By Matt Simon
This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.
More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they’re so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/06/the-smoke-from-canadas-wildfires-may-be-even-more-toxic-than-usual/
By Enrique Saenz, Mirror Indy
Mirror Indy is a part of Free Press Indiana, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to ensuring all Hoosiers have access to the news and information they need.
Sandy Leeds remembers the glory days of West Indianapolis.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/06/near-westside-residents-have-higher-rates-of-lung-disease-study-says/
By Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio
This article was republished here with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio.
Enbridge’s proposed $1 billion Line 5 tunnel project would harm water and wetlands, according to a draft environmental review released Friday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/06/federal-agency-finds-great-lakes-tunnel-project-poses-detrimental-effects-to-water-wetlands/
When the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians in Manistee, MI, decided to start a lake sturgeon restoration program, they started by hiring two recently graduated fisheries research biologists to help them set it up.
“I remember getting there and realizing that the scientific knowledge that I had was only a piece,” fisheries biologist Marty Holtgren said.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/06/how-are-science-and-tradition-saving-sturgeon/
Great Lakes Moment is a monthly column written by Great Lakes Now Contributor John Hartig. Publishing the author’s views and assertions does not represent endorsement by Great Lakes Now or Detroit PBS.
The Eastern Seaboard has the East Coast Greenway and the Appalachian Trail.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/06/great-lakes-moment-creating-a-u-s-great-lakes-waterfront-trail/
Shortly after Chelsea Rochman moved to Toronto to start her current faculty job at University of Toronto, she began working with the Government of Canada to sample microplastics in fish from Lake Ontario. What she found, she said, shocked her. They found microplastics in every single fish they tested. Every single fish.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/everything-to-know-about-microplastics-in-the-great-lakes/
MILWAUKEE – The confluence of the Milwaukee and Menominee rivers, in the downtown core of Wisconsin’s largest city, is a prime vantage to assess the collection of assets that define the past and future of Great Lakes water use, and the array of technology development encompassing the region’s water.
Together and in complement, universities, research labs, tech incubators, water-focused businesses, and forward-thinking utilities here and in other cities are pushing for something greater than the sum of their parts.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/despite-u-s-research-resistance-great-lakes-aims-to-be-silicon-valley-for-water/
My first glimpse of Lake Superior, in all its lore-and-song-inspiring glory, is a blurry one from the backseat of a taxi driving through Thunder Bay.
Superior, or Gitchigumi, which means Great Lake in Anishinaabemowin, is the largest of those lakes, and the second largest lake in the world, containing 10 per cent of the planet’s fresh surface water.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/thunder-bay-is-bringing-its-great-lake-shoreline-back/
Significant areas of the Earth’s surface across continents are gradually sinking and that process brings environmental, social and economic consequences to urban centers in the United States. Great Lakes cities Detroit and Chicago are among those at risk.
That’s the conclusion of a recent study conducted by Columbia University researchers, published by the science journal Nature Cities.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/sinking-cities-great-lakes-cities-not-immune-from-under-recognized-threat/
Benton Harbor on Lake Michigan’s southeast coast is known to visitors for its vacation feel and beautiful beaches.
But it’s also one of the poorest cities in Michigan. In recent years, the area has struggled to find the funds to invest in critical infrastructure, most noticeably for its water supply which until recently had tested for dangerously high levels of lead.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/are-data-centers-a-threat-to-great-lakes/
Not since DDT was introduced to U.S. agriculture to kill insects after World War Two has a farm chemical been as important to American crop production, and come under more scientific, political, and legal scrutiny as the weedkiller Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate.
With the election of President Donald Trump, the conflict over glyphosate’s risks and benefits entered a new realm of confrontation that has the potential to alter its stature as the favored chemical tool in agriculture, the largest user of fresh water in the blue economy of Michigan and the Great Lakes.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/conflict-over-a-blockbuster-farm-chemical/
By Ellie Katz, Interlochen Public Radio
Points North is a biweekly podcast about the land, water and inhabitants of the Great Lakes.
This episode was shared here with permission from Interlochen Public Radio.
In the summer of 2015, Traci Lynn Martin’s mom was in the final weeks of a battle with cancer.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/points-north-the-longest-paddle/
New luxury homes, yacht slips, and trendy hotels and restaurants are cropping up along the glittering waterfront of this west Michigan city.
Nothing unusual for the Lake Michigan coast, long known for beach towns that cater to summer vacationers and wealthy second-homers. But to those familiar with Muskegon’s blue collar history, it’s a stunning transformation.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/an-80m-cleanup-made-muskegon-lake-trendy-will-eco-gentrification-follow/
Cities around the Great Lakes region are trying to make transportation cheaper for riders and more environmentally friendly by expanding their public transit networks. Two modes that are often pitted against each other are light rail and bus rapid transit (BRT). While not every BRT line meets the same standards, in general, they have been upgraded for higher capacity and speed, although they have fewer stations.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/buses-vs-trains-the-future-of-public-transit-in-the-great-lakes-region/
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Charlevoix Fisheries Research Station is based in a building that was constructed in 1917, originally as a federal fish hatchery. It wasn’t the first on this site. An earlier hatchery was built in 1894.
