegee Airmen were based out of Alabama, advanced training exercises were conducted in Michigan during World War II. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-plane-recovery
Fairgoers to the Illinois State Fair chowed down this week on various forms of deep-fried copi, better known until last year as Asian carp. State conservation officials launched a rebranding effort last summer promoting copi as a light, tasty, protein-packed fish that’s more palatable than the notion of an aquatic invader. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-copi-branding
Sailing Saugatuck, a family-owned charter company that’s been sailing on Lake Michigan for 14 years, runs a two-hour sunset sail aboard the Schooner Serenity every day during the summertime in Saugatuck, Michigan, through October 7. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230821-sailing-trip
Toledo-Lucas County, Ohio, Health Department officials announced Wednesday that the public should avoid all contact with water at Maumee Bay State Park due to cyanotoxin levels caused by the Lake Erie Algal Bloom. The public is not permitted to swim at Lake Erie Beach at the park and pets should be kept away from the water. Read the full story by WTOL-TV – Toledo, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-algal-bloom
Major upgrades are underway in Macomb County, Michigan, to prevent sewage overflows from ending up in Lake St. Clair and prepare for heavy rain events in the future. Read the full story by WJBK-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-sewer-funding
Shipping on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway is continuing its long-term downturn, and changes in the region’s steel industry are largely responsible for the trend, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-shipping-trends
The latest twice-a-year check of Flint’s water pipes by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) shows lead levels in its water dropped slightly during the first six months of this year, which follows a steady pattern of improvement. Flint is close to reaching a goal of replacing all lead service lines, as 95% of Flint residences have had their lead lines replaced. Read the full story by WKAR – East Lansing, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-lead-levels
The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Thursday that original estimates of the amount of diesel fuel that spilled into Lake Michigan from the damaged Manitowoc were too high. The cause of the hull breach that led to the spill and the exact amount of spillage continues to be investigated. Read the full story by the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-spill-investigation
The Great Lakes region is getting about $2.8 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal management. The money can be used to assess a community’s vulnerabilities, buy land to be a coastal buffer, and preserve or restore wetlands. Read the full story by WUOM – Ann Arbor, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-resiliency-funding
All of the Great Lakes’ water levels are higher than their long-term average, but the forecast shows the lakes are getting ready to start lowering as we head into fall, fitting into the annual cycle of rising and falling water levels. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-water-levels
In Saginaw Bay, Michigan, the Saginaw Bay Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area is conducting an ongoing project to restore habitats that have been degraded by phragmites, an invasive species from Europe. It grows along shores and in places where water gathers or the ground is wet and can cause problems for native animals, other plants, and people. Read the full story by the Huron Daily Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-phragmites-project
Lake Superior is historically home to some of the largest shipping enterprises North America has ever seen. Michael Schumacher’s new book, “Too Much Sea For Their Decks,” is full of short sea-stories and shipwrecks along Minnesota’s North Shore and Island Royale. Read and listen to the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-shipwreck-book
Scientists with the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa have, for 20 years, been traveling to the uninhabited High Island in northern Lake Michigan to monitor endangered piping plovers as they nest and fledge their chicks. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230811-plover-monitoring
A sheen of diesel fuel spilled from the freighter Manitowoc has dissipated north of Manistee, Michigan after a storm. The Manitowoc is headed to Muskegon for repairs while the cause of the spill remains under investigation. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-spill-cleanup
Waukesha, Wisconsin, will begin using Lake Michigan water for public supply once construction crews finish building a pumping station and two reservoirs. To tap into Lake Michigan for water, Waukesha had to reach a special agreement with Milwaukee and get the okay from the Great Lakes States and Provinces under the Great Lakes Compact. Read the full story by Spectrum News 1.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-waukesha-water-supply
The North Shores of Saugatuck, Michigan, wants to build 50 homes and a marina basin along the Kalamazoo River, but the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance argues the development would remove 250,000 tons of sand from one of the state’s critical dune areas. The coming weeks could mark a crucial point in the 17-year long battle over this proposed development. Read the full story by WVGR – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-development-issue
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has raised $15 million of its $20 million goal to build the most technologically advanced freshwater research vessel in the United States. When built, the Maggi Sue, named by an anonymous donor, will further advance scientists’ understanding of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-research-vessel
According to a new study, Lake St. Clair and its coastal zones in Macomb County, Michigan, brings a $1.6 billion economic impact and more than 18,000 jobs to the county and region. In the next few months, the Macomb County Chamber is forming a task force to support the study and further boost the economy around the lake. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-economic-study
No cause has been determined yet for a massive fish kill stretching several kilometers up the Ausable River to the shores of Lake Huron, centered in Port Franks, Ontario. Everything from water temperature to run-off could be to blame. Read the full story by CTV News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-fish-kill
Marine Pollution Control (MPC), an oil spill removal organization based in Detroit, recently held a simulated oil spill exercise at a Lake Huron harbor in Rogers City, Michigan. MPC’s training exercises aim to use tactics in a manner that addresses the trajectory and fate of any oil release in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WKAR – East Lansing, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-oil-spill-preparation
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources continues to help enhance fish populations in Lakes Michigan and Superior. Stocking efforts will continue throughout the year, including stocking 50,000 brook trout, 44,468 brown trout and 258,228 coho salmon into the Great Lakes, to ensure the 2023 stocking quotas are fulfilled. Read the full story by the Lake Geneva News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-fish-stocking
According to the International Lake Superior Board of Control, Lake Superior’s average water level at the beginning of August is above the seasonal long-term average and the level of a year ago. Meanwhile, Lake Michigan-Huron is above the seasonal long-term average, yet below the level of a year ago. Read the full story by SooToday.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-lake-levels
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District announced the start of $1.25 million dredging operations at two Lake Michigan harbors in Ludington and Pentwater, Michigan, to keep the federal navigation system safe and open for commercial and recreational traffic. Read the full story by the Midland Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230807-dredging-projects
