Harmful algal blooms have become the talk of the summer for nearly a decade in Lake Erie, especially as the heat cranks up. The record-breaking rainfall experienced this April is the main driver for the above-average algal bloom forecast this coming summer. Read the full story by WTOL11 – Toledo, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240515-early-algal-bloom
Nonprofit organizations in Northern Michigan will receive nearly $70,000 in funding from the Great Lakes Energy People Fund. With 21 grants awarded, the funds will support a variety of local initiatives including maritime preservation. Read the full story by Cheboygan Daily Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240515-nonprofit-funding
Central Michigan University’s Institute for Great Lakes Research recently acquired a two-person submersible that will help researchers get a better handle on what’s happening beneath the surface of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by Central Michigan University.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240515-submersible-vessel
Despite losing a few ships this year, experts say you can expect to see a lot of cruise ships once again on the Great Lakes this summer. A few popular cruise ports will include Little Current, Killarney, and Sault Ste. Marie. Read the full story by CTV News Northern Ontario.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-cruiseships-greatlakes-summer
The cause of a large number of dead and dying fish reported at Lake Macatawa, located near Holland in Ottawa County, Michigan, has been found. Testing of collected fish revealed positive cases of viral hemorrhagic septicemia. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-fish-dying-lakemacatawa
SUNY Oswego recently launched the Great Lakes Institute to foster a greater awareness and understanding of the Great Lakes through continuing research efforts, academic programming and coursework for students at all levels, and public outreach. Read the full story by Oswego County News Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-greatlakesinstitude-challenges-solutions
Readers across the Great Lakes states and Canada this year will participate in a basin-wide book club hosted by the Library of the Great Lakes. From now until September 2025, participants will read Michigan author Sally Cole-Misch’s The Best Part of Us and Ontario author Joanne Robertson’s children’s book, The Water Walker. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-summerread-book-club
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced a remarkable discovery on May 1st, 2024, unearthing the long-lost Adella Shores vessel beneath 650 feet of water, roughly 40 miles northwest of Whitefish Point in Michigan. Read the full story by WITL – Lansing, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-adellashores-shipwreck-lakesuperior
After major work this weekend, one of the tall ships in Erie, Pennsylvania, the Lettie G. Howard, has a new mast and is close to being ready to setting sail on Lake Erie. Read the full story by WJET-TV – Erie, PA.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-lakeerie-tallship
Despite hitting some rocky waters recently, it’s full steam ahead for the SS Badger this year, with the popular Lake Michigan car ferry setting sail for its 71st season May 17. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-ss-badger
The owner of an unlicensed mid-Michigan RV park is accused of violating environmental laws and jeopardizing water quality by discharging raw sewage into groundwater. Read the full story by WJBK-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-michiganrvpark-sewage-discharge
One year after an effort was rejected by regulators, a new plan is in motion to restore the rapids to the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240513-grandriver-rapids
The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) is looking for support on a proposed Buffalo Reef stamp sand removal plan. Mining stamp sands are encroaching on the 22,000-foot reef and its status as spawning grounds for whitefish and trout. The sands would be moved to an upland location, stabilized, and monitored for any outflow. Read the full story by WLUC-TV – Marquette, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-stamp-sand-removal
A White House official visited the Lake Elmo, Minnesota high school known as “ground zero” for PFAS contamination. Last year, state lawmakers passed Amara’s Law, named for a Tartan High School graduate who spent the last few months of her life lobbying Minnesota state lawmakers to crack down on the “forever chemicals” which contributed to her liver cancer diagnosis. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-pfas-visit
More than 15 years after the Great Lakes Compact was signed, For Love of Water (FLOW), a Great Lakes advocacy organization, has reevaluated the compact and its goal of protecting lake water from being diverted by canals, aqueducts, pipelines, vessels, tunnels or tanker trucks. Read the full story by Michigan Advance.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-compact-review
The S.S. Badger is fully recovered and ready for another season on Lake Michigan’s open waters. The opening voyage for the 410-foot boat will be manned by 100 employees, ready to take the trip across the lake. The trip shortens a 7-8.5 hour, over 400-mile journey to a 60-mile jaunt taking 4 hours. Read the full story by WXMI-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-carferry-voyage
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel will apply lampricides to the Cedar River in Michigan to kill sea lamprey larvae burrowed in the stream bottom. Applications will be conducted between May 21-30 in accordance with State of Michigan permits. Read the full story by the EagleHerald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-lamprey-control
