The official start of summer is just two short weeks away. As more Michiganders travel across the state and take to the water, it’s important to remember the basics of water safety — especially when it comes to the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Livingston Daily.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-summer-staysafe-greatlakes
In Muskegon, Michigan, the arrival of the Pearl Mist cruise ship at Heritage Landing Tuesday morning will mark the beginning of a historic cruising season in West Michigan. Read the full story by WZZM-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-record-cruiseseason-muskegon
Michigan is full of waterslides, but only one place has launch slides. New for 2023, these fast, steep slides, located on a beach in Lake Orion, will send you flying into the water. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-mi-launchwaterslides-northernmi
Some of the most panoramic views in all of Northern Michigan can be found at the peaks of its ski hills. Or, in Boyne City, Michigan, at a former downhill ski area that has now become a recreation gem for its community. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-northernmi-climb
The state of Michigan is warning residents about summer kills as the weather has been more extreme than usual this time of year. Fish kills can happen naturally, and with scorching weather, a summer kill is likely to occur sooner. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-egle-warning-fishkills
High levels of E. Coli have shut down beach access at Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, the second day in a row the bacteria has limited recreation at the popular location. Access to Belle Isle remains, but any visitors will be asked to avoid going in the water to avoid risking any contamination. Read the full story by WJBK-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-belleisle-beachaccess-closed-ecoli
Ohio’s Lake Erie fishermen and an invasion of walleye anglers from all over the region have seen a big surge in the walleye fishing this week, thanks to the warm weather. The walleye are biting in many areas right now, making it an excellent time to enjoy the Walleye Capital of the World. Read the full story by The Beacon.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-warmtemps-walleye-lakeerie
Public health monitoring of water quality has returned, along with the warm weather, at seven Lake Huron beaches in Lambton County, Ontario. Read the full story by The Sarnia Observer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-lambtonhealth-waterquality-testing
Over the last eight years, Stand Up for Great Lakes has been on a mission to paddleboard across each of the five Great Lakes. Their efforts raise money to educate about and preserve our fresh water. Read the full story by 9/10 News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230607-standup-greatlakes-lastjourney
With the environment warming because of climate change, researchers are noticing some drastic fluctuations. This year, Lake Erie had little to no ice coverage which has effects on other lake processes like water levels, fish hatches, and algal blooms. Read the full story by Spectrum News 1.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-erie-ice
NOAA has been working to update the Environmental Response Management Application digital data map for Lake Erie. It’s a tool that helps emergency responders and environmental resource managers in dealing with incidents that may adversely impact the environment. Read the full story by WJET-TV – Erie, PA.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-erie-map
The Army Corps of Engineers is now on the cusp of construction on modification of the Brandon Road Lock in Illinois. The project is now projected to cost $1.1 billion, but the main sticking point is that it requires Illinois to sign an agreement as the non-federal sponsor that the state has so far refused to sign Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-carp-agreement
In Michigan, some residents of Detroit’s Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood say they’re outraged with a decision to award a permit to Grosse Pointe Park that could allow the Detroit suburb to dump sewage into the Detroit River. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-sewage-permit
Shipwreck tours have returned for the season to Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan, where visitors can take a scenic cruise within 4,300 miles of federally protected waters for a unique peek into Great Lakes maritime history. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-shipwreck-tours
Great Lakes invaders such as zebra mussels and sea lampreys were a few of the species that briefly took center stage recently when the director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources spoke at the annual Edith Chase Symposium. Read the full story by The Record Courier.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-invasive-symposium
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will conduct an assessment of the Traverse River in Houghton and Keweenaw counties in Michigan from June 6 to the 14. The purpose is to estimate the abundance of sea lampreys. The information gathered will be used to determine the need for sea lamprey control. Read the full story by the Daily Mining Gazette.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-sea-lamprey
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources design fishing regulations to protect fish and allow people to enjoy fishing. They urge the public to review the guide to reduce practices which can lead to overharvesting. Read the full story by the Manistee News Advocate.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-fishing-guidelines
