A $2.1 million, Ducks Unlimited starting this spring will investigate how restored wetland habitats can reduce harmful algae blooms and improve the population of mallards, one of the region’s most important waterfowl. Read the full story by PennLive.com.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210326-waterfowl
As spring comes to the Great Lakes region and icy roads and sidewalks become a distant memory, a new study shows the salt we apply over the winter can linger in summertime rivers at alarming levels. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210326-saltlevels
Invasive species pose a big threat to the ecosystems of the Great Lakes. Identifying the nests of native fish is critical in understanding how their life cycle is affected by those invaders. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210326-tinyfish
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will study the feasibility of building wind turbines in the Great Lakes and assess whether turbines can be placed on floating platforms instead of being anchored to the lake beds. Read the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-floating-turbines
By stopping invasive plant and animal species before they establish in the Great Lakes system, the impacts and costs of invasive species could be significantly reduced. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-early-detection
Attorneys general from Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana requested to join Enbridge Energy’s case against Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s revocation of the easement for the Line 5 pipeline, claiming that shutting down Line 5 would impact their states financially. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-gull
Great Lakes shipping season kicked off this week with high hopes for a much-improved year following a year of record low shipping levels. Read the full story by the Duluth Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-steel-hopes
After Wisconsin scientists discovered high levels of PFAS in the tissue of fish taken near the Apostle Islands in western Lake Superior, Michigan regulators are urging residents to limit consumption of smelt taken from Lake Superior. Read the full story by Bridge Magazine.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-pfas-smelt
Michigan business leaders are sounding the alarm on Republican Senators for undermining governor’s order to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, accusing the Senate of failing to listen to Michigan business interests and favoring Canadian industry. Read the full story by Public News Service.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-line5-concerns
Michigan business leaders are sounding the alarm on Republican Senators for undermining governor’s order to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, accusing the Senate of failing to listen to Michigan business interests and favoring Canadian industry. Read the full story by Public News Service.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-line5-concerns
Illinois lawmakers are working to add another fee for those who want permission to fish in the state’s waterbodies. The fee would fund further efforts to fight off the spread of invasive Asian carp in the state. Read the full story by Neighbor Newspapers.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-il-carp-fee
A new study attributes a spike in drownings on Lake Huron and Lake Ontario last year to unsafe beach conditions related to pandemic restrictions. Read the full story by Manistee News Advocate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-pandemic-fatigue
The ongoing restoration efforts to improve the Outer Harbor in Buffalo, New York, is critical to supporting Buffalo’s revival and the ecological comeback of Lake Erie and the Great Lakes. Read the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-buffalo-revival
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is set to begin its annual effort to collect walleye eggs from the Muskegon River this week. The collection effort helps the DNR rear walleye in hatcheries that are later used to stock rivers and lakes throughout the state. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210325-dnr-walleye-collection
A 28-year-old Ring-billed Gull, the oldest individual on record, was discovered by a birder in Cleveland, Ohio. While Ring-billed Gulls are one of the most familiar gulls in North America, biologists know surprisingly little about the species’ longevity, due in part to a lack of data. Read the full story by the Audubon Magazine.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-gull
Chippewa tribal officials in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan have blasted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for putting on what they say was a poorly planned wolf season during which state-licensed hunters blew past their quota in a matter of days. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-wolves
Smelt netting returns in April on the Chicago lakefront for 2021, but prospects for rainbow smelt remain very poor as the U.S. Geological Survey reported low smelt densities in their fisheries surveys. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-smelt
Shoreline property owners, businesses, and municipalities need to come up with a long-term coastal resilience strategy to deal with high water levels in Georgian Bay, according to the environmental non-profit Georgian Bay Forever. Read the full story by Orillia Matters.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-shorelines
A propane supplier and global energy consultant testified to state lawmakers that shutting down the controversial Enbridge Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac this spring would disrupt the market for fossil fuel used to heat some Michigan homes and likely increase the price of propane. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-line-5
A new study by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory found that water deep below the surface of Lake Michigan is warming in the winter, impacting ice cover, weather, and the lake’s food web. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-warming-waters
A structure dubbed FishPass was scheduled to be installed on the Boardman River in northern Michigan earlier this year. However, community concerns have delayed those restoration efforts. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-fishpass
After trying, unsuccessfully, for nearly 20 years to phase out commercial turtle trapping in Minnesota, the Department of Natural Resources is asking lawmakers to put an immediate end to the capturing and selling of painted, snapping and spiny softshell turtles. Read the full story by The Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-turtle
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will hold a virtual public hearing on a Lake Superior rule that will update lake trout and cisco commercial fishing quotas as well as the recreational lake trout harvest trigger on Lake Superior. Read the full story by WLUC-TV – Ashland, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-quota
Nesting boxes for peregrine falcons on the Portage Lake Lift Bridge in northern Michigan have been removed this spring due to the need for bridge repairs. Read the full story by WLUC-TV – Houghton, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-falcon
The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety is warning residents to avoid walking on the quick-sand like sediment deposits from the Morrow Dam found in the Kalamazoo River in west Michigan. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210324-deposits
The St. Lawrence Seaway — a system of 15 locks between Montreal and Lake Erie that allows ocean-going vessels to make their way to the Great Lakes — has reopened for a new navigation season. Read the full story by the Northwest Indiana Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-shipping