A renewable energy company announced it will use the shores of Lake Erie in Harborcreek Township, Pennsylvania, as the spot to test how wave energy converters hold up to different marine conditions while also focusing on sustainability, energy efficiency and potential impacts on local ecosystems. Read the full story by WKBN-TV – Youngstown, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-renewable-testing
U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow, co-chair of the U.S. Senate Great Lakes Task Force, and Gary Peters applauded the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works passage of its bipartisan Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Act of 2024. The legislation would extend the program for another five years through 2031 and increase annual funding authorization from $475 million $500 million. Read the full story by the Oscoda Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-restoration-program
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has announced that over six million fish had been restocked throughout the state’s inland waters and the Great Lakes in 2023. Over 1.3 million Chinook Salmon and 450,000 Brown Trout were stocked in Wisconsin’s Great Lakes. Read the full story by WFRV-TV – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-fish-stocking
A former lightkeeper reminisced on her family’s stay at Trowbridge Light Station, off the northern shore of Lake Superior, from March to December while the lake was free of ice. Duties included everything from manual labour, to working with generators and radio equipment. Important work, as those activities helped to keep the waters safe for the booming shipping industry on the great lake. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-lighthouse-keeper
Beginning in the 1940s, businesses started using the Rouge River in southeast Michigan as a dumping ground for industrial pollution. Local activists formed the Friends of the Rouge in 1986. A coordinator of its flagship program, Rouge Rescue, recounted his involvement at the annual event where they organize volunteers across the watershed to remove trash from the river. Read the full story by Planet Detroit.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240510-cleanup-activist
In its first early season forecast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that April’s record rainfall will probably lead to a moderate or large algal bloom in western Lake Erie. Though still highly variable, NOAA currently predicts this summer’s bloom will be at least a 4.5 and as high as a 7.5 on its 10-point severity scale. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-erie-bloom
Scientists have found evidence the flathead catfish—a species from the southern U.S. known for its huge size and monstrous appetite for fish—has established itself in the Thames River in southwestern Ontario. Read the full story by the CBC.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-catfish-canada
Fifty-five years after Ohio’s Cuyahoga River last caught fire, its health continues to improve; but determining what prevention and cleanup practices are most effective remains difficult. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-cuyahoga-comeback
For the last four years, the Cleveland Water Alliance has launched computerized smart buoys in Lake Erie to monitor water conditions. The month of May marks the start of what they call their smart lake season. Read the full story by WEWS-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-erie-buoys
$20 million will be pumped in to rebuild the crumbling breakwall on Sodus Bay in New York. The project will protect the shoreline from severe flooding, including communities who got slammed during the springs of 2017 and 2019. Read the full story by WHAM-TV – Rochester, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-sodus-breakwall
Lake whitefish is an important commercial fishery in Lake Erie and is culturally and economically important to local First Nations. Although Lake Erie’s population has declined in recent years due to poor survival during their first year of life, fishery biologists have shown that the Detroit River is an important source for young lake whitefish. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-whitefish-recruitment
At their height, there were 30 U.S. naval militias but now there are only three; and New York’s is one of them. From protecting ship passengers during a cholera outbreak in 1892 to preventing flooding off Lake Ontario and Lake Erie in recent years, the militia has missions across the state’s coastline. Read the full story by Spectrum News 1 – Buffalo, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-naval-militia
In pursuit of a deeper understanding of the Great Lakes, a novice sailor embarked on a journey from Traverse City to the Atlantic Ocean and wrote a book detailing his adventure. Coinciding with a 20th Anniversary Edition of the book, the author discusses his work, and his hopes and concerns for the future of these waters. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-author-interview
A section of US-2 in Delta County in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was recently damaged by high water, forcing officials with the Michigan Department of Transportation to close the road to all traffic. Emergency repairs will take two to three weeks. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-highway-damaged
A second fishery in Leelanau County, Michigan, has signed a compact committing to the use of 100 percent of each Great Lakes-caught fish. Read the full story by The Leelanau Ticker.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240508-fish-pledge
On May 3, Great Lakes surface waters were very close to beating the 2012 record for all-time warmest water. It can be expected that the lakes will be warmer than normal throughout the summer. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-water-temps
New York native Robert Gioia has been confirmed to the International Joint Commission (IJC), which was established by the Boundary Treaty of 1909 to prevent and resolve disputes over the U.S. and Canada’s shared waterways, including the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. Read the full story by the Finger Lakes Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-ijc-commissioner
