There’s never been a better time to find, explore and document shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, thanks to a combination of technology, environmental change, and surge in public interest. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240408-shipwreck-discoveries
A bill in the Michigan legislature aims to create the Office of the Tribal Legislative Liaison, which, if passed, would make Michigan the first state with a formal legislative connection with its tribal governments. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-tribal-liaison
The first oceangoing vessel of the 2024 shipping season, the Barbro G, sailed into the port of Duluth-Superior just before noon Monday morning, marking the traditional opening of the Great Lakes shipping season in the Twin Ports. Read the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-shipping-season
Marine traffic in the St. Marys River was reopened after an empty bulk cargo ship, The American Mariner, struck a concrete navigation aid around 12:20 a.m. on March 28. Read the full story by CTV News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-marine-traffic
The U.S. Coast Guard has issued a Marine Safety Information Bulletin for Lake Erie boaters regarding the April 8 total solar eclipse. According to the Coast Guard boater bulletin, the eclipse may present challenges and potential distractions for those who navigate and operate commercial vessels on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WJW-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-eclipse-bulletin
Toronto’s Enwave Energy Corp. is digging deep to expand its giant deep lake water cooling system as part of a $100-million program to increase the system’s reach to even more Toronto buildings. Read the full story by The Globe and Mail.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-cooling-system
Twenty-five years ago, several lower Detroit River islands and marshes were threatened by development. As part of a strategy to save these ecosystems, local conservationists coined the term “Conservation Crescent” to raise awareness of the value and benefits of this crescent-shaped archipelago of islands and wetlands. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-conservation-crescent
In Holland, Michigan, local explorers from the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association announced that they had discovered the remarkably intact remains of the 1886 shipwreck of Muskegon-based steam barge, Milwaukee. Read the full story by WWMT-TV – Kalamazoo, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-shipwreck-discovery
Brook trout and Atlantic salmon are native to Lake Ontario, but in 1873, the Canadian federal government began stocking the lake with non-native salmonids. Now, most of these fish are from the wild, not hatchery-raised, and while these fish aren’t native to Lake Ontario, they’re now an important part of the ecosystem. Read the full story by The Narwhal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-fish-stocking
The state of Michigan released new fishing regulations for the 2024 season, including combined possession limits for lake trout and splake in certain waters and a licensing requirement for charter boat captains and inland fishing guides. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-fishing-regulations
U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell says she expects continued bipartisan government action on improving and protecting Great Lakes water quality, despite the fact that this is a bitterly partisan election year. Read the full story by Midland Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240403-bipartisan-priorities
The Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, opened the Poe Lock to all marine traffic at 6 p.m. Eastern on Friday, March 22, marking the start of the 2024 Great Lakes shipping season. Read the full story by the Daily Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-shipping-season
The owner of the decommissioned Palisades nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan about five miles south of South Haven, Michigan, is better known for decommissioning nuclear plants. Its endeavor to restart the plant is one that has never been attempted in the United States. Read the full story by Michigan Public.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-nuclear-plant-restart
Alongside the lack of ice coverage, unseasonable winter temperatures in the Great Lakes region are creating the conditions for the proliferation of invasive species, strain on the lakes’ natural, temperature-driven stratification process, and the rise of toxic algal blooms. Read the full story by the Daily Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-climate-impacts
The regional grid operator that oversees electric reliability in 15 states, including nearly all of Michigan, recently released a series of proposed transmission projects aimed at stabilizing the power grid in the future as more renewables come online and coal plants retire. However, the up to $23 billion plan left out one notable project: an underwater cable across Lake Michigan connecting the lakeshore with eastern Wisconsin. Read the full story by Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-power-supply
On World Water Day, the Canadian government announced $800,000 in funding to improve water in the Saint Lawrence River. The money from is being used for initiatives that are part of the Saint Lawrence Action Plan that began in 2011 and runs until 2026. Read the full story by CTV News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-water-quality-funding
Explorers from the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association have discovered and identified the remains of the steam barge Milwaukee, which sank in 1886, about 40 miles west of Holland, Michigan. Read the full story by WXMI-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-shipwreck-discovery
The northwestern Ontario site being considered for a nuclear waste repository is safe for that use, according to the industry-funded organization tasked with creating a repository. So is the other site on the shortlist for the proposed deep geological repository, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. Read the full story by MidlandToday.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-nuclear-repository