Bordering Lake Michigan in Muskegon County, Michigan, a large hill of lime is leftover from Dupont which made neoprene rubber, acetylene, and Freon. Chemours, a DuPont spin-off which owns the site, is negotiating a consent order this year with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy that advocates hope will speed the pace of cleanup around the 1,300-acre property. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-dupont-cleanup
Before you hit the road, check the list of Michigan beaches that are closed or under contamination advisories for water quality that’s unacceptable or questionable for human contact. Last week, there were two on Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. Read the full story by the MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-beach-closures
In May, people might have noticed large amounts of dead fish in Lake Erie. Wildlife officials in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said Sandusky, Ohio experienced a higher mortality rate this year due to a deadly fish virus called Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia, commonly referred to as VHS which is not transmittable to humans. Read the full story by the Advertiser-Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230605-fish-kills
The Michigan Department of Attorney General filed a motion for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan as part of the State’s ongoing enforcement action against the former owners of the Edenville Dam. The east embankment of the dam failed on May 19, 2020, sending a surge of water downstream that resulted in catastrophe for the surrounding communities. Key facts have now been uncovered showing the dam’s owners, Boyce Hydro, knew of this potential failure since 2010 without divulging the defect to the state or federal government. Read the full story by The Morning Sun.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-dam-failure-motion
Robert Michaels, senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, hopes his latest legal victory will result in a healthier Lake Erie with smaller harmful algal blooms by forcing closer regulation of the industrial-sized livestock farms that produce large amounts of manure in Lake Erie’s watershed. Read the full story by The Sandusky Register.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-erie-regulation
The City of Highland Park, Michigan, and the Great Lakes Water Authority failed to meet a court-ordered deadline of May 31 to come up with a payment plan for the estimated $24 million the city owes to the suburban water authority. The two sides are still engaged in talks in hopes of having a payment plan ready for a June 6 court hearing. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-water-debt-payment
Thunder Bay, Ontario, has said goodbye to the Viking Octantis, the first cruise ship that docked for the 2023 season, but there are plenty left to come. A total of 15 cruise ship stops by four ships have been booked for this season and 24 stops by five ships have been booked for the 2024 cruise season. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-cruise-season
Detroit City Council Member Mary Waters sent Governor Gretchen Whitmer a letter asking her to rescind a permit issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) that she believes could result in the release of raw sewage into the Detroit River from Grosse Pointe Park. In February, EGLE issued the permit to Grosse Pointe Park, allowing them to construct the extreme emergency relief valve. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-emergency-pipe
After sustaining significant damage in 2019, the West Barrier Bar Pier in Fair Haven, New York, has undergone a $10 million repair project with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021. The Army Corps of Engineers highlighted the project’s benefits, including safe navigation between Little Sodus Bay and Lake Ontario and supporting the local economy by ensuring safe passage to 550 boat slip rentals and eight launch ramps. Read the full story by The Citizen.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-pier-repairs
With help from the Clinton River Watershed Council and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, the city of Center Line, Michigan, added four rain gardens to the corners of a newly paved and graded parking lot to ensure water will flow into the rain garden cells and go into the ground instead of into the stormwater drain. Read the full story by Macomb Daily.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-rain-garden-installation
At Anchors Away Marina in Marblehead, Ohio, the charter boat “Myrmidon” awaits her captain, Carole Vukmer, who is one of just a handful of female charter captains on Lake Erie. Being a female captain in a male-dominated industry is a challenge. There are just over a thousand licensed charter captains that make a living fishing Lake Erie; of that number, just 46 are women. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-female-captains
Since its first sighting recorded near Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the Huron River in 1933, officials say there have been dozens of freshwater jellyfish findings in Michigan’s streams and inland lakes. Freshwater jellyfish typically appear in northern temperate inland lakes during the late summer and there is little-to-no evidence that they have any significant impact on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-freshwater-jellyfish
In Houghton County, Michigan, the Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entrance Light is now available for purchase through public auction; the opening bid is $10,000. Read the full story by WBCK – Battle Creek, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230602-lighthouse-auction
