Lake Michigan-Huron experienced a decline of 15 inches in water level in the past year – Lake Superior fell about 11 inches. Read and hear the full story by WJRT-TV – Flint, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-level-drop
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy Office of the Great Lakes announced on Wednesday that a $100,000 grant will be made available to help protect wild rice, one of the state’s most culturally and ecologically significant native plants. Read the full story by The Petoskey News-Review.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-wild-rice
More than $3.4 million has been awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for projects to be done in Grand Haven, Michigan’s harbor. Read the full story by the Holland Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-grand-haven
The fate of a small, crescent-shaped island off Munger Landing in the Wisconsin waters remains undetermined as ownership remains up in the air. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-ownership
A bill going to the desk of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker would require locations along Lake Michigan to have essential rescue equipment. Read the full story by the WFLD -TV – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-safety
The Ohio legislature could soon pass a bill allowing for deregulating the development of “ephemeral streams” — natural flows of water that form after rain and snowmelt. Read the full story by WEWS – TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-deregulation
Ohio EPA has released its latest statewide water quality report. The biennual document describes the general condition of Ohio’s waters and includes a list of impaired waters that are not meeting their federal or state water quality goals. Read the full story by The Highland County Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-water-quality
More than 200 people jumped into Lake Ontario in Toronto, Ontario early Saturday to celebrate community resilience after two long years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-plunge
In last-minute decision, province says the Municipality of Port Hope, Ontario’s plan to purchase 1,334 acres of land along the Lake Ontario shoreline needs to be reassessed. Read the full story by kawarthaNOW.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-lakefront
More than $150 million in federal funding has been spent since 1992 to remove harmful chemicals from Illinois’ Waukegan Harbor, and now officials say the harbor finally is poised to be taken off the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Areas of Concern list. Read the full story by the Daily Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-aoc
Federal investigators have confirmed their suspicions that an old deteriorating underground storage tank was the source of a recent leak into Michigan’s Huron River. Read the full story by the News-Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-oil-leak
After sandblasting and 800 gallons of paint, the 69-year-old S.S. Badger looks like new again. Read and hear the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220404-badger
After a year of maintenance, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel arrived in Duluth, Minnesota on Wednesday that will break up ice for ships moving through Lake Superior and northern Lake Michigan. Read and hear the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-cutter
Buffalo State College has announced that its Great Lakes Center is the recipient of more than $3 million federal dollars to fund research on benthic invertebrates, such as zooplankton, and mysid crustaceans in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WBFO- Buffalo, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-research
On Tuesday, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) held an instructional webinar on how to use a new map that identifies environmental inequality. Read the full story by Interlochen Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-environmental-inequality
A bill to require the U.S. Coast Guard to study the potential impacts of an oil spill has made its way through the first hurdle in Congress. Read the full story by Watertown Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-congress
The Environmental Integrity Project released a report looking at pollution levels in waterways and bodies of water in all 50 states. Read the full story by the Midland Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-pollution
The John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids, Michigan has a new exhibit featuring sculptures made from recycled plastic to spread awareness about Great Lakes pollution. Read the full story by WZZM – TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-exhibit
Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper will conduct a study along 16 miles of shoreline in Buffalo, New York. Funding for the study is made possible by a $750,000 grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation. Read the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-buffalo
Ten shipping vessels have been freed and are now on their way after getting stuck in the ice in Whitefish Bay near Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-icebreaker
Smelt netting opens Friday night, April 1, in Chicago, Illinois and a faint hint of hope edges in this season, experts indicate. Read the full story The Chicago Sun Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-smelt
The anonymous buyer seeking to purchase an environmentally sensitive area of land along the Lake Michigan shoreline is doing so to keep the property on the tax rolls, instead of allowing it to become a “never-ending expense.”. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-lake-michigan
Michigan anglers who catch certain tagged walleye and report it to the Department of Natural Resources could earn some cash. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-walleye
The ice boom is not quite fully removed from the east end of Lake Erie, a New York Power Authority spokesman said Thursday. Read and hear the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220401-boom
President Joe Biden’s proposed $5.8 trillion budget calls for $340 million in funding for the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and at least $300 million for electrifying the federal fleet, as well as $126 million to combat PFAS contamination. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-budget
Ohio’s Defiance County soil and water conservation office, the City of Defiance, and the Great Lakes Commission, with property owners Mike and Michelle Zeedyk, signed an agreement for an experimental water quality project that aims to reduce nutrient loading into the Maumee River. Read the full story by The Crescent-News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-nutrient-loading
A group of U.S. representatives from throughout the Great Lakes region has signed on to a bill, recently introduced by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, aiming to create a new entity dedicated to developing the area’s communities and conserving its vital natural resources. Read the full story by the Fremont News Messenger.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-great-lakes-authority
