Hellbenders, North America’s largest amphibian, are an endangered species and an indicator of good water quality in Ohio’s streams. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium recently released 116 eastern hellbender salamanders as part of a program that stretches back a decade. Read the full story by the Akron Beacon Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251031-hellbender
On Michigan’s Beaver Island, located in Lake Michigan, the cost to ferry a vehicle back and forth to the mainland can be a steep deterrent to removing broken down cars that end up leaking fluids into the water supply. A recent project is cleaning up the clunker cars. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251031-beaver-island-junkcars
Lawmakers from around the Great Lakes are hoping to make the area a little greener. Members from the Great Lakes Commission planted trees on Tuesday near Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth, Minnesota. It’s part of a regional goal to plant 250 million trees around the Great Lakes by 2033. Read the full story by Northern News Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-commission-tree-planting
Far from Gulf Coast hurricanes and California wildfires, Chicagoland seems like a safe place to be in a warming world. But is it? Read the full story by WBBM-TV – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-chicaog-climate-haven
At least 89 confirmed fair-weather waterspouts and funnels were reported to the International Centre for Waterspout Research this past week, but continued activity is unlikely. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-waterspouts
More than 300 students from schools in Ohio and Michigan learned about different careers associated with the Great Lakes as part of the National Museum of the Great Lakes’ career fair event. Read the full story by the Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-career-fair
Construction of a proposed data center in Hermantown, Minnesota, just off the shore of Lake Superior would include up to four buildings housing equipment on more than 200 acres. Some are concerned about the non-disclosure agreements protecting the interest and trade secrets of companies constructing this center. Read the full story by the North Shore Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-superior-data-center
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum located in Paradise, Michigan, is closing out what appears to be a record-breaking season on Friday with ticket sales possibly surpassing 80,000 before the season ends. Read the full story by WWTV-TV – Cadillac, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-museum-ticket-sales
Earlier this month, the state of Illinois announced it had acquired land needed to move along the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, a $1.15 billion barricade aimed at keeping invasive carp from entering the channel that connects the Mississippi River Basin with the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Outdoor News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-brandon-road-project
Behind thick museum glass at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum sits a 200-pound bronze bell, the centerpiece of an exhibit honoring one of Lake Superior’s most famous maritime tragedies. Read the full story by the MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-fitzgerald-bell
The Great Lakes Writers Festival has been bringing together students, readers, writers and authors since 1991. This year, the two-day festival, which is free of charge, will include readings, book signings, master classes and open mic sessions. Read the full story by the Sheboygan Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-gl-writers-festival
Throughout November, Studio 23 Gallery, an art studio in Bay City, Michigan, is presenting the biennial exhibition “50 Artists of the Great Lakes Bay Region.” Read the full story by the WCMU Public Media.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-great-lakes-artists
Sea lampreys—invasive, leechlike creatures that once nearly destroyed the Great Lakes’ fishing economy—are kept in check by a small U.S.-Canadian program. Will it survive Trump’s slash-and-burn campaign? Read the full story by The New Yorker.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-lamprey-control
Because of the federal government shutdown, a trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore along Lake Michigan or to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on the Lake Superior coast may look quite different this fall. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-shutdown-parks
The state budget has cut funding for the Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program this year, but it won’t reduce money for controlling invasive sea lampreys. Read the full story by The Mining Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-michigan-invasives
The U.S. Coast Guard contends with staffing and equipment issues as it provides the types of rescues few other agencies can offer. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-coast-guard
The opening of the Erie Canal 200 years ago was touted as an incredible achievement of human ingenuity, but the lakes would never be the same again. One particularly harmful invasive species that used the Erie Canal to access the Hudson River is the round goby. Read the full story by Democrat & Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-canal-invasives
The Strawberry Creek Chinook Salmon Facility near Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, is the primary, and in some years only, site for chinook egg collection. Data collected at the facility helps biologists manage the fishery and make stocking decisions. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-chinook-eggs
Plenty of people had already settled in the wild territory of Michigan before the opening of the Erie Canal, but numbers picked up notably thanks to the faster, smoother waterway. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-canal-michigan
More than any other historical event, the opening of the Erie Canal, on Oct. 26, 1825, set Chicago on the path to becoming the city it is today. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-canal-chicago
In a warm fall, the relatively warm waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron help us stay warmer overnight. This extra warmth and moisture off the Great Lakes slows down the leaf color-changing process and makes the vibrant colors last longer. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-fall-color
The recent Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam fishing derbies usually attract more than 10,000 boat anglers to Lake Erie. But big northwesterly winds and 10-foot waves roiled the lake, and most boats likely remained on their trailers throughout the weekend. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-derbies
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission has completed the construction of a 2.5-acre reef built from 20,000 tons of limestone in Lake Huron. Its purpose is to increase spawning habitat for native Great Lakes species such as walleye and whitefish. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-new-reef
In Michigan, the 1-mile segment between Petoskey and Bay Harbor on Lake Michigan’s shoreline has been closed since late 2019 due to erosion caused by record high lake levels. Reconstruction costs are estimated at $19.8 million. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-trail-reconstruction