Parks Canada broke ground on Saturday on the new Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area Administration and Visitors Centre. The center is being constructed on the Nipigon Marina and will allow visitors to learn about some of the things Parks Canada does to keep the big lake healthy. Read the full story by SN News Watch.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-lake-superior-national-marine-conservation-area
In 2019, the state of Illinois confirmed what advocates had long suspected, coal ash from the Waukegan Generating Station had leached into nearby groundwater right next to Lake Michigan. Plans were submitted to clean up the operation, but those plans are still on hold. Read the full story by Grist.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-coal-ash
The Minnesota Governor’s Fishing Opener took place on Saturday and anglers were eagerly waiting to drop a line, hoping to reel in trout, bass, walleye and muskie. But the state’s unseasonably warm winter may have had an effect on fish hatch for some species. Read the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-spring-fishing-mn
The White House has nominated Matt Kaplan to serve as the first federal co-chair of the Great Lakes Authority (GLA). The GLA was authorized by Congress in 2022 and will promote regional economic development. Read the full story by Marine Link.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-great-lakes-authority
The disappearance of wolves from a large island on Lake Superior means the timing is good for restoring its caribou herd. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks says plans are underway to transport a dozen boreal caribou to Lake Superior’s Michipicoten Island. Read the full story by SN News Watch.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-caribou
Ohio’s environmental regulators will have until the end of June to finish a plan to aimed at combating toxic algae blooms that have flourished in Lake Erie since the late 1990s. The deadline is part of the settlement agreement a federal judge approved Thursday. Read the full story by AP News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240505-lake-erie
In Illinois, the Oswego Village Board on Tuesday will consider an intergovernmental agreement concerning costs associated with bringing in Lake Michigan water. Read the full story by the The Beacon-News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240506-oswego
One-fifth of the planet’s surface freshwater sits in our Great Lakes. Demand for it will only grow, which gives us both an opportunity and a responsibility to speed the pace of water innovation. Over the next 10 years, a bipartisan coalition called Great Lakes ReNEW will invest millions of dollars in new technologies to recover and recycle valuable minerals, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, from our water, and remove toxic chemicals such as per- and polyfluorinated substances, known as PFAS. Read the full story by the Chicago Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240506-pritzer
Cells from an invasive algae known as didymo or “rock snot” have been found in the Au Sable River in Oscoda County, Michigan. Didymo can create thick mats that cover river and stream bottoms which alters habitat, recreation, and food resources for fish. Read the full story by WDIV – TV – Detroit, Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-invasive-didymo-found
St Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation and Great Lakes St Lawrence Seaway have agreed a deal to deploy a new Voyage Information System from Global Spatial Technology Solutions to enhance joint management of the bi-national waterways between Canada and the United States. Read the full story by the Smart Maritime Network.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-ai-seway-traffic-assistance
The federal government is closer to spending $500 million a year to extend a nearly 15-year effort to stop contamination throughout the Great Lakes. Read the full story by The Center Square.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-legislation-clears-senate
Early indications and forecasts from the International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board, which maintains outflow from Lake Ontario for the International Joint Commission, show that the normal mid-summer high point for Lake Ontario levels will remain slightly below average. Read the full story by WROC – TV – Rochester, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-ontario-water-levels
A feasibility study released in 2022 by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority did not support the placement of turbines in Lakes Erie and Ontario. This was thought to be the end to future consideration but a recent proposal from Pennsylvania says otherwise. Read the full story by The Post-Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-wind-turbine-dispute
After 12 years and $7.5 million, the habitat restoration of a large wetland preserve in the very southeast corner of Michigan is now complete, just in time for the migratory birds heading this way. Read the full story by WJBK – TV – Detroit, Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-wetland-restoration
Efforts to kill sea lamprey larvae in Conneaut Creek in Pennsylvania were conducted in late April at the start of a six-month-long lampricide program slated for the entire Great Lakes. Read the full story by Outdoor News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-lampricide-treatments-underway
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) once again called on Canada and the U.S. to decommission the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline. Indigenous communities on both sides of the border have repeatedly called for the decommissioning to protect a broad range of human rights. Read the full story by the Center for International Environmental Law.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240503-line5-opposition
