The Detroit Zoological Society’s Piping Plover Captive Rearing Program, a breeding program for the endangered Great Lakes piping plovers, had its best year ever after welcoming 39 new hatchlings in 2020. Read the full story by WLHT – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200831-piping-plovers
Lake Erie saw several record high monthly mean water levels in 2019 and 2020, but U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projections show the lake is not expected to reach any more records for at least the rest of the year. Read the full story by The News-Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200831-erie-water-levels
The International Joint Commission announced that it will adjust its outflow strategy and allow water levels in Lake St. Lawrence, an artificial lake in the international portion of the St. Lawrence River, to decline to the normal navigation season minimum following Labour Day. Read the full story by Seaway News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200831-st-lawrence+
The Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, has completed $1.5 million worth of improvements designed to show off its outdoor artifacts and take advantage of its riverfront location. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200831-dossin-museum
Joliet, Illinois, is talking with 13 potential partners about forming a regional water commission that would share the costs of bringing Lake Michigan water to communities that now rely on aquifers. The city is deciding whether to buy water from Chicago or build their own pipeline. Read the full story by The Herald News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-joliet
Blount Small Ship Adventures, a small cruise company with a long-time presence in the Great Lakes, is exiting the cruise business as the coronavirus pandemic has continued to devastate the previously resurging Great Lakes cruise industry. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-blount
Work started on a $2.9 million project to clean up an area of contaminated sediments in the Detroit River and extend the popular RiverWalk along the east riverfront by linking the MacArthur Bridge to Belle Isle. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-riverwalk
The waters of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River have been strikingly green in recent weeks. The phenomenon is called a “whiting event,” which occurs when the weather warms up and water loses its ability to hold onto the dissolved calcium carbonate that naturally occurs in hard water. Read the full story by NNY 360.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-whiting-event
State officials determined that a fish kill on the Escanaba River was caused by illegally discharged pollutants from the paper mill in Delta County, Michigan. Fortunately, there appears to be no long-term harm to the river’s ecosystem. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-fish-kill
After years of contaminated stormwater runoff being washed from the streets of Rogers City, Michigan, straight into Lake Huron, community members are now teaming up with graduate students from the University of Michigan to install new stormwater management systems. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-rogers-city
The Army Corps of Engineers recently began restoration of more than 1,300 feet of seawall along Lake Erie at Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park in Buffalo, New York, which has deteriorated over time due to ice and wave action. Read the full story by The Buffalo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-rcwilson-park
The Door County Land Trust in Wisconsin acquired 20 acres of rare remnant boreal forest on Washington Island in Lake Michigan. Read the full story by WLUK-TV – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-door-county
A new study has found no traces of COVID-19 in Lake Superior along several of Duluth’s popular beaches, including Park Point. The beach testing is unique to Lake Superior beaches, and supports findings from earlier tests showing the risk of coronavirus transmission through water to be extremely low. Read the full story by the Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200828-superior-covid
Ohio far and away leads all states when it comes to spending money on the fight against harmful algae, with $815 million in documented expenses over the past decade, 70 percent of what all 50 states have spent, according to a report issued Wednesday by a national environmental group. Read and view the full story by Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-ohio-algae
The city of Waukesha, Wisconsin, was recently awarded a $137.1 million dollar loan from the federal government for its construction project to switch the city’s municipal water source to Lake Michigan, due to high radium levels. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-wisconsin-water-supply
The deepwater Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor on Lake Michigan is unloading the primary shipments for a $1 billion power plant at the Indeck Niles Energy Center in Niles, Michigan. Stevedores at the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor are handling more than 600 individual pieces of cargo, some of which are 100-feet long and weigh more than 600,000 pounds. Read the full story by The Northwest Indiana Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-indiana-harbor-power-plant
After approving hundreds of wind turbines and solar arrays, the state of Michigan is looking to bolster its renewable energy offerings by seeking proposals for up to $200,000 in matching funding for the creation of an energy storage roadmap for the state. Read the full story by dbusiness.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-michigan-renewable-energy
The Detroit Zoological Society’s Piping Plover Captive Rearing Program began nearly 20 years ago, but never has it had the impact it did in 2020, when 39 of Detroit Zoo-reared shoreline birds were released in Northern Michigan. Read the full story by the Mlive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-piping-plover
Under the Great Lakes revitalization program and after four decades and $460M of expenditures, the Rochester embayment area once deemed ‘severely polluted’ is improving; the revitalization of the Rochester embayment is one out of 43 locations on the Great Lakes that were first identified nearly four decades ago as severely polluted by the governments of the United States and Canada. Read the full story by Democrat and Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-lake-ontario-pollution
The Dearborn (Michigan) City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Tuesday aimed at reducing air pollution from industrial debris after a nearly two-year push by members of the community; the ordinance seeks to limit the amount of airborne dust from industrial sites and trucks hauling industrial materials. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-michigan-air-pollution
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s Surface Water Assessment Section (EGLE) developed a work plan to sample algae blooms and shoreline deposits in an effort to help better understand water quality issues and factors affecting the beaches’ quality. Read to the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-water-quality-michigan
Stantec is undertaking the next stage of a multi-year planning, preliminary design and environmental assessment process to determine how to best overhaul or replace the declining century-old swing bridge that connects Manitoulin Island to the mainland of Ontario. Read the full story by Northern Ontario Business.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-manitoulin-bridge-ontario
The Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan has been allotted $205,000 for the goal of delisting the Ontario harbour that spans between Burlington and Hamilton as an area of concern due to environmental degradation. Read the full story by Simcoe Reformer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200827-ontario-waterfront-restoration
