Leaders of an all-star team of Ohio scientists working together to create an H2Ohio wetlands testing program say the multi-faceted approach being developed will have a broad impact on not only Ohio’s ground-breaking program but how wetlands are tested throughout the nation and the world. Read the full story by The Advertiser-Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-h2o-ohio-wetlands
A study by Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières found high concentrations of E. coli bacteria colonies are entering the St. Lawrence River in the Montreal area and following the current as far as Lake Saint-Pierre and Trois-Rivières. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-montreal-ecoli
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will treat waters inhabited by juvenile sea lampreys in Catharine Creek Canal from Montour Falls Marina to the mouth at Seneca Lake. By effectively controlling sea lampreys, managers can reduce mortality rates for fish they prey upon, especially lake trout, rainbow trout, and landlocked salmon which are some of the more popular fish in Seneca Lake. Read the full story by The Chronicle-Express.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-sea-lamprey
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory posted satellite imagery on its Facebook page Friday showing how the hues dotted land near Lake Superior. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-fall
Cape Vincent, NY has received $5.07 million in grants from the Lake Ontario Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative to mitigate the impacts from serious flooding experienced in 2017 and 2019. Read the full story by NNY 360.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-flooding
The beaches at Indiana Dunes National Park were back open Friday after they were closed for the second time in two weeks because of discharge from U.S. Steel Midwest. This discharge and beach closure comes weeks after a federal judge approved a revised settlement with the company, more than four years after the Portage plant discharged wastewater containing a potentially carcinogenic chemical into the Burns Waterway. Read the full story by WLS-TV – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-oil-beaches
The International Lake Ontario- St. Lawrence River Board announced that it will temporarily reduce outflows on Lake Ontario as water levels remain low on Lake St. Lawrence. Outflows will be decreased to provide marinas and shoreline dock owners with assistance at the end of the season to remove recreational boats. Read the full story by Inform NNY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-outflow-lake-levels
A former industrial dock in Kingston, ON is being converted to a temporary deepwater berth for Great Lakes cruise ships. The temporary dock is being surveyed and converted to safely accommodate cruise ships which are expected to resume travel in the spring of 2022. Read the full story by The Kingston Whig-Standard.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-cruise-ships-ontario
A report published by University of Minnesota Duluth’s Bureau of Business and Economics revealing initial visits by cruise ships would have a small economic impact, but over time it could add 60 jobs annually and more than five million dollars in added spending throughout the city. Read the full story by KQDS-TV – Duluth, MN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-cruise-ships
This week, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Hollyhock is departing to work the waterways in Duluth, Minnesota, for several weeks while USCGC Alder is undergoing its midlife maintenance period. The USCGC Hollyhock will be working to keep the waterways safe in the Coast Guard’s Ninth District, which oversees maritime safety and security across the Great Lakes region and works with its Canadian partners to maintain the Maritime Transportation System including 2,483 aids to navigation, such as buoys, throughout the lakes. Read the full story by the Port Huron Times Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20211011-coast-guard
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act which included provisions that strengthen U.S. national economic security and protects shoreline communities in the Great Lakes region. A vital component of the Fiscal Year 2022 NDAA was the inclusion of the “Great Lakes Winter Shipping Act” which would provide the U.S. Coast Guard with expanded icebreaking capabilities to keep vital shipping lanes on the Great Lakes open when ice endangers sailors and the North American supply chain. Read the full story by Lake Superior News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-defense-authorization
A research team from the University of Toronto has been using Seabins to capture trash that ends up in the lake to figure out where it accumulates in the water, determine what types of trash is getting deposited, and where it’s coming from in the first place. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-plastic
Contract fishers and various agencies removed, by 2020, 1,268,956 invasive carp, weighing 10,357,069 pounds. Removing invasive silver, bighead, grass, and black carp helps to prevent them from reaching the Great Lakes via the Chicago Area Waterway System. Read the full story by Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-carp
Michigan Congressmen in the U.S. House of Representatives are opposed to the Canadian government storing nuclear waste near the shores of the Great Lakes. A bipartisan resolution has been signed and sent to President Biden asking him to keep the Canadian government from building a proposed 1,500-acre nuclear waste storage site in South Bruce, Ontario. Read the full story by Huron Daily Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-nuclear
The EPA recently received a scathing emergency petition criticizing the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the city of Benton Harbor for failing to provide residents with safe drinking water after three straight years of lead exceedances. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-lead-water
Discovery of Laggerstätte found in Waukesha, WI includes an exceedingly rare collection of fossils that included the soft tissues of ancient organisms dating back 440 million years ago. While there are several dozen Laggerstätten today, the insights they offer still make them highly valuable to paleontologists. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-fossils