The U.S. government was trying to replenish the fish population.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/keeping-the-5-5-billion-great-lakes-fishery-afloat-as-trump-administration-considers-cuts/
Livelihoods and economies in the Great Lakes region always centered on water. From the manoomin, or wild rice, grown and revered by the Ojibwe people to the whitefish catch in Lake Michigan, to the water-dependent ports, steel mills, and manufacturers that dot thousands of miles of Fresh Coast lakeshore. The area’s liquid assets and the industries that developed around them form a “blue economy.”
The treasure trove of clean fresh water is seen as a competitive edge in a region hungry for growth and whose leaders boast about exporting the scientific breakthroughs and infrastructure hardware to solve the world’s water challenges.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/water-determines-great-lakes-regions-economic-future/
By Jeff Robbins, Wisconsin Public Radio
This article was republished here with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio.
If you’ve never tasted the fruit from a pawpaw tree, you’re not alone. Due to its extremely short shelf life that renders the fruit edible for only days after being picked, pawpaw is an all-too-rare treat.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/one-mans-quest-to-bring-more-of-north-americas-largest-native-fruit-the-pawpaw-to-wisconsin/
A fledgling birding festival that hatched 15 years ago has become an international event drawing visitors from around the world to northwest Ohio. While the stars of the show at the Biggest Week in American Birding (BWIAB) are migrating warblers, there are dozens of other species which draw crowds from every state and continent including wading and shore birds, tanagers, songbirds, waterfowl and raptors.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/everything-you-need-to-know-about-biggest-week-in-american-birding/
By Zaria Johnson, Ideastream Public Media
This story was originally published by Ideastream.
An exhibition at the Cleveland Botanical Garden features more than 30 artists whose work explores the role nature plays in overcoming painful emotions and experiences.
The botanical garden partnered with local gallery Deep Roots Experience to bring together The Nature of Healing, an exhibition exploring ways the outdoors can help process grief and trauma.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/05/nature-as-a-spiritual-salve-for-grief-cleveland-botanical-garden-looks-at-healing-power-of-outdoors/
By Leah Borts-Kuperman, The Narwhal
The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit PBS, Michigan Public and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/meet-the-people-trying-to-keep-a-prehistoric-fish-alive/
Summer is just around the corner, and for many in the Great Lakes region, the coming season is synonymous with weekends at the beach, camping trips and — if you’re lucky — stargazing. There are many places in the Great Lakes where the skies are dark enough to enjoy the stars and planets overhead, but specific recognition for such places varies by state.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/the-importance-of-dark-sky-parks/
For National Park week, Ian Solomon recounts his time visiting Isle Royale for a much-loved episode of Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/visiting-least-visited-national-park/
I Speak for the Fish is a monthly column written by Great Lakes Now Contributor Kathy Johnson, coming out the third Monday of each month. Publishing the author’s views and assertions does not represent endorsement by Great Lakes Now or Detroit Public Television.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/i-speak-for-the-fish-how-to-photograph-mysterious-freshwater-fish/
Waves of Change is an online interview series highlighting the diverse faces and perspectives shaping the environmental justice movement throughout the Great Lakes region.
For Earth Month, we spoke with Halima Afi Cassells, an award-winning interdisciplinary community-engaged artist, mom of three and avid gardener with deep roots in Waawiiyaataanong also known as Detroit, Michigan.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/waves-of-change-meet-artist-mom-and-gardener-halima-afi-cassells/
This is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.”
This spring break, transform your usual holiday into an educational excursion that connects your family with the natural world.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/spring-break-staycation-foraging-with-the-family/
Toward the end of 2023, I was newly unemployed and living by myself for the first time.
In between jobs, searching for employment and a means of fulfillment and community, I began to reflect on how my mom got into gardening. In the dead of winter, memories of childhood summers spent pulling weeds, tilling soil and fleeing the occasional garter snake alongside her began to color my mind.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/community-gardens-third-places-for-detroiters/
Alberto Rey’s artistic passions are wide-ranging. But water and wildlife may most succinctly describe them. The retired State University of New York — Fredonia professor of art has waded into drawing, painting, ceramics and filmmaking all while diving headfirst into the deepest affection for the natural world.
The 64-year-old Cuban-born artist moonlights as an Orvis-endorsed fly fishing guide on Western New York’s Lake Erie tributaries.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/alberto-rey-art-all-about-earth/
Change is happening since Donald Trump took office and began making good on campaign pledges to reduce the size and scope of the work of the federal agencies that serve the country.
