In 2020, the Great Lakes cruising industry took a blow at the beginning of the pandemic when Canada closed its port visits. And while the loss of income forced some of the companies to close for good, the ones that remain already look ahead to next year. Read the full story by WZZM-TV-Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-great-lakes-cruises
Clayton, New York-based organization Save the River Upper St. Lawrence Riverkeeper sent a letter to both the Department of Transportation and Great Lakes Seaway Management Corporation addressing high water levels for the upcoming 2021 season. Read the full story by WWTI-TV – Watertown, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-save-the-river
The Alliance for the Great Lakes is trying to reduce the amount of plastic debris found in the Great Lakes with annual Adopt-A-Beach events along the coasts of the Great Lakes as part of the International Coastal Cleanup, when people all over the world take time to clean debris from their shores. This year’s events are on Saturday. Read the full story by the Manistee News Advocate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-cleanup-days
Michigan Governor Whitmer says September 21-27 is Pollution Prevention Week. Whitmer says this time is used to reaffirm Michiganders’ commitments to protecting the state’s environment and natural resources. Read the full story by WEYI-TV- Saginaw, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-michigan-pollution-week
The company that owns the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert, Michigan is asking federal officials to approve its plan to fix “indications of cracking” on components used to generate power at the plant. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-palisades-nuclear
City Council recently passed a resolution approving a petition for the creation of a Shoreline Special Improvement District and for the levy of special assessments for shoreline improvement projects in Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio. Read the full story by the News-Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-ohio-erosion
While several bans and policies have offered some protection, the same chemicals threatening birds 60 years ago continue to accumulate in their bodies—and new chemical threats are adding to their toxic burdens, according to two new studies. Read the full story by Environmental Health News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-pollution-birds
It will cost nearly $31 million to repair and fortify the City of Hamilton, Ontario’s waterfront trails against rising lake levels, and the city will start by spending $17 million on part of the Hamilton Harbour shoreline. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-hamilton-shoreline
The Ohio State University will receive $74,600 in funding from the Great Lakes Sediment and Nutrient Reduction Program. These funds will be used to incentivize collaborator participation and rent equipment needed to compost solid manure in Ohio’s Fifth Congressional District. Read the full story by the Sentinel-Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200922-osu-funding
The Great Lakes are getting a health boost, thanks to $7.47 million in funding from the Ontario government. The funding will be used to support projects that address environmental challenges such as increased levels of pollutants, excess nutrients, and rising levels of invasive species. Read the full story by Soo Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-great-lakes-funding
Applications are now being accepted for the recently expanded Erie Access Improvement Grant Program for entities that are interested in acquiring land or other property rights, developing or improving public access sites, or carrying out other projects that benefit public fishing in the Lake Erie watershed. Read the full story by WJET-TV – Erie, PA.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-erie-grants
Water levels on Lake St. Lawrence will increase temporarily the second weekend of October to assist boaters with removing their craft for the season. Read the full story by Seaway News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-water-level-rise
After more than 10 years of work, a revitalization plan for the St. Lawrence River Watershed led by a multi-agency initiative is nearing completion. Read the full story by the Watertown Daily Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-watershed-revitalization
The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority in southern Michigan issued a flood watch last Friday for Lake Huron, further slowing this year’s planned shoreline restoration work. Read the full story by Blackburn News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-shoreline-work
Wisconsin Rep. John Nygren is criticizing the state Department of Natural Resources for not requesting more money to address the growing problem of PFAS contamination. Read the full story by the Wisconsin State Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-pfas-cleanup-dollars
The Bluffs Condominium Association in Frankfort, Michigan, applied for and then quickly withdrew their request for a stone seawall along Lake Michigan after the Northern Michigan beach town banded together against the installation. Read the full story by WWUP-TV – Frankfort, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-seawall
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says it counted more than 1,000 wolves this winter, a 13% increase from the winter of 2018 to 2019. Read the full story by the Superior Telegram.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-wolf-population
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be providing options statewide for testing of white-tailed deer for chronic wasting disease this deer season. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-cwd-testing
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is asking the City of Ludington to figure out a different way to move water out of the splash pad after it learned that the water was being discharged directly into Pere Marquette Lake. Read the full story by the Ludington Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200921-water-discharge
A shoreline restoration project years in the making will soon come to fruition along Anchor Bay in Chesterfield Township, Michigan. When the project is finished, roughly 740 linear feet of failing steel seawall will be replaced with natural shoreline, along with 1.5 acres of nearshore habitat. Read the full story by The Voice.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-shoreline-restoration
It’s mid-September and the annual fall salmon spawning run is sputtering a little, continuing on as it does every fall — despite low water levels and warm temperatures on Lake Ontario tributaries along the lake’s southern shore. Read the full story by New York Upstate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-salmon-run
The Cleveland Water Alliance, a nonprofit advocate for Lake Erie, has received a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration to test innovations in water technology. Read the full story by the Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-CWA
Plans to build Icebreaker Wind, the nation’s first freshwater wind farm, in Lake Erie cleared a major hurdle Thursday, as the Ohio Power Siting Board unexpectedly voted to lift restrictions on nighttime operation that threatened to doom the project. Read the full story by the Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-wind-farm
The 2020 walleye and yellow perch hatches in the western basin of Lake Erie this year are both above average, continuing an exceptional fishing era, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Read the full story by the Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-walleye-hatch
EPA inspectors in 2017 found contaminated water leaking out of a mining operation in northern Minnesota and started pursuing a federal enforcement action. That would likely have meant a multimillion-dollar fine for U.S. Steel Corp., which owns the giant Minntac iron ore mine, and strict requirements for a cleanup. But three years later, the case is going nowhere and the pollution continues. Read the full story by E&E News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-EPA-mining
