The chaos surrounding the future of scientific research in the Trump administration’s first weeks has meant a bumpy beginning for a new program by the nonprofit Great Lakes Observing System where ice fishing anglers and others on the frozen Great Lakes record ice thickness for research. Read the full story by WXPR – Rhinelander, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250307-ice-research
As the Palisades nuclear power plant inches closer to reopening, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers wants to offer tax breaks, grants and other incentives in hopes of making Michigan a national hub for the nuclear power industry. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250307-nuclear-subsidies
The Canadian federal government is moving to add the PFAS chemical class to the official list of toxic substances, which would not ban them but restrict them in various consumer and industrial products. Read the full story by Radio Canada International.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250307-pfas-canada
The Trump administration’s efforts to cut spending could make it easier for invasive species to thrive in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WVXU – Cincinnati, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250307-invasive-species
As the Trump administration continues to take unprecedented steps to cut federal spending, a coalition of regional agencies is appealing for continued funding for Great Lakes restoration. Read the full story by the Democrat and Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-great-lakes-funding
Michigan environmental advocates are making the case to continue funding for climate research as the federal government looks to drastically reduce its workforce. Attorneys have filed multiple lawsuits against firings and argue that funding cuts threaten the health of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WWTV-TV – Cadillac, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-funding-cuts
Canada-U.S. relations are at a historic nadir in 2025, but, despite the two countries’ spiraling political relationship, construction is pressing on for the enormous Gordie Howe International Bridge — a mammoth representation of this once-unbreakable alliance planned to connect Michigan and Ontario. Read the full story by blogTO.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-border-crossing-status
The state of Michigan announced that 32 projects will share $3.6 million in funding through the Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program for efforts that address the prevention, detection, eradication and control of aquatic and terrestrial invasive species. Read the full story by the Manistee News Advocate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-michigan-grant-program
The common tern, a small colonial waterbird that breeds in the Great Lakes basin, was designated as a threatened species in Michigan. Human disturbance and displacement by other species are to blame. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-endangered-terns
The Brandon Road Project, a billion-dollar project to block invasive carp from entering Lake Michigan, has been halted over worries the Trump administration will pull their end of the funding. Read the full story by Outdoor News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-carp-barrier-hault
Wisconsin-based walleye-farming and aquaponics firm, Aqua Garden, has signed the 100% Great Lakes Fish Pledge, a commitment by fish farmers and processors to sell all parts of their fish in an effort to reduce byproduct waste. Read the full story by SeafoodSource.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-fish-pledge
Last week’s cuts to staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are raising alarm among Great Lakes advocates, who say critical water quality and weather forecasting efforts will be compromised. Read the full story by Planet Detroit.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-noaa-layoffs
Research continues to find the cause of Lake Michigan’s mysterious holes that were found while looking for a shipwreck in summer 2024. Read the full story by WGBA – TV – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-lake-michigan-sinkholes
Chautauqua County in New York is continuing to help the village of Fredonia explore the possibility of getting water from Lake Erie. The Chautauqua County Water District would like to sell water from Lake Erie to the village of Fredonia. Read the full story by the Observer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250305-fredonia-water
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources leans heavily on hunting and fishing license sales to fund fish stocking, wildlife conservation, and habitat protection. But those fees, now some of the lowest in the Midwest, have been frozen for more than a decade, while fewer and fewer Michiganders buy them, resulting in a funding crisis for the agency. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-license-fees
A former administrator from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the Trump Administration’s decision to terminate hundreds of NOAA employees nationwide has major implications for the Great Lakes region, including the ongoing effort to curb western Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-layoff-impacts
A marine researcher has taken a deep dive into North America’s largest freshwater commercial fishing fleet, in Ontario’s Great Lakes, in a new documentary that explores challenges and opportunities local fisheries face in maintaining the industry. Read the full story by the CBC.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-fishery-documentary
