The water levels of the Great Lakes have gone down significantly in the past few months, partly because of the natural annual lowering of water levels in most fall seasons and partly because of the lack of rain in the past couple months. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-water-levels
The National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, Ohio, is hosting a micro exhibit which tells a story of the community’s investment into the Great Lakes Museum through donations of one-of-a-kind artifacts, which helps educate visitors about the history of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-artifact-donations
The Pennsylvania Steelhead Association and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission shared concerns about anglers trespassing and littering at one of Erie’s most popular steelhead creeks. Anglers are being reminded to observe the signs if they want the area to remain open to fishing. Read the full story by the Erie Times-News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-fishing-creek-concerns
Over the last two centuries, more than 70 ships have plunged to their demise on the Great Lakes during November. Some, like the iron ore carrier the Edmund Fitzgerald, went down and took the entire crew down with them. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-november-shipwrecks
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to finalize more than $200 million in grant funding through its Clean Ports Program in the coming weeks to accelerate the clean energy transition at three Great Lakes shipping ports. Read the full story by the Energy News Network.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-clean-port-funding
Waterfront Toronto has removed the last pieces of the wall that once separated the mouth of the Don River and Lake Ontario as a next step in a project featuring a new island that could become home to thousands of people. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-waterfront-project
The sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald took the lives of all 29 crew members, including the ship’s cook. His daughter and Abilene, Kansas, resident Pamela Johnson, now 73, remains a yearly advocate for her father along with those who perished at memorials and for various interviews. Read the full story by the Abilene Reflector Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-edmundfitzgerald-crew-descendent
“Beach season,” per the Chicago Park District, runs from the Friday before Memorial Day through Labor Day. Outside of this period, swimming is not permitted. Historically, this made a lot of sense; however, many people can still be seen swimming into October as Chicago has had at least 17 days since September 1 with temperatures greater than 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-climate-risks
The Mariners’ Church of Detroit held its 59th annual Great Lakes Memorial Service on Sunday. The occasion honors and remembers 30,000 people who have died in the Great Lakes and on Michigan’s waters over the years. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241111-mariners-memorial-service
A five-year-old female Great Lakes piping plover was recently spotted in its favorite wintering grounds in Crandon Park, Florida. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-snowbirdsurvives-greatlakespipingplover-florida
Michigan is stepping up efforts to analyze the flow of harmful nutrients into the Western Basin of Lake Erie. Water quality monitors have been set up in five sub-watersheds in the southeast corner of the state that either feed directly into the lake or one of its tributaries. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-michigan-watershed-monitors
The Edmund Fitzgerald sank nearly half a century ago in “the gales of November.” The lake has taken hundreds of other ships, too. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society has its own underwater research vessel that scours the lake for shipwrecks. Read the full story by The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-lakesuperior-shipwrecks-dramatictales
The Great Storm of 1913 was easily the Great Lakes region’s largest natural disaster ever. Fast-moving “trains” of huge waves — some topping 30 feet high — lashed ships making their late-season runs. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-whitehurricane-november-1913-greatlakes
A busy port and moody skies make the “November gales” a special time to watch massive “lakers” and oceanbound “salties.” Read the full story by The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-greatlakes-duluth-stormseason
An iconic piece of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, history has been listed for sale, and owners say they hope to find a buyer to give the fishing boat a new lease on life. Read the full story by WGBA-TV – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-iconic-fishing-boat-lakeshore
After four decades, a Minnesota writer has brought a radio play capturing the SS Edmund Fitzgerald’s fateful final voyage to life. Read the full story by MPR News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-fitzgerald-final-voyage
Volunteers for the Hancock Trails Club, Weubben Construction and the City of Hancock, Michigan, are collaborating together in the improvements of Maasto Hiihto’s Trail 17 with a bridge, boardwalk and more accessible trail conditions. Read the full story by the Daily Mining Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-maastohiihto-improvements