Nova Chemicals, an Ontario based plastics manufacturer, is providing $200,000 to keep plastic out of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Sarnia This Week.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-plastic
International cargo volumes through the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes have fallen 8.4% to about 19.3 million tons so far this year in a shipping season that’s been described as “pandemic-plagued.” Read the full story by the Northwest Indiana Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-cargo
A crusading researcher who first identified the corrosiveness of Flint water and elevated levels of lead in city water now says residents’ exposure to the poison was “not as bad as first feared.” Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-Flint
Commercial fishers in the Great Lakes have been left out of federal aid for fisheries nationwide, to the tune of $300 million. (The Great Lakes got zero.) A fettered market cost the regional fishery $50 million this spring, according to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Read the full story by Interlochen Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-fisheries
Michigan regulators are ordering the owners of the Edenville dam in Midland to make critically needed repairs to the structure. The dam cracked on May 19, after days of heavy rain. Now four months later, there’s still a gaping hole in the dam. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-Edenville-dam
Prior Lake, Minnesota kayaker and Great Lakes veteran Mike Stout pushed aside any trepidation and paddled alone across Lake Michigan. Read the full story by the Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200918-kayaker
This month, the U.S. Senate approved funding to appropriate $8 million to the Department of Natural Resources for Michigan’s contribution to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to rebuild the Brandon Road Lock and Dam in Illinois. Read the full story by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-brandon-road-carp-lock-dam
Dream Hub CEO discusses an event hosted by Dream Hall where Asian carp was served to people in need as a product from their incubator kitchens for the Illinois Kane County food hub. Listen to the full story by WGN Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-eat-asian-carp
The Great Lakes are warming faster than the oceans. And Lake Superior, which is the largest, deepest Great Lake, … is one of the five fastest-warming lakes in the world,” says Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Listen to the full story by Yale Climate Connections.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-great-lakes-climate-change
A report authored by Mackinac Center for Public Policy Environmental Policy and the Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment challenges the shut down and new construction for the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, citing projected exorbitant costs for Michigan UP homeowners. Read the full story by The Center Square.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-michigan-line-5
On Sept. 16th Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer announced a new initiative in partnership with The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) called the Catalyst Communities program. Read the full story by WSMH-TV – Flint, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-michigan-climate-change
According to a new report from the long-running wolf study conducted by Michigan Technological University and the National Park Service, the newly released wolves transported to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior seem to be making themselves at home. Read and listen to the full story by Lake Superior News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-isle-royale
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports that phase one construction of the new lock has shifted to around-the-clock operations, as of Sept. 8; the new lock will provide a safeguard against a potential breakdown of the adjacent Poe Lock, the largest lock in the Seaway chain, which opened to navigation in 1969. Read the full story by Sootoday.com.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-soo-lock-construction
Earlier this summer the government of Ontario said it had received many complaints about the growing number of double-crested cormorants. After an announcement in July, an annual harvest season has started Sept. 15th and will continue until December 31st. Read the full story by Radio Canada International.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-cormorant-cull-ontario
The project is part of an effort by Lakewood, Ohio to adhere to the EPA’s Clean Water Act requiring communities to identify, control and either permit or eliminate stormwater; the issue is the city’s 100-year-old sewer system wasn’t designed to handle large storm events. Read the full story by Cleveland.com
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-stormwater-sewer
The Chamber of Marine Commerce says that demand for wheat, canola and soybeans is pushing grain shipments up by 20 per cent in some of Ontario ports, though shipments in the Great Lakes Seaway are still down eight per cent overall compared to this time last year. Read the full story by Canadian Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200917-shipping-boost
The Ohio Power Siting Board is preparing to rule that it will not revisit its decision to allow the construction of Icebreaker Wind, the nation’s first freshwater offshore wind farm, in Lake Erie, with restrictions that backers say would doom the project. Read the full story by the Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-wind
Strong winds in the forecast over the next few days has prompted the local conservation authority to issue a flood watch for areas of Chatham-Kent in Ontario. Read the full story by Blackburn News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-shorelines
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is warning people not to eat deer livers if the animal was harvested in the Marinette area due to PFAS concerns. Read the full story by the Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-PFAS-deer
High water Lake Michigan water levels are disturbing and eroding centuries old burial grounds. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-rising-lake
While the province of Ontario says it’s a necessary step, the widespread double-crested cormorant cull that began this week is drawing some pointed criticism. Read the full story by the Sudbury News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-record-high
As expected, the level of Lake Michigan declined slightly in August, though it’s no surprise to anyone who lives on or visits the shoreline that it remains extremely high. Read the full story by the Green Bay Press Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-record-high
Bridge Michigan invites readers to join our team Sept. 29 for our monthly Lunch Break discussion, this time focused on a critical environmental issue facing communities along the Great Lakes. Read the full story by Bridge Magazine.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-water-levels
If you’re paddling anywhere in Michigan, a statewide program called MI Paddle Stewards will train you to spy on and report invasive species, like plants, fish, snails, viruses or other organisms that threaten the health of ecosystems, farms and even ourselves. Read the full story by the South Bend Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200916-invasive
Record-setting water levels on the Great Lakes have caused erosion and flooding that’s cost shoreline communities an estimated $500 million in damage. Many lakefront landowners and local governments are now examining ways to make their properties more resilient. Read and listen to the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20200915-water-resilience
