The Great Lakes’ frigid fresh water used to keep shipwrecks well preserved. Now, an invasive mussel is destroying shipwrecks, forcing archeologists and amateur historians into a race against time to find as many sites as they can. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-shipwrecks-quagga-mussels
Only about 15 percent of the cumulative lake floor in the Great Lakes has ever been mapped in significant detail. Hoping to fix that is the project Lakebed 2030, an ambitious effort to map the totality of the Great Lakes by the end of the decade. Read the full story by The Leelanau Ticker.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-mapping-project
More than 9 million fish from state hatcheries have been added to the Great Lakes and inland waters across Michigan so far this year as part of the state’s annual stocking program. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-michigan-fish-stocking
t has been claimed there are 10,000 wrecks in the Great Lakes. Those in the Lower Georgian Bay represent an interesting glimpse into Ontario’s rich marine heritage. Read the full story by Barrie Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-hope-island-wrecks
Planners are in the early stages of an 18-month, $1.4 million project to plan a sustainable, climate-resilient future for Lakewood, Ohio’s coast. The plan will involve working with building owners to find a long-term erosion control measure. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-lakewood-ohio-erosion
Five flamingos have been spotted on Lake Michigan in Port Washington, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee. Audubon Florida speculates the birds were flying between Cuba and the Yucatan and got diverted by Hurricane Idalia. Read the full story by WDJT-TV – Milwaukee, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-flamingos
The historic Great Lakes car ferry, S.S. Badger will receive a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration. The contribution will go towards an ongoing feasibility analysis to convert the coal-fired steamship into a zero-emission ferry vessel. Read the full story by Trains.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-s-s-badger
The Goodtime I, based in Sandusky, Ohio, was stalled between Kelley’s Island and Marblehead due to an engine problem. The vessel was eventually towed back to shore. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-goodtime-ferry
Business groups and environmental groups filed amicus briefs in a case the Michigan Supreme Court will settle regarding manure spreading on farm fields. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-manure-spreading
Since the early 2000s, Black River, a nearly 15-mile waterway in Alcona County, Michigan that flows into Lake Huron, has had an issue where sand moves and builds up at the mouth that lets water into Lake Huron. Solutions to fix the problem vary. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230925-black-river
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
Illinois has ended the statewide testing of fish from Illinois lakes and rivers for organochlorine pesticides such as DDT. State officials say the levels of the pesticides found through testing have diminished to near zero over the past 50 years, allowing the state to discontinue testing for those chemicals. Read the full story by The Telegraph.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-illinois-fish-testing
Mackinac Island, Michigan, is getting grant funding to build a new wastewater treatment plant as part of $81.2 million in state funding from the MI Clean Water Plan which helps communities upgrade water-focused infrastructure and protect health and the environment. Read the full story by the Cheboygan Daily Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-mackinac-wastewater
The city of Cleveland, Ohio, wants to create a tax-increment financing district across much of downtown to help pay for waterfront development plans along the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie. The projects would include improving public access to the riverfront in the form of parks and other amenities, bulkhead improvements on the river, and other public infrastructure upgrades. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-cleveland-waterfront
Researchers from the Shedd Aquarium, Purdue University, and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant are tracking the movements of 80 individual fish in the Chicago River system using acoustic telemetry. Read the full story by the Chicago Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-fish-tracking
Under one option of its proposed Wilderness Stewardship Plan, Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior would consider remaining open to visitors in the winter if Lake Superior is “100% ice-free for five years.” Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-isle-royale-winter-visit
A Michigan teen’s photo shoot with his steer along the Lake Michigan shoreline has become a subject of contention in Milton Township, Michigan, and part of a larger debate about what limits should apply to the use of public spaces. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-cow-photoshoot
A mat-forming cyanobacteria, Lyngbya, has been growing along shorelines in Lake St. Clair, Michigan for the last decade. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Macomb County, Michigan are conducting a joint two-year study to understand cyanobacteria’s growth, determine whether it poses health risks, and find treatment options. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-stclair-lyngbya
Leveraging its treaty-granted sovereign nation status, the White Earth Band tribe in Minnesota is establishing its own authority to issue permits for expansions of large livestock and dairy operations within its reservation boundary to protect reservation water reserves. Read the full story by MinnPost.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-tribal-water-reserves
The eDNA of silver carp has been detected in a water sample taken from the St. Joseph River near Berrien Springs, Michigan, as part of a regular U.S. Fish and Wildlife program to monitor Michigan waterways for the invasive bighead and silver carp. However, a positive eDNA sample does not necessarily indicate the presence of live fish. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-carp-edna-detected
The Crooked River Lock in Alanson, Michigan, closed for the remainder of the 2023 season as engineers perform critical maintenance. The lock is part of the 36-mile Inland Waterway beginning at Lake Huron through which up to 40,000 recreational boat passengers pass annually. Read the full story by The Petoskey News-Review.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-lock-closed
With fall bird migration well underway, data from the website BirdCast estimates over 150 million birds have crossed the state of Michigan since late August. BirdCast provides a migration forecast for Michigan from September to November. Read the full story by Manistee News Advocate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230920-fall-migration