A trap-and-transfer program funded by Ontario Power Generation is trying to help American eel populations with migration by paying fishers $50 for each live eel they deliver to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry station in Glenora, ON. Read the full story by The Kingston Whig Standard.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-eels
Since the early 2000s, a collaborative partnership between local, state, and federal agencies formed the Michigan Hydro Relicensing Coalition with the goal to increase lake sturgeon recruitment and survival to adulthood, and led to the installation of a fish elevator to transfer sturgeon upriver on Wisconsin’s Menominee River. Read the full story by Up North Voice.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-sturgeon
Coming in time for next summer could be a rule that bans swimming at Michigan beaches when the conditions are deemed hazardous. Michigan Department of Natural Resources is reviewing the rule that could mean fines of up to $500 for swimming when the waves are too high, when there’s contamination in the water, or when there’s another situation that imperils swimmers. Read the full story by WJSM-TV – St. Joseph, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-swimming
New York state intends that, by 2040, no greenhouse gases will be emitted in generating electricity. Oil- and natural-gas-burning electric power plants will be replaced by renewable wind and solar energy installations. Read the full story by New York Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-new-york-energy
The water levels of Lake Superior is 13” below the levels in September of 2019, a difference of 5.5 trillion gallons of water due to below average precipitation in the upper Midwest, but 1” lower than the September average. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210927-water-levels
U.S. Sen. Gary Peters led a group of Senate Democrats in calling on party leadership to include funding for Great Lakes port infrastructure in an infrastructure bill. Democrats in Congress are hoping to pass a $3.5 trillion budget plan before the end of the year. Read the full story by The Holland Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-infrastructure
Concerns are flaring over a pipeline that carries crude oil and natural gas from western Canada. Enbridge, a Canadian company, owns the 645-mile line constructed nearly 70 years ago. The line starts in Superior, WI and ends at the southernmost point of Lake Huron. Read the full story by National Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-enbridge-oil
The City of London, Ontario says residents in the city’s southeast end might notice a slight odor and discoloration to their tap water due to an “inversion” in parts of Lake Erie due to seasonal changes in temperature and sunlight. These cause different layers of water to mix in a way that provides challenges for the water treatment process. Read the full story by Global News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-water
An interim report commissioned by federal regulators indicated that the sudden loss of soil strength under saturated conditions most likely caused the static liquefaction failure of the Michigan Edenville and Sanford dams during steady rain in May 2020 to collapse last year. Read the full story by Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-dam-collapse
As a part of Governor Whitmer’s $200 million proposed expansion of a state Clean Water Plan through the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is the removal lead service lines across the state, including in Benton Harbor, MI which has had six straight lead exceedances. Read the full story by Water & Wastes Digest.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-lead
After reports that the 2021 rice crop is about the worst the northern Great Lakes has ever seen, two University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Lake Trout Station scientists studied some of the impacts, which may be due to 5-6 years of unusually high water, competition with pond lilies which benefit from the longer growing seasons, and increases in swan and geese populations. Read the full story by WXPR-FM – Rhinelander, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-rice
Monarch butterflies make a stop in Cleveland Metroparks, usually near the Lake Erie shore at Wendy Park, to rest along their journey from Canada and the Northeastern U.S. to Mexico. Read the full story by WEWC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-monarchs
For the past seven years, Lake Superior water levels have been considered high. Now, they are dropping back to their historical long-term average due to the recent drought. Read the full story by KBJR-TV – Duluth, MN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-lake-levels
The first, fully-electric road ferries to sail in North America are now on their way from Damen Shipyards in Galati, Romania to Lake Ontario to begin operations. Ordered by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, the Amherst Islander II and Wolfe Islander IV, 68 and 98 metres in length respectively, represent a new generation of zero-emission large ferries. Read the full story by Ship Insight.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-ferries
A University of Regina professor led an international study published in the journal Nature that looks at the impact of warming waters on dissolved oxygen and algae prevalence. The study used lake data with longstanding records across the northern hemisphere, including two sites in Ontario. Read the full story by the Ontario Out of Doors.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210915-fish
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention, which commits countries to the conservation and “wise use” of wetlands, list and manage special sites called Wetlands of International Importance, and cooperate on transboundary wetlands and species. There are currently 2,429 Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance covering more than 983,000 acres in over 170 countries. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-wetlands
Canada is moving ahead with its first ever national adaptation strategy, the government aims to consult with Indigenous groups, youth and environmental organizations to create a framework for actions that businesses, governments and individuals can take to ensure the resilience of their communities. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-climate-canada