A Great Lakes regional organization is working with local leaders to protect the ecosystem from the effects of climate change. Mayor Eddie Melton of Gary, Indiana, has joined the Mayors Commission on Economic Transformation, an initiative that helps foster the creation of a clean economic corridor in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region, which runs through Canada and into the U.S. Read the full story by the Chicago Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-mayors-commission
The Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority met in Lansing Friday to hear updates on the Line 5 Tunnel Project, especially about the permits that would allow construction to begin. Last week, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the state permit, though there’s still time for another appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court. Read the full story by WPBN-TV – Traverse City, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-line-5
Could the once-ambitious plan to install wind turbines on Lake Erie be resurrected? It’s possible, local wind power advocates believe, now that a Maryland company has taken control of a company that two years ago aborted its effort to erect six wind turbines off the coast of Cleveland, Ohio. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-erie-wind
The three-part documentary series, “All Too Clear: Beneath the Surface of the Great Lakes,” uses cutting-edge underwater drone technology to capture life hundreds of feet below the surface of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, resulting in what the filmmakers believe to be the first shots of whitefish spawning in the wild. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-mussel-documentary
During this unusually cold, snowy winter, Lake St. Clair between the U.S. and Canada has been almost completely ice-covered throughout January and February. It has given ice-fishing retailers and their customers a lake to stand on. Read the full story by The Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-ice-business
Great Lakes researchers and communicators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Michigan are the latest federal employees to be axed amid the ongoing nationwide purge of government workers. In Michigan, NOAA researchers study toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie and help the shipping industry forecast water level changes and ice cover on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-noaa-purge
As “The Fish Thief” documentary details, the invasive creature sometimes referred to as a “vampire fish” once wreaked havoc on lake trout and other native species in Midwestern waters. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250303-lamprey-documentary
The Trump administration has its government-shrinking sights set on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where around 800 employees have been tapped for termination. Included in these job cuts are staff from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Read the full story by CNN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-noaa-job-terminations
The Palisades plant, located on Lake Michigan, was shut down in 2022 but will restart activities and add two smaller reactors in 2030. Once completed, the two additional small reactors would generate 600 megawatts of power combined. Read the full story by the Times Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-nuclear-power
A new bill introduced in the Minnesota Legislature by Republican Rep. Tom Dippel aims to transfer funds to support water treatment for PFAS removal in plants in Hastings, Minnesota. However, according to Democratic Rep. Rick Hansen, the fine print actually changes the decision-making from the settlement to individual state legislators and could “pit town against town and neighbor against neighbor.” Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-pfas-funding
Permits for hundreds of energy projects may be fast-tracked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Trump administration, including plans for the Line5 pipeline project in the Great Lakes and a fossil fuel plant in Superior. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-energy-projects
Research suggests the concentration of microplastics in Lake Erie rivals the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The particles are present in all five Great Lakes, but there’s no coordinated, regionwide effort to monitor the pollutant. Read the full story by Ideastream Public Media.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-microplastics-research
Ice fishing has not been possible on Presque Isle Bay off the coast of Erie, Pennsylvania, for the past three years as the winters have been too warm and ice too thin or nonexistent. This year, in some parts of Presque Isle Bay, ice was 14 inches thick. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-erie-ice-fishing
Winds off the Great Lakes into the U.S. snow belts have been more potent than normal, according to a NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory analysis. Lake Ontario is still mostly ice free, providing a source of continual snow if the cold keeps coming. Read the full story by The Washington Post.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-snowy-season
Native to a small area of the Ohio River watershed, the rusty crayfish was most likely introduced to Lake Michigan as fishing bait. In just a few decades the species has achieved utter dominance over the native crayfish that were once found off Chicago’s lakefront but are now nearly nonexistent. Read the full story by WTTW – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-rusty-crayfish
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers predicts that water levels for the Great Lakes will continue a seasonal drop until April. Once spring-like weather begins, most of the Great Lakes are predicted to see a rise in water levels. Read the full story by the Erie-Times News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250228-water-levels