By the end of the month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to decide whether to approve an Ohio plan to reduce phosphorus pollution that feeds cyanobacteria in Lake Erie. Cyanobacterial blooms have become much larger in the last 30 years and have become a major public health concern. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-epa-ohio-reducephosphorus
H2Ohio’s incentive program for agriculture producers is expanding statewide. The program, led by ODA, provides funding to producers to help offset the financial risk associated with implementing H2Ohio’s agricultural best management practices that work to improve Ohio’s water quality. The program has been available only to farmers in the Western Lake Erie Basin, but producers throughout the state will be eligible to participate in H2Ohio beginning in 2024. Read the full story by The Courier.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-h2ohio-expanding-statewide
While much of the focus of the fight to protect the Great Lakes from invasive carp centers is on the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, the USACE has identified an additional 18 places where invasive carp could theoretically cross into the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-beyondbrandonroad
The Port of Ludington Maritime Museum in Ludington, Michigan takes visitors on a journey around the Great Lakes, exploring shipwrecks, piloting a car ferry, testing their strength against a manpowered steamship wheel and hearing stories from long-passed ship captains. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-maritimemuseum-lakemishoreline-interactiveexhibits
Erie County, along with environmental agency partners and public volunteers participated in the Pennsylvania-Lake Erie International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) Saturday morning, Sept. 16, to improve the Lake Erie watershed. This year’s effort focused on 22 sites along the Lake Erie shoreline and watershed. Volunteers removed over 3700 pounds of trash and other items from over 36 miles of shoreline and waterways. Read the full story by WZTE – Union City, PA.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-annuallakeerie-coastalcleanup
SepticSmart week is an annual event that focuses on educating homeowners and communities on the proper care and maintenance of their septic systems. If a septic system is not properly maintained, it can shorten the life of the system and potentially contaminate ground water which is a source of drinking water for many. Read the full story by The Morning Sun.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-septicsmartweek-2023
The Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse has been sold at auction, and the new owners are two Clevelanders who intend to preserve the historic part of Cleveland’s skyline. The lighthouse fetched a price of $425,000 when the auction closed on Sept. 6. Read the full story by Scripps News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-greatlakes-lighthouse-magnates
National Hunting and Fishing Day, which was established in the early 1970s, celebrates the contributions that men and women make to the conservation of our nation’s rich sporting heritage, wildlife and fisheries resources. Through self-imposed fees and excise taxes on guns and ammunition, fishing and archery equipment and certain outdoor sporting goods, sportsmen and women have raised more than $60 billion for wildlife and fisheries conservation efforts. Read the full story by the Sandusky Register.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-events-interestinhunting-fishing
Over the next month, the Wisconsin DNR will host open houses at the Governor Tommy G. Thompson Fish Hatchery, Besadny Anadromous Fish Facility, Root River Steelhead Facility and the Wild Rose Fish Hatchery. Each of these free events will give attendees a chance to see fish up close and learn how hatcheries and spawning facilities help sustain Wisconsin’s fish populations. Read the full story by Wisconsin DNR.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230918-wisconsindnr-spawningtour-hatcherytour
Ontario may seem to be a water secure region, but new research out of the University of Waterloo challenges the myth of water abundance in the Great Lakes watershed. Read the full story by The Sault Star.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-steel
Steel production dipped by 5,000 tons in the Great Lakes region last week, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Read the full story by The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-steel
During September the Alliance for the Great Lakes is encouraging Great Lakes residents to go to the beach and help clean up the shoreline. Read the full story by the Keweenaw Report.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-shoreline-cleanup
New research from Bowling Green State University shows that some migratory birds use the islands in Lake Erie during potentially dangerous crossings of the Lake, a key finding for possible placement of wind turbines. Read the full story by The Fremont News-Messenger.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-bird-migration
A company seeking to restart a southwestern Michigan nuclear power plant said Tuesday it has taken a major step forward with the signing of a power purchase agreement. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-nuclear-power
More than 300 scientists, conservationists, and other stakeholders are gathering in Green Bay, Wisconsin to talk about the quality of the environment. Read the full story by WTAQ – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-aoc-conference
A new study analyzing toxins produced by Microcystis, the main type of cyanobacteria that compose the annual harmful algal bloom (HAB) in Lake Erie, suggests that the toxicity of the bloom may be overestimated in earlier warm months and underestimated later in the summer. Read the full story by The Beacon.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-algae
According to a news release, Lake Michigan ranks second on the list of most picturesque landscapes in America. Read the full story by The Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-lake-michigan
Waterspouts were observed Wednesday morning in the southern portion of Lake Michigan, according to Special Marine Warnings issued by the National Weather Service Office in Milwaukee. Read the full story by WOOD-TV Grand Rapids, Mi.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-waterspouts
States and Native American tribes will have greater authority to block energy projects such as natural gas pipelines that could pollute rivers and streams under a final rule issued Thursday by the Biden administration. Read the full story by the Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230915-biden-protection