The Manitoulin-Lake Simcoe ecoregion was identified as one of southern Canada’s nine most significant and threatened places for biodiversity conservation in a recent study conducted by Nature Conservancy of Canada. Read the full story by Orillia Matters.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-manitoulin
A Marquette city park is closing a portion of its lone road for a month to help out some local residents: blue spotted salamanders. The salamanders spend the cold, snowy winters underground. Then every spring they make their way to nearby pools, where they mate and lay eggs. Read the full story by The Sault News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-presque-isle
Trillions and trillions of quagga mussels live in Lake Michigan. The mussels have not only increased water clarity, but also completely upended the food web in the lakes. Read the full story by Interlochen Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-mussels
Most of the walleyes Wisconsin fisheries biologists are netting in some northern lakes, and 80% of those tested last fall from two state hatcheries, are turning up females, and the experts don’t know why the sex ratio is so skewed. Read the full story by the Superior Telegram.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-fish
The Detroit River Coalition, a group of environmental organizations on both the United States and Canadian sides of the Detroit River, invite community members to a weeklong celebration and cleanup of the river and its shores. Read the full story by The News-Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-earth-week
Ohio Attorney General David Yost is asking a federal judge in Grand Rapids to block Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s effort to shut down the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, arguing on behalf of Ohio refineries and the state of Louisiana that closing the submerged oil line would have economic impact beyond Michigan. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-line5
Climate change is reaching all the way down to the depths of one of Earth’s largest lakes. Water hundreds of feet below the surface of Lake Michigan is warming, especially in winter, according to a report published last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Read the full story by the Norwalk Reflector.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-warming
Great Lakes Now Senior Correspondent Gary Wilson recently talked with Joel Brammeier, CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, about what he wants from a new Great Lakes region EPA administrator and where he would like to see the Great Lakes in 20 years. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-envi-justice
A new report from the Great Lakes regional arm of the National Audubon Society is outlining its plan to restore and protect a dozen areas that support region’s birds. Climate change, development and invasive species are threatening coastal areas of the Great Lakes region that is home to 350 bird species. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210323-wetlands
Marquette, Michigan, is closing the lone road looping through Presque Isle Park, which sits on a peninsula jutting into Lake Superior, to help blue spotted salamanders cross. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-salamander
In Michigan, the remains of the Contest, a 124-foot schooner that grounded near White Lake in 1882, are visible again thanks to shifting beach sand and dropping Lake Michigan water levels. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-contest
Authorities plan four prescribed fires at Indiana Dunes National Park this spring, totaling more than 900 acres. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-fires
Several state agencies are recommending significant changes to Minnesota’s environmental review program that would require proposers to add up their project’s carbon footprint — and consider ways to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change. Read the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-climate
A female wolf that was introduced to Isle Royale National Park in the fall of 2018 left the island on an ice bridge in January the following year, and it turns out, she made quite the journey. A team of federal, tribal and university researchers recently published a study detailing the wolf’s travels after she left the island. Read the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-wolf
One species of fish in Lake Superior may have regained an ancestral adaptation that enables better vision in deep water, according to a recent study. That information could help create restoration plans for the kiyis, a fish that lives deep in the lake. Read the full story by Capital News Service.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-vision
Scientists discovered plastic microfibers in the Great Lakes are sticking to green algae that grows along the bottomlands in a way that could help keep the pollution out of the environment. Read the full story by the Record Eagle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-algae-plastics
Northeast Michigan is getting warmer, climate records show. The increase in temperature isn’t telling the whole story, though, as Michigan scientists say drastic climate swings between hot and cold and wet and dry cause issues for area farmers and existing infrastructure. Read the full story by the Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-climate
Tribal officials, especially those from Ojibwe nations in northern Wisconsin, are hopeful new U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland can help restore protections for gray wolves and stop another hunting season this fall. They are also hopeful her office will help increase funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, among other environmental concerns. Read the full story by the Green Bay Press Gazette
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-haaland
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District’s Soo Area Office will open the Poe Lock at noon Wednesday, marking the start of the 2021 Great Lakes shipping season. Read the full story by the Mining Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-locks
Environmental groups are asking the Biden administration to close a review to cut the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary in Lake Huron by 90%. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210322-sanctuary
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a wetlands permit for PolyMet, the company trying to open Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine, as the Environmental Protection Agency reviews whether the proposed project “may affect” the downstream Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210319-polymetmine
Six closed and capped landfills in St. Louis County, along with scores of others across the state, are emitting “forever chemical” contaminants in excess of state health guidelines, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced Thursday. Groundwater at 97% of the state’s closed landfills, 98 of 101, shows the contamination — some 10 times the health guidelines. Read the full story by the Pine Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210319-landfills
An environmental chemistry expert and others on a citizen advisory panel are not impressed with Wolverine World Wide’s plan to clean up its toxic tannery waste dump in Kent County, Michigan, by relying primarily on planting trees over the contamination. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210319-wolverine
In New York, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District, released a 735-page report of the federal government’s response to Lake Ontario shoreline erosion, which threatens historically significant structures at Old Fort Niagara. Read the full story by Niagara Frontier Publications.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210319-niagara