Restoration of the historic Belle Isle Boathouse is progressing, as the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has selected a proposal after years of debate on preserving the structure. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-belleisle-boathouse
A former lifeguard in London, Ontario, is on a crusade to teach others about the dangers of Great Lakes rip currents after an especially deadly summer in the surf. Read the full story by The London Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241108-ex-lifeguard-greatlakes-ripcurrents
Dozens of Wisconsin communities will receive more than $273 million from the state for drinking water projects that include removing lead pipes and addressing PFAS contamination. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-wisconsin-water
Public comment about a proposed copper mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula focused on how special the area was: many said it should be evaluated differently because of its old-growth forests, proximity to Lake Superior, and other environmental factors. Read the full story by Interlochen Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-copper-mine
The 2024 western Lake Erie algal bloom has become the second in modern history to linger into November with about 10 square miles of the bloom remaining. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-algal-bloom
Currently, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s process for setting new fishing limits can take years. The agency says that a new rule would allow it to better respond to changes in the lake trout and cisco populations. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-fish-rule
Northwest Ohio municipalities could soon hear regional planners being more vocal in their support of a stronger and more robust management strategy for western Lake Erie, such as one that has become a hotly debated issue in U.S. District Court. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-erie-recommendations
The impending closure of North and South Manitou islands during a multi-year infrastructure project at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan may spell the end for a 107-year-old Michigan ferry service. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-manitou-ferry
A newly formed, not-for-profit association of local governments and industries is the latest group trying to become added as a defendant in the landmark Lake Erie case in U.S. District Court. Read the full story by The Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-erie-defendant
November is the deadliest month for shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. Despite the harsh storms, ships would often have overloaded cargo holds for the final trip of the year, making them more vulnerable as storms arose. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-november-shipwrecks
Of the 350 shipwrecks at the bottom of Lake Superior, there is one particularly famous steamship called the SS Kamloops. In 1977, fifty years after the ship disappeared, the divers that found the wreck were met with a grisly sight. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-ss-kamloops
In 1998, elementary school students in Belle River, Ontario, threw letters in a bottle into Lake St. Clair. Twenty-six years later, a kindergarten student from the same school found one of the bottles and its letter about Great Lakes water. Read the full story by the CBC.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241106-bottle-message
The Detroit Historical Society is honoring lost mariners during its annual Lost Mariners Remembrance this weekend in Detroit, Michigan. It’s the 25th year the society has held the event, which also marks the anniversary of the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. Read the full story by WXYZ-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-mariners-remembrance
An anaerobic digester in Michigan was shut down after a liquid waste product called “digestate” escaped a nearby farm and flooded a neighboring home’s backyard. Environmentalists point to this incident as a prime example of what can go wrong if anaerobic digesters aren’t adequately regulated while lawmakers are pushing legislation that would expand the market for biogas produced by digesters and exempt them from certain regulations. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-biogas-legislation
Lake Erie’s 2024 walleye hatch is being characterized as “low,” meaning that in two years, when the current crop grows to legal keeper size of 15 inches, something fewer than 10 million will be added. The most recent hatch and the only other rated low during the past 10 years happened in 2016. Read the full story by The Columbus Dispatch.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-walleye-hatch
Michigan’s freshwater sand dunes make up the largest collection of freshwater dunes on the planet. A pair of West Michigan lawmakers seek to solve the problem of vague legal protections with planned legislation to protect the state’s most sensitive dunes, or those that were designated as “critical dunes” in 1989. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-dune-protection
Huron Pines, a Northeast Lower Michigan organization, has reached a landmark $1 million fundraising goal as part of its Community-Driven Conservation fundraising campaign marking the organization’s 50th anniversary. Its funds will support public recreation opportunities, protect wild lands, and improve water quality. Read the full story by the Oscoda Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-fundraising-campaign