The 2023-2024 season marked the warmest winter on record for the lower 48 states, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The change in the weather has had an outsize impact on the festivals, events and tourism that define the Great Lakes identity. Read the full story by CNN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240325-winter-impacts
To prevent the movement of invasive carp into the Great Lakes, the states of Illinois and Michigan and the Army Corps of Engineers need to sign an agreement, but for months they have been locked in a stalemate over what comes next. Read the full story by WBEZ – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-invasive-carp-prevention
The U.S. Department of Justice and environmental groups filed two lawsuits against Campbell Soup in Napoleon, Ohio, accusing the company of allowing wastewater and pollutants to flow unchecked into the Maumee River, which flows into Lake Erie, for years. Read the full story by CBS News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-pollution-lawsuit
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is challenging a decision that federal courts have jurisdiction over the future of Enbridge Energy’s Line 5. That’s after a judge moved her legal challenge from the Ingham County Circuit Court to a U.S. district court. Read the full story by Michigan Public.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-pipeline-litigation
A combination of sand movement and awareness of who to contact are likely why so many more shipwrecks were discovered in Lake Michigan last year. It’s possible that water level changes caused the sand bars to shift dramatically, uncovering shipwrecks in shallower waters. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-shipwreck-discoveries
For World Water Day, the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition is sounding the alarm on the damage done by road salt and is calling on the province of Ontario to do more to mitigate the risk of contamination to groundwater, rivers, lakes and drinking water. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-water-advocacy
Staff from the Superior National Forest and three Bands of Chippewa Indigenous Nations recently met in Grand Portage, Minnesota, to engage together on “Shared Learning for Co-Stewardship.” The two-day training addressed Indigenous tribal sovereignty, treaty rights and trust obligations, traditional ecological knowledge, and tribal stewardship priorities. Read the full story by Red Lake Nation News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-stewardship-training
Legislation that would establish a framework for Pennsylvania to develop a wind energy industry off its Lake Erie coast cleared an early hurdle in the Pennsylvania General Assembly on Tuesday. Read the full story by Erie Times-News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-wind-development
Friends of the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary announced their children’s program lineup for this year’s Summer in the Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan. The program is designed to get kids interested and involved with the Great Lakes through educational and immersive activities that get them near, on, and even under the water. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-childrens-programs
The Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary is one of 15 places in the country that have received the marine sanctuary designation from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan coast is home to dozens of shipwrecks that represent and preserve both a moment frozen in time and a window into the past. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-marine-sanctuary
On March 21, 1953, the now historic S.S. Badger set off on its maiden voyage on Lake Michigan. The S.S. Badger and its sister ships are the last — and the largest — coal-fired, steam engine car ferries built in the United States. Read the full story by WWTV-TV – Cadillac, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240322-car-ferry-history
Barring a late season snowstorm, the state of Michigan expects to use 175,000 tons less salt than usual which would save the state about $10 million. While applying salt reduces the risk of winter collisions, the briny runoff seeps into the soil and harms plants, or trickles into underground aquifers, rivers and lakes, polluting the water. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-salt-reduction
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that all five Great Lakes are below the lowest ice levels on record at this point of the season. As of Monday, only 1.21% of the Great Lakes were covered in ice; comparatively, on March 11, 2022, the Great Lakes had nearly 39% ice coverage. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-ice-cover
A University of Windsor project, in partnership with the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, is breeding lake sturgeon for eventual release into the Detroit River to combat their declining populations. The project means Windsor is one of the only places in Canada where you can see juvenile sturgeon in vast quantities. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-sturgeon-breeding
Environmental advocates in Michigan are pushing for legislation to require periodic inspections of septic systems statewide. Despite its vast water resources, Michigan remains the only state without a statewide sanitary code, which would include septic systems. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-septic-regulation
In Illinois, the Yorkville City Council okayed the next agreement needed to begin receiving water from Lake Michigan. Because the city is currently drawing water from an aquifer expected to diminish in the coming years, it is joining the DuPage Water Commission which purchases and transports Lake Michigan water from the city of Chicago. Read the full story by WSPY – Plano, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-water-agreement
According to American Iron and Steel Institute, steel mills in the Great Lakes region, clustered mainly along the south shore of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana, made 586,000 tons of metal in the week that ended March 9. This represents an increase of 3.5%, despite national steel production trailing last year’s pace by 3.3%. Read the full story by The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-steel-production
