The 2021-22 state budget passed this week by the Michigan Legislature includes $25 million for a pilot program in the western Lake Erie basin to increase the participation of agricultural lands using best management practices for water quality. Read the full story by the Daily Telegram.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210924-michigan-budget
The state of Michigan will provide bottled water and water filters in Benton Harbor, where tests have revealed elevated levels of lead, a spokesman said Wednesday. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210924-lead
Partners for Clean Streams, which focuses on improving quality of life along Toledo-area waterways, is reaching a milestone this Saturday with its 25th annual Clean Your Streams Day. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210924-cleanup
A fledgling initiative created in part by the Chicago-based Conference of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers has attracted nearly $4 billion in sustainability investments for the region in 19 months. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210924-sustainability-investment
The Great Lakes, which are receiving an estimated 22 million pounds (10,000 metric tons) of plastic debris annually from the U.S. and Canada are in need of a wide range of innovative solutions to tackle the plastic problem. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-plastic
For $350 million, rather than build a copy of the purpose-built Mackinaw, it may make more national security sense to procure a robust ocean-going icebreaker, able to serve beyond the Great Lakes, supporting the Coast Guard in increasingly contested Arctic and Antarctic waters. Read the full story by Forbes.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-icebreaker
According to the Ohio Department of Health’s BeachGuard, unsafe levels of microcystin were detected during routine testing recently for Lake Erie beach at Maumee Bay State Park, Ohio. Read the full story by WTVG-TV – Oregon, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-maumee-bay
Lake Erie pollution is reducing tourism revenues and hurting businesses that depend on the lake for their livelihood. Read the full story by Crain’s Cleveland Business
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-lake-erie
The USS Cobia, a WWII submarine, is the highlight of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum and allows visitors to see an important piece of WWII Pacific fleet history right on Lake Michigan. Read the full story by CNET.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-submarine
Samples of a microbial mat at the bottom of a 75-foot-deep sinkhole off the north shore of Middle Island, near Rockport State Recreation Area in the waters of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Lake Huron, answers a question scientists have asked for decades about the rise in Earth’s oxygen levels. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-sinkhole
As lake waters continue to warm through late summer and early fall, there’s been an explosive growth of blue-green algae found in areas such as western parts of Lake Erie. Read the full story by Spectrum News 1.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-algal-bloom
A recent fish kill along a 25-mile stretch of Lake Erie from Cleveland east to Perry, Ohio, is being blamed on oxygen-depleted water being blown toward shore and suffocating those fish that could not escape. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-fish-kill
Scientists have long hypothesized that storms would have strong impacts on water temperature and water column mixing, however, a recent study found that wind and rainstorms do not cause major temperature changes in lakes. Read the full story by Sault Online.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-inlandlakes
On Monday, the container ship Peyton Lynn C, which loaded in Antwerp, Belgium, passed through the locks in Massena and Iroquois, Ontario, on her way upriver on the St. Lawrence heading for the Great Lakes. In her wake, her owners believe, may be a new era in regards to a shipping method for the international waterway. Read the full story by Watertown Daily Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210913-shipping
The St. Lawrence River’s muskellunge fisheries has been declining for more than a decade. A recent die off of adult fish due to viral hemorrhagic septicemia and few juveniles being found in spawning grounds have managers concerned over future population trends. Read the full story by Upstate New York.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-muskie-decline
A fight is brewing in northern Wisconsin over a proposal to bottle and sell water from a well near Lake Superior. Opponents of the plan fear allowing the business to move forward would exploit a loophole in a landmark agreement barring water diversions from the Great Lakes — and could threaten water resources in the region. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-bottled-water
Although still below last years’ water levels, Lake Michigan remains over the 30-year water level average. Read the full story by WJMN-TV – Escanaba, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-water-level
The Valley View Area of Cascade Valley Metro Park in Akron, Ohio, recently celebrated its opening after Summit Metro Parks invested $6 million in grant funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to restore the former golf course property to a more natural area. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-summit-metro-parks
An excavator is halfway submerged and stuck off the Lake Michigan shoreline near Holland, Michigan, after attempting to dig out a barge the prior day. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-stuck-excavator
A sinkhole on the floor of Lake Huron, a few miles off the Alpena, Michigan, coast and 100 feet down, is being used by researchers to test theories about what conditions kickstarted an evolution of biology on Earth’s surface 4 billion years ago. Read the full story by WJBK-TV – Detroit.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-sinkhole
A strong odor noticed throughout Lake County, Ohio, on Thursday is coming from Lake Erie, officials from three communities said, and indicated that the smell is caused by sediment churning at the bottom of Lake Erie. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-lake-erie
The International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board announced that it is continuing to assess water level conditions on the St. Lawrence River for potential boat haul out assistance. In recent years, high and low water level conditions have made it challenging for recreational boaters to remove their vessels from the water. Read the full story by WROC-TV – Rochester, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-boat-haul
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is expanding its testing capacity for monitoring a family of so-called “forever chemicals” called PFAS throughout the state. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-pfas
A Chicago nonprofit, Current, installed three sensors in the Chicago River’s three main branches in 2019 to continuously estimate the amount of bacteria from human and other warm-blooded animals’ waste and provide recreational users of the river with real-time reports of this water quality measure. Read the full story by The Washington Post.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-chicago-river
With the urgent need to protect the Great Lakes, Canada must prioritize the funding of efforts to tackle long-term challenges to our fresh water. Read the full story by The Hamilton Spectator.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210903-preserving-great-lakes