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $3.3 million dollar contract to a Rochester firm to make repairs to the west pier at Little Sodus Bay in Fair Haven in Cayuga County, New York. The repairs will ensure that boaters have safe passage between Little Sodus Bay, Lake Ontario, and the rest of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by FingerLakes1.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-pier-repair
The Ontario city of Stoney Creek will study whether it should classify a stretch of Lake Ontario shoreline between Green and Millen roads as a public beach and test the water for bacteria during the swimming season. Read the full story by The Hamilton Spectator.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-water-quality
The city of Kewaunee, Wisconsin, received a grant from the state’s Harbor Assistance Program to improve the moorings in its Harbor Park for the Tug Ludington, a World War II vessel that has been a popular tourist attraction in the city. Read the full story by the Green Bay Press Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-tugboat
After a century of use for saw milling, 60 years as a municipal dump site, and 70 years as a coal-fired power plant, the city of Grand Haven, Michigan, is making a push to renew Harbor Island and restore it to productive use. Read the full story by the Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-harbor-island
According to the International Joint Commission, the Lake Erie-Niagara River Ice Boom, which helps reduce the amount of ice flowing into the Niagara River, will soon be removed for the season. Read the full story by WIVB-TV – Buffalo, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-ice-boom
Salt deposited over the winter season is an inevitable part of road safety, but is the amount of salt too much? Fresh water resources in Michigan have a lot of salt in them, and scientific projections show that the water, and crowning Great Lakes waters, are indeed getting, and will continue to get, saltier. Read the full story by Jalopnik.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-road-salt
Friends of Second Marsh president Peter Taylor said his group’s vision is to re-purpose the old GM headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, into a ‘Great Lakes Centre for education and research’. Read the full story by Insauga.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220330-friends-of-second-marsh
The 2022 commercial shipping season is underway after the opening of the Soo Locks at midnight March 25th. The Edgar B. Speer was the first freighter through the Poe Lock in Sault Ste. Marie and was presented with a plaque to the ship’s captain and hat to each crew member. Read the full story by WPBN-TV – Traverse City, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-shipping-opens
New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation and the Canal Corporation published a plan to prevent the round goby’s spread, but members of the Nature Conservancy in Vermont say more may be needed. Read the full story by VTDigger.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-goby-invasive
Fined $100,000 for destroying piping plover habitat, the Town of South Bruce Peninsula is in court arguing over just what an Ontario beach should be. Read the full story by The Narwhal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-plover
Crews are hard at work replacing the lead water lines to get clean water to residents in Benton Harbor, MI. According to an online dashboard, 679 lines have been replaced so far out of the 3,700 expected over the next year. Read the full story by WBND-TV – South Bend, IN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-lead
Crews are hard at work replacing the lead water lines to get clean water to residents in Benton Harbor, MI. According to an online dashboard, 679 lines have been replaced so far out of the 3,700 expected over the next year. Read the full story by WBND-TV – South Bend, IN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-lead
The Western New York Land Conservancy has received a $2 million grant to protect forested watersheds and safeguard drinking water in Allegany County and another to supply native plantings to Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park. Read the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-restoration
For the last 40 years, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society has sought to teach the people of Michigan the history of the lakes that surround them. Read the full story by The Sault News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-shipwrecks
The privately-owned retired U.S. Army Corps tugboat Lake Superior began listing at its slip in Duluth Harbor and over the course of a weekend the stern of the vessel was underwater. The saga of the Lake Superior continues, with the U.S. Coast Guard discovering the tugboat is now leaking oil. Read the full story by Bring Me The News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-duluth
Researchers at Central Michigan and others are studying long-term trends in the Great Lakes and connecting waterways in winter, trying to document the impacts of climate change and nutrient pollution. Read the full story by The Eagle-Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-fish-climate
Smelt fishers will be able to tend their nets until midnight this spring in a traditional Milwaukee harbor spot, according to a plan announced last week by Port Milwaukee officials. Read the full story by Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-fish
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources reported 806 known bald eagle nests throughout the state, marking a 14% increase from 2020. Read the full story by Spectrum News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-ohio
For the past two years, an 800-foot line of large, barrel-shaped green barriers have lined South Beach to prevent erosion along Lake Michigan in South Haven, MI. Considered as a must for saving the beach, but an eyesore by others, the HESCO barriers are going away in a decision citing lower water levels on Lake Michigan. Read the full story by South Haven Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220328-lake-levels
Michigan communities could more easily access new infrastructure money under legislation that aims to modernize state programs which fund, among other things, the removal of lead service lines from water systems. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220325-water-funds
A new film considers the problem of toxic algae on Lake Erie and what is, and isn’t, being done about it. The producers of The Erie Situation film announced that it will premier at the Cleveland International Film Festival April 3. Read the full story by Eco Watch.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220325-documentary
Seeing dead fish in the spring is common, but sometimes it is a sign of a problem. Fish kills of more than 25 should be reported immediately to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Listen to the full story by WJBK-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220325-fish-kills
Freighters have been lining up for days in anticipation of the Soo Locks opening today at 12:01 a.m. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220325-soo-locks