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, current Lake Michigan-Huron levels are 7-9 inches below the long-term average and 10-13 inches below last year’s levels. Read the full story by Up North Live.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-water-levels
The binational Lake Erie Committee is composed of fishery managers from the lake’s five bordering jurisdictions to set the total allowable catches for each year as part of a coordinated effort to achieve sustainable harvest levels. The 2024 catch represented a slight decrease in walleye and the numbers for 2025 will likely be set during their annual meeting in March, just ahead. Read the full story by the Post-Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-walleye-perch
The Environmental Protection Agency released a draft risk assessment in January to evaluate the risk for two of the most prevalent PFAS or “forever chemicals” in sewage sludge. Read the full story by Planet Detroit.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-biosolids-pfas
Scientists estimate the current lake trout population in Lake Superior is now at or above what it was before sea lamprey made their way through the Welland Canal. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-lake-superior-trout
Scientists say ice on the Great Lakes helps to combat erosion, lake effect snow and algal blooms. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-lake-erie-ice
Michigan environmental groups are pushing back as Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel faces “emergency” review, potentially bypassing full scrutiny and public input. The move comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order declared a national energy emergency to fast-track infrastructure projects. Read the full story by Public News Service.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-line-5
The Trump administration has fired 14 federal workers involved in the Great Lakes sea lamprey control program, says the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-invasive-species-program-cuts
The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is in a holding pattern after the mass layoff of national park staff, part of the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically cut the federal workforce. Nearby tourism boards anticipate staffing shortages at the lakeshore, affecting how much of the park is accessible to visitors. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-apostle-islands
During National Invasive Species Awareness Week, Michigan’s Invasive Species Program is joining efforts across all 50 states to encourage everyone to take action to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful plants, animals and diseases. Read the full story by Daily Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-invasive-species
The Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven will host a presentation on women lighthouse keepers throughout Great Lakes history next month. Read the full story by WSJM-Benton Harbor, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250226-women-lighthouse-keepers
Two friends walked across a frozen Lake Erie to Long Point, Ontario, in February 1977. Two more men made a similar crossing that month. Three others made the trek in reverse, ending in North East, Pennsylvania, in March 1978. No one is known to have walked across the lake at Erie since — for good reason. Read the full story by Erie-Times News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-frozen-erie
Tiny Township, Ontario, is planning to enter into another year of calls for submissions for the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, with this year pertaining to framework around a shoreline alteration bylaw amendment for the township’s dynamic beaches. Read the full story by Midland Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-tinybeach-greatlakesinitiative
Like other parts of the country, the Great Lakes region is standing up and taking notice of the rapid-fire actions that the Trump Administration has been taking. The latest attention-grabber is President Trump’s decision to fast-track the controversial Line 5 pipeline. Read the full story by the Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-greatlakes-thingsmovingfast
Sea lamprey nearly destroyed fishing in the Great Lakes. The new 90-minute film, The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery, tells the story of those who tackled the mystery of why lake trout, one of the most prized fish in the Great Lakes, nearly vanished. Read the full story by The Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-thefishthief-sealamprey-impacts-greatlakes-whitefish
Ice fishing has been good this season, but anglers on the ice targeting walleye or other fish may unexpectedly find themselves with a lake sturgeon on the line. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources reminds anglers that regulations on the targeting and harvest of lake sturgeon are in effect and that on most waters of the state, fishing for lake sturgeon is prohibited and any lake sturgeon caught must be released immediately. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-sturegon-protect-ice-fishing
The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission has announced the opening of the bidding process for contractors to carry out a major restoration and maintenance project on the U.S. Brig Niagara. The historic vessel, housed in Erie, Pennsylvania, and best known for its pivotal role in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, is preparing for its second shipyard visit in recent years. Read the full story by WJET-TV – Erie, PA.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-phmc-brig-niagara-shipyard
The city of Lockport, Illinois, reiterated its commitment to staying on its well water system, even as neighboring Illinois cities Joliet, Romeoville and Crest Hill take steps towards a transition to Lake Michigan water. Read the full story by the Shaw Local.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20250224-lockport-well-water-system