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources will be collecting over 23 million walleye fry starting March 18 through April 12, raising them to fingerling size and stocking Muskegon-area rivers, ponds and lakes. Experts say this helps keep the walleye population up, which is essential for many inland lake ecosystems. Read the full story by WZZM-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-walleye-stocking
On Monday, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Bill 253 into law, requiring the installation of life rings every quarter mile along Lake Michigan’s Indiana shore. Read the full story by WNDU-TV – South Bend, IN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-life-ring-law
This winter saw record low ice cover across the Great Lakes, which are among the fastest-warming lakes in the world. However, less ice means ships can travel longer, leading some to wonder whether the shipping season could be extended, a potential silver lining of declining ice. Read the full story by WUWM – Milwaukee, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-shipping-impacts
In what may be the first announcement of its kind in the state, the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association plans to reveal the identity of its latest shipwreck discovery during a live event later this month in Holland, Michigan. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240313-shipwreck-event
Piping plovers have returned to the same shoreline breeding locations for decades, but new and less desirable nest sites are appearing because many old sites no longer exist. Climate change impacts water levels in the Great Lakes; when water rises, old sites are flooded out and beaches are reduced. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-piping-plover-habitat
While the Great Lakes shoreline is usually armored in the winter by ice cover, this year’s record low level of ice cover means coastal areas face a risk of more erosion. As climate forecasts anticipate continued dwindling of ice coverage each winter, ongoing maintenance along the shoreline to prevent erosion may be needed moving forward. Read the full story by WSJM-FM – Benton Harbor, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-coastal-threats
United States and Canadian Coast Guard representatives came together to sign a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) earlier this month. The MOU is a new agreement to coordinate ice breaking efforts throughout the main waterways of the Great Lakes, as well as connecting waters like the Georgian Bay and St. Lawrence River. Read the full story by The Sault News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-binational-agreement
A group of water safety experts and other advocates headed to the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis Wednesday to argue in favor of the Lake Michigan Rescue Equipment Act. The bill would require life ring stations on piers and public access points along Lake Michigan in Indiana. Read the full story by WBBM-TV – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-beach-safety
The Conference of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers recently signed the 20th company to the 100% fish pledge, committing to fully use the region’s whitefish, lake trout, yellow perch, walleye and white sucker. The effort aims to improve the sustainability and value of commercially caught fish, which are used primarily for their fillets, as about 60% of the remaining fish becomes low-value animal feed or is discarded. Read the full story by The Mining Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-fish-sustainability
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the lack of ice, combined with the lack of typical winter weather, has led to a lot of evaporation that can impact water levels on Lake Michigan. Another issue is salt applied during winter storms that runs off into the lake, polluting the water. Read the full story by WTMJ-TV – Milwaukee, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-freshwater-impacts
The DeTour Reef Light in northern Lake Huron has expanded its lighthouse keeper program, previously only available on weekends, to include weeknight stays for $50 per person per night. The 83-foot lighthouse, built in 1931, is a strategic and historic landmark that marks a dangerous reef to help guide ship traffic to and from Lake Huron and Lake Superior via the St. Marys River. Read the full story by The Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-lighthouse-keeper
Three Michigan artists are spreading awareness about the value of the Great Lakes by creating trash murals, shredding waves and telling legends about shipwrecks. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240223-art-awareness
This spring, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ fisheries team will start using underwater cameras in select areas of Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan to capture video footage of fish communities without disturbing them. Read the full story by WICA – Traverse City, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240221-fish-footage
Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) has approved $2.5 million in university funding to support construction of a $10 million facility along the Saginaw River. When completed, SVSU’s Lake Huron Environmental Research Station will be the first university environmental research facility on Lake Huron. Read the full story by WEYI-TV – Saginaw, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240221-university-research
In northwest Ohio, WIN Waste Innovations is seeking Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval to expand its landfill. Because the landfill lies within the vicinity of Lake Erie tributary watersheds, residents fear toxins from the landfill could affect water quality all the way to Lake Erie, and they worry that an expansion of the landfill could worsen the negative environmental impact in their towns. Read the full story by The Beacon.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240221-landfill-pollution