A low water advisory was put in place for Western Lake Erie’s exposed shorelines after strong steady winds and gusts up to 40 mph pushed waters toward the opposite end of the lake. Read the full story by Lansing State Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-lake-erie-seiche
For the first time, the Global Oceans Conference set up shop on the shores of the Great Lakes in Chicago. The Freshwater Research Center showed off its budding status as a blue tech hub. Read the full story by the Ticker.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-global-oceans-conference
A 2.2-magnitude earthquake shook in Lake Ontario just north of Wayne County, New York, on Wednesday night at a depth of 7.9 kilometers below the surface. Read the full story by the Democrat & Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-lake-ontario-earthquake
Boardman High School in Ohio is being awarded $4,800 to fund high school students to learn hands-on at Lake Erie’s Stone Laboratory through the “Great Lakes, Great Futures: Inspiring the Next Generation of Environmental Stewards” program. Read the full story by WFJM – Youngstown, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-highschool-grant
The Lake Huron Coastal Centre’s Lake Huron Forever initiative hosted a successful One Water Gathering event in Goderich, Ontario, bringing together Canadian and U.S. partners to strengthen cross-border collaboration for the shared ecosystem. Read the full story by The Sarnia Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-one-water-gathering
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum that stands on the shore of Lake Superior holds the bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald and hosts an annual ceremony at which family members gather to remember the lost laker. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-shipwreck-museum
Several local officials recently took a behind-the-scenes tour of the U.S. Coast Guard’s station in Marblehead, Ohio, which is the busiest station on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Sandusky Register.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-coast-guard
Also known as lake-effect rain, a cousin of lake-effect snow, cold air moving over the warmer Great Lakes water is generating narrow, intense bands of precipitation affecting roughly a dozen states. Read the full story by Akron Beacon Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-gl-rain
The U.S. Geological Survey is planning to lay off 79% of the workforce of the Great Lakes Science Center that’s headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as part of a reduction in force across the U.S. Department of the Interior. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-glsc-layoffs
Ten Great Lakes Indigenous Nations have filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, urging a finding against Enbridge on a case involving the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac. A second federal lawsuit involving Michigan and Enbridge is pending. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-enbridge-brief
As the federal government shutdown continues, most U.S. Environmental Protection Agency workers doing everyday work with air and water environmental protection in Michigan are furloughed, but emergency responders are still working. Read the full story by Michigan Public.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-epa-furloughed
Two U.S. representatives from Michigan are asking the federal government to send at least one new icebreaker ship to the Great Lakes as part of a deal between the U.S. and Finland. Read the full story by WXYZ-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-new-icebreaker
A recent collaborative study aims to understand how climate change threatens lake sturgeon and to develop adaptation strategies rooted in tribal knowledge. Read the full story by WCMU – Mt. Pleasant, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-sturgeon-study
A township in Michigan will receive $600,000 in state funds to help convert the shuttered Holland Coast Guard Station into a fire department water rescue base. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-new-rescue-base
Multiple experts on the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck will be coming to Duluth, Minnesota, for a conference organized by the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-fitzgerald-conference
The National Park Service, Pennsylvania officials, and other groups are working on an ambitious plan to create the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail in the United States. The U.S. trail would link to an existing trail, more than 3,600 kilometers long, in Canada. Read the full story by Erie Reader.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-waterfront-trail
Water levels across the Great Lakes have fallen to their lowest in about a decade, sitting 15 inches below normal. Despite the drop, there’s no cause for panic. Read the full story by The London Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-water-levels
A rare “sextuplet” waterspout formation – six funnels snaking between the clouds and the water’s surface – was spotted on Lake Erie on Tuesday off Long Point, Ontario. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-sextuplet-funnels
Last week, Illinois announced it had acquired land needed to move forward with a $1.15 billion barricade aimed at keeping the invasive silver carp from entering the channel that connects the Mississippi River Basin with the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-illinois-carp-progress
After an exceptionally warm and dry fall, the Saint Lawrence River — a vital economic corridor in Canada — has reached abnormally low levels in Québec. Read the full story by Le Monde.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-stlawrence-drought
All five Great Lakes are currently around 4 to 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than their long-term average for the last three decades. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-greatlakes-warmfall
When the Erie Canal opened in New York 200 years ago, on Oct. 26, 1825, it forever changed the landscape, trade, and communities throughout the area between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes. Read the full story by Fast Company.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-erie-canal
The Ontario government pushed forward TC Energy’s proposal to build a large pumped storage project on Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay, despite early expert advice it would be costly and not meet the province’s current energy needs. Read the full story by BarrieToday.com.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-georgianbay-pumpedstorage
In Northville, Michigan, part of the Rouge River — sealed inside a 1,200-foot concrete tunnel in 1962 to create land for fairgrounds and, later, a racetrack — has finally been uncovered, the centerpiece of a $350 million redevelopment reshaping the city. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-rougeriver-project
Park trails along Lake Michigan’s shoreline in Michigan and Wisconsin are eroding due to more frequent extreme precipitation events, plus increased foot traffic from visitors in undesignated recreation areas. Read the full story by WCMU Public Media.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-trail-erosion
Every year, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum holds a private memorial ceremony for those with a connection to the Edmund Fitzgerald on the anniversary of the ship’s sinking. In honor of this year’s 50th anniversary, there will also be a ceremony for the public. Read the full story by WBUP – Marquette, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251020-shipwreckmuseum-fitzgerald