A federal review to determine if lake sturgeon should be listed as an endangered or threatened species is on hold indefinitely. They are the largest native freshwater fish in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WLUK-TV – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-sturgeon
Michigan’s new permit requirements for using animal waste as cropland fertilizer go too far, according to a new lawsuit filed by livestock producers and the Michigan Farm Bureau. The new permitting is meant to “reduce the impact that animal waste has on the health of the Great Lakes, inland lakes and rivers.” Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-manure
The River Raisin Watershed has earned a somewhat troubling score in an inaugural report of more than 10 area watersheds which graded the quality of Lake Erie’s western basin and watershed. Read the full story by Bedford Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-Erie-graded
The cancellation of the Manitoulin Expositor Salmon Classic due to the pandemic leaves researchers, who examine the guts of the salmon, without samples. Read the full story by the Manitoulin Expositor.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-salmon-shootout
On August 12, six swimmers emerged from Lake Michigan in Ludington in wetsuits, goggles, and swim caps. They completed a 54-mile swim relay-style across Lake Michigan and in record time with the entire journey clocked in at 20 hours and 50 minutes. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-epic-swim
A $75 million effort to remove contaminated sediment from waters near a former U.S. Steel mill was approved Monday night, the latest step in a decades long endeavor to clean up the St. Louis River estuary in the western part of the city. Read the full story by the Duluth Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-Duluth-clean
The research has been going on for almost 2 months as members from Sea Grant and the Medical School at University Minnesota Duluth try to find out if COVID-19 is present in the waters of popular swimming areas like the beaches around Duluth. Read the full story by KXRM-TV-Duluth, MN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-COVID
Officials say a recent fish kill in Michigan’s Escanaba River was the result of the release of “black liquor” by Verso’s Escanaba Paper Mill. Read the full story by WNMU-Marquette, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-fish-kill
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, has awarded a $7 million contract to replace World War II-era valves at the Soo Locks. J.F Ryba Marine Construction Co. of Cheboygan will replace the tainter valves for the MacArthur Lock. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-Soo-Locks
An airboat tour in Saginaw County Tuesday drew attention to a federal program that helps with wetlands restoration projects in Michigan. During the tour on Tuesday U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, and others saw how the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Ducks Unlimited used funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to restore 1,200 acres of wetlands in the game area. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-airboat-tour
When elected Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer made it clear that Michigan would take a leadership role on Great Lakes issues. Fast forward to the release of her first State of the Great Lakes report last week and in it she positions Michigan as a regional and national leader on drinking water issues. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200826-SOGL
Keeping a 64-year-old oil pipeline in operation by running one portion through a proposed Great Lakes tunnel would safeguard the economy and energy supplies, supporters said Monday at a public meeting in Traverse City, Michigan, while opponents described the project as an unnecessary risk that would contribute to global warming. Read the full story by the Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-enbridge-pipeline
Water levels in lakes Huron and Michigan — considered one lake for measurement purposes — have been consistently above 177.4 metres throughout August, beating the previous record of 177.39 set in 1986. One expert warns residents may eventually have to “move the heck out” of some hazard zones. Read the full story by the Niagara Falls Review.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-huron-shoreline
The Canadian federal government is helping to restore and protect the St. Marys River with $95,000 from the Great Lakes Sustainibility Fund, Sault Ste. Marie MP Terry Sheehan announced. Read and view the full story by SooToday.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-st-marys-river
The swimmers, kayakers and paddle boarders enjoyed perfect water conditions for the Lake Erie Challenge Saturday between Amherstburg and Leamington, Ontario. Read the full story by the Windsor Star.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-lake-erie-challenge
There’s not much that stumps researchers involved in the world’s longest-running predator/prey study on Michigan’s remote Isle Royale, but scientists made a first-time find recently when they examined a moose skeleton. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-isle-royale
A future U.S. Navy combat ship built in Marinette, Wisconsin completed acceptance trials in Lake Michigan over the weekend setting the stage for it to be commissioned in 2021. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-navy-warship
Two historic homes that were featured in the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair are under threat from worsening Lake Michigan erosion. Read and listen to the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-seawalls
The western Lake Erie’s summer algal bloom hasn’t changed dramatically, but the most intensity for the next few days appears likely to be in the shallow water along the shoreline between Toledo, Ohio and Monroe, Michigan. Read the full story by the Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-algal-bloom
A condition called hypoxia caused discolored water for some residents living in Cleveland, Ohio’s East Side neighborhoods, according to a news release sent on Sunday by the Cleveland Water Department. Read and view the full story by WEWS-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-cleveland-hypoxia
The waters around Rochester, New York are getting cleaner. This can be seen best by the low levels of toxins in fish and wildlife around the area. Read the full story by WROC-TV – Rochester, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-fish-toxicity
While the Western Lake Erie watershed, which includes the Raisin and Huron rivers, has a low amount of toxins, its overall water quality remains poor, according to a report by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The watershed earned an overall grade of 49%, a “C” score in the study. Read the full story by Bedford Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-lake-erie
The first phase of a $4.9 million outdoor enhancement project at Belle Isle’s Dossin Great Lakes Museum has been completed. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200825-dossin-museum
As algal blooms flourish on the edges of the Great Lakes, lake management groups seek to reduce the flow of nutrients into the water that feeds the algae. However, a recent report by the International Joint Commission explains that the deeper offshore waters aren’t getting enough nutrients. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200824-low-nutrients
Researchers from the University of Minnesota are monitoring water along Lake Superior beaches for signs of the virus that causes COVID-19. After more than a month and a half of testing, there’s not yet any sign of it. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200824-signs-of-covid
Efforts are underway to clean up Muskegon Lake in western Michigan, a lake that was once essentially used as a dump. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200824-lake-junk
A minor earthquake near Detroit Beach rattled Downriver areas of Michigan and was felt in places through the region but left the nearby Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in a safe condition, officials said. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200824-earthquake