A complaint filed by a Michigan state employee with the Michigan Attorney General’s office Thursday alleges that state regulators have failed to stop chemical giant BASF from releasing toxic chemicals into the Detroit River from its Wyandotte facility over several decades. Read the full story by Planet Detroit.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-water-pollution
According to a recent Canadian government study, the average water temperature of the St. Lawrence River is at a record high. At measurements of 300 meters deep, in 2022, the temperatures exceeded 44.6 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time ever. Read the full story by Spectrum News 1.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-river-warming
The University of Michigan recently received nearly $200,000 in state funding to figure out ways to make cargo shipping, recreational boating, commercial fishing, ports and ferries more sustainable. The project’s goals will be in line with the state’s MI Healthy Climate Plan that sets targets to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Read the full story by WCMU – Mount Pleasant, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-maritime-sustainability
The wreck of the James R. Bentley, a 170-foot-long schooner, has sat 165 feet beneath the surface of Lake Huron since 1878. Within its hold was an unlikely treasure. A group of divers sponsored by a Northern Michigan distilling company aimed to retrieve a few scoops of 145-year-old rye seeds aboard the ship. Read the full story by The New York Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-shipwreck-dive
The City of Lorain, Ohio, plans to invest over $15 million in revitalizing its Lake Erie lakefront on the eastern shore of the Black River, with hopes of creating a park, improved public boat ramp and space for mixed-use development. Read the full story by The Chronicle-Telegram.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241104-shoreline-revitalization
Where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron connect, powerful water currents rush in opposite directions over an antiquated pipeline known as Line 5. Along the pipeline’s route from Wisconsin to Ontario, via the Straits of Mackinac, more than 1 million gallons of oil have reportedly spilled in the past 50 years. Read the full story by the Chicago Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-line5-disputes
A new initiative called “100% Great Lakes Fish” is seeking new ways to use whole fish to reduce waste and support rural economic development in the process. Read the full story at WOOD – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-fish-production
High levels of blue green algae in Lake Erie caused hundreds of thousands of people to temporarily have unavailable drinking water in 2014. A professor from Central Michigan University is developing an affordable sensor that will be able to detect blue green algae that is an issue in the Great Lakes with a decreased turn-around time for results. Read the full story by the Morning Sun.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-toxin-detection
A new study has uncovered the missing science behind why some lakes around the world emit such large amounts of carbon dioxide. A chemical reaction known as calcite precipitation releases CO2 and is a common phenomenon reported in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Read the full story by Cosmos.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-lakes-release-co2
The Thumb Land Conservancy, an organization devoted to preserving natural environments in the Blue Water Area, announced it has added 80 acres of dune and swale forest to a Fort Gratiot County Park in Michigan. Read the full story by the Times Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-conservation-land-addition
Algae blooms in the Great Lakes are becoming increasingly common. This is why a doctoral student at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research chose to focus her research on how the Thames River affects downstream cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms. Read the full story by Education News Canada.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-freshwater-research
The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay helped to gather over a dozen highly prestigious researchers and experts at the Freshwater Summit to present, network, and discuss regional issues spanning from whitefish populations to swimmer’s itch and more. Read the full story by WPBN-TV – Traverse City, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-invasive-species-discussions
Ever wondered what happens in an Upper Peninsula mine? Reporters went inside the Eagle nickel and copper mine in Marquette County, Michigan, to get a firsthand look at the process. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-up-mining
In Ohio, Sandusky’s waterfront mural captures some of Lake Erie’s best qualities including birding, fishing, sailing and sightseeing. A new landside painting pays homage to what many can see across Sandusky Bay on a typical summer’s day all year long. Read the full story by the Sandusky Register.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-erie-mural
Walleye is a big deal in Minnesota, but its popularity has gotten the fish into some pretty deep water, and it might not be available forever if overfishing continues. Read the full story by Tasting Table.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241101-walleye-overfishing
The phosphorus load, the nutrient that feeds harmful algae, into western Lake Erie is trending downward, but the 40% reduction target has yet to be met consistently. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20241030-algae-bloom