New data published by the journal Science shows most of the world’s lakes are shrinking. But according to Environment Canada, lakes in Southwestern Ontario are slowly rising — contradicting that trend. Read the full story by CTV News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-lake-size-changes
The state of Wisconsin will add a half-mile of shoreline to the Brule River State Forest that will expand public access to Lake Superior and protect habitat for an endangered shorebird. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-lake-superior-shorebirds
Scientists believe saving black terns from extinction will take more than habitat protection across their breeding grounds in Michigan. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-black-terns
As of last November, Adam Tindall-Schlicht has been Administrator of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, which oversees operations of the U.S. side of the system of locks and channels that connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. Read the full story by North County Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-st-lawrence-seaway
One research vessel owned and operated by the University of Minnesota-Duluth (UMD) is dedicated to better exploring the Great Lakes region. This year, a team of researchers from UMD is looking at algae blooms on the lakes. Read the full story by KBJR-TV – Duluth, MN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-blue-heron
Over the course of eleven days, a device dating back to 234 B.C. successfully captured 704 fish and lifted them into a collection basket as part of a project to determine if the method could be used in the future to move fish across dams without injury. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-bypass-dams
Thousands of people will soon line Michigan’s St. Clair River together and celebrate the famous Blue Water Area sturgeon at Sturgeon Fest. Read the full story by the Times Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-sturgeon-fest
Lawmakers in Illinois and Pennsylvania are considering bills this year to promote offshore wind development in the waters off their coasts. Read the full story by Michigan Advance.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-offshore-wind
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative says that their member municipalities are willing to spend the money to protect the shoreline but are hampered by inflation and labor shortages. Read the full story by Bayshore Broadcasting.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-shoreline-protection
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will treat two West Michigan waterways for invasive sea lamprey this summer. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230531-sea-lamprey
Many wetlands across the country will lose federal protections following a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Thursday. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-wetland-protection
The Great Lakes recorded the fourth-lowest ice cover since scientists began keeping track a half-century ago, yet another sign of the impact of climate change on the environment. Read the full story by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-ice-cover
The Aquarium of Niagara in Buffalo, New York has unveiled renderings of its new living museum, which features 15 brand new exhibits showcasing Great Lakes wildlife. Read the full story by Yahoo News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-aquarium
With its engine on fire, the Cuyahoga — a massive commercial freighter on Lake Erie — sent out a mayday, the internationally recognized signal for distress, to anyone within range who could help. Read the full story by The Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-freighter-fire
This week, officials with the Cleveland Water Alliance (CWA) redeployed several environmental monitoring “smart” buoys” in Lake Erie, along Ohio’s northern shoreline. Read the full story by Fox Business.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-erie-monitoring
Water temperatures in the 50s may not sound that cold, but this water can immediately be life threatening. The air temperature will be in the 70s this weekend, and the water will be smooth for boaters, so expect a lot of people out on boats. Read the full story by WKBW – TV – Buffalo, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-cold-temperature
The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project (GLSRP) is warning beachgoers along the Lake Superior shoreline to take caution due to frigid water temperatures. Read the full story by WDIO – TV – Duluth, MN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-lake-superior
A $400,000 grant will help scientists at the University of Wisconsin Madison Extension Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve and University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute conduct high-frequency water monitoring of the St. Louis River Estuary in 2023 and 2024. Read and listen to the full story by Hometown Focus.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-stlouis-river
Federal prosecutors filed misdemeanor charges against a man who is accused of diverting a river within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-platte-river
The federal government reports it will invest nearly C$2.5 billion (US$1.8 billion) for the renewal of its small ship fleet through the acquisition of up to 61 vessels. Read the full story by The Maritime Executive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20230526-canada-coast-guard