Minnesota U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and congressional allies urged President Joe Biden on Friday to stop construction on Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 replacement, even as the project nears completion and the options to stop it dwindle. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-line-3
In 2018, a research team from University of Western Ontario examined 66 beaches in each Great Lakes state and Ontario, and found resin pellets used in manufacturing known as “nurdle pellets,” at an average of 19 pellets per square meter. The heaviest concentration site had more than 7,200 pellets found in the top two inches of sand along the high water mark. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-plastic
Invasive New Zealand mudsnails have been detected in a Michigan creek, the sixth known infestation in Michigan in recent years. The Michigan DNR said the mudsnails were found at the mouth of Shanty Creek, a tributary of the Grass River in Antrim County during routine monitoring in May and confirmed through DNA analysis in August. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-invasive-species
Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians’ fish $2.5 million hatchery’s primary objective is to help native Great Lakes species. In 2021, the hatchery’s goal is to raise and release approximately 500,000 whitefish, 1,000 sturgeon and up to 60,000 walleye. Read the full story by the Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-hatchery-fish
A $750,000 grant has been awarded to the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office to fund the Resilient Lakeshore Heritage Program, which helps preserve historic places as a part of rehabilitation projects in communities that participate in the Certified Local Government program, the Michigan Main Street program, or the Redevelopment Ready Communities program. Read the full story by WNEM-TV – Saginaw, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-preservation
In 1911, a 211-foot freighter named the Muskegon sank where the fire-scorched hulk was abandoned, now there’s an effort to make it Indiana’s second underwater nature preserve. If approved, this would protect the site for “exceptional” scuba diving according to Indiana University’s Center for Underwater Science. Read the full story by South Bend Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-shipwreck-preserve
Water levels in the Lake Michigan-Huron basin are midway between the seasonal long-term average and the record high water levels set last year. Water levels typically fall in September, and this month could decline by 5.9 inches, depending on weather and water supply conditions. Read the full story by Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-lake-levels
An upwelling event brought debris to a 25 mile stretch of shoreline from Eastlake to Perry, OH. Fortunately the impact from the anaerobic conditions, had minimal effect to walleye and perch despite the less than enjoyable view and smell. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-erie-fish
As part of its $15 million Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative Regional Dredging Project, 3,600 cubic yards of sediment were removed from the Salmon River navigation channel between Aug. 9 and 16. Read the full story by Watertown Daily Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-dredging
Theodore TOO, an iconic tugboat that spent the past 21 years in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has been traveling around the Great Lakes promoting the protection of waterways and the connections between all sorts of bodies of water as it prepares to port at its new residence, in Hamilton, Ontario. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210908-tugboat
U.S. and Canadian researchers completed a reference genome, or digital genetic map, for lake trout. The feat should boost efforts to rebuild populations of the prized fish in the Great Lakes and other North American waters where they’ve been hammered by invasive species, overfishing and pollution. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-trout-genome
The western region of Lake Superior has seen increases in precipitation intensity of around 35-40% since the mid-1900s. These heavy rains wash loads of sediment and nutrients directly into the lake and into surrounding rivers that lead into the lake, providing a banquet for blue-green algae. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-algal-bloom
Aerial surveys conducted by Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission wildlife biologists in northern Wisconsin have indicated that 2021 may be one of the worst wild rice crop years since a 2010 disease outbreak. Read the full story by WXPR–TV – Rhinelander, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-wild-rice
Environmental groups are calling on the Air Force and the State of Michigan to get serious about cleaning up PFAS from decades of training and firefighting foam around the site of the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base. Read the full story by NPR.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-pfas
After nearly three decades of remediation, Muskegon Lake is on the verge of being delisted as an environmental “area of concern.” Three remaining restoration and cleanup projects are on track to be finished by Sept. 30. Once completed, the popular recreational lake connected to Lake Michigan will cross a major step forward in being removed from the list of heavily polluted Great Lakes sites. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-remediation
Environmental groups are asking social media users to show their support for Lake Erie and push politicians to address the lake’s failing health by posting Lake Erie stories to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #WeAreLakeErie to create what organizers call “a virtual wave of support for the lake.” Read the full story by The Hamilton Spectator.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-social-media-lake
Perhaps the most disturbing conclusion of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is the permanence of climate impacts. Changes like shrinking ice sheets, rising sea levels and oxygen depletion and acidification of the oceans are deemed “irreversible for centuries to millennia.” Read the full story by The Intelligencer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20210825-climate-change