And the 50-year-old focus of the U.S. EPA to protect the environment has not been immune.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/experts-explain-criticality-of-regional-epa-office/
The Great Lakes, the world’s largest system of fresh surface water, supply drinking water to about 40 million people. But industrial pollution, agricultural runoff, and invasive species have caused significant problems. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) was created to address these issues and has received bipartisan support since its inception.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/could-the-great-lakes-lose-billions-in-restoration-funding/
Great Lakes Moment is a monthly column written by Great Lakes Now Contributor John Hartig. Publishing the author’s views and assertions does not represent endorsement by Great Lakes Now or Detroit PBS.
April 22, 1970 was the first Earth Day. On that day, two boats — one with an American flag representing American autoworkers and one with a Canadian flag representing Canadian autoworkers — met in the middle of the Detroit River to hold a wake, symbolizing the death of the river from pollution.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/autoworkers-long-history-of-protecting-our-environment/
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/how-well-do-you-know-your-great-lakes-aquatic-species/
This article is the first in a series called The Great Lakes Promise: Cost, Resilience and Refuge. This series was made possible in partnership between Great Lakes Now and Planet Detroit.
Bird flu has hit the Great Lakes region hard this winter, killing nearly 5 million birds — including laying hens, ducks and other fowl — in Ohio and Indiana in the past two months.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/as-bird-flu-wreaks-havoc-in-the-midwest-researchers-say-vaccines-offer-a-way-out/
This article is the first in a series called The Great Lakes Promise: Cost, Resilience and Refuge. This series was made possible in partnership between Great Lakes Now and Planet Detroit.
Bird flu has hit the Great Lakes region hard this winter, killing nearly 5 million birds — including laying hens, ducks and other fowl — in Ohio and Indiana in the past two months.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/as-bird-flu-wreaks-havoc-in-the-midwest-researchers-say-vaccines-offer-a-way-out/
This article is the first in a series called The Great Lakes Promise: Cost, Resilience and Refuge. This series was made possible in partnership between Great Lakes Now and Planet Detroit.
Bird flu has hit the Great Lakes region hard this winter, killing nearly 5 million birds — including laying hens, ducks and other fowl — in Ohio and Indiana in the past two months.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/as-bird-flu-wreaks-havoc-in-the-midwest-researchers-say-vaccines-offer-a-way-out/
By Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, WBEZ
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for WBEZ newsletters to get local news you can trust.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/04/everyone-deserves-clean-air-says-a-chicago-epa-worker-who-fears-her-job-will-end/
“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/she-makes-maple-sugar-right-now/
On March 14, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that perhaps Lake Erie should be changed to Lake Ohio.
According to reporting from Cleveland.com:
“Anybody think if there’s a Lake Michigan, maybe there should be a Lake Ohio around here?” Ramaswamy said, about 13 miles away from Lake Erie.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/could-lake-erie-really-become-lake-ohio/
A few months ago, I was riding on Amtrak’s new Borealis line from St. Paul, Minn., to Chicago. The train was packed that day, and the new line has proved popular.
My coach seat was much nicer than any airline. Plus, I didn’t have to go through security.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/what-would-the-great-lakes-region-be-like-with-bullet-trains/
Catch the latest energy news from around the Great Lakes region. Check back for these biweekly Energy News Roundups.
Michigan’s investments in electric vehicle manufacturing are in jeopardy following what the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency called the “most consequential day of deregulation in U.S.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/michigan-ev-industry-on-a-knife-edge-as-energy-project-delays-mount-across-region/
Rainbow trout and steelhead are two of the most popular sport fish in the Great Lakes. They also hold three spots on my lifetime list of all-time great dives.
An 8-inch juvenile rainbow was the first fish I ever hand-fed in the Great Lakes. My partner, Greg Lashbrook, and I had fed fish before at several different Caribbean dive resorts.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/i-speak-for-the-fish-is-it-a-rainbow-trout-or-a-steelhead/
In 2024 when Donald Trump as a presidential candidate proposed piping water from British Columbia, Canada to California, his statement was largely dismissed as campaign rhetoric.
Once he was elected, Canadians started paying attention but the potential water grab was seen as logistically and politically problematic and unlikely to gain traction.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/trump-threatens-great-lakes-agreements-between-u-s-and-canada/
It is widely known by lovers of the Great Lakes that their unique shape was caused by glaciers melting and receding northward. That was approximately 20,000 years ago. However, new research published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests this treasured landmass started forming hundreds of millions of years ago, long before the theory of plate tectonics, when Pangea likely separated into the continents we recognize today.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/stunning-new-research-reveals-the-great-lakes-pre-date-north-america/
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of San Francisco in a case about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) sewage permits issued under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The court ruled that the EPA’s “end-result” water pollution permits are too speculative and that the EPA overstepped its authority in the case of San Francisco v.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/what-a-recent-supreme-court-ruling-could-mean-for-the-future-of-the-clean-water-act/
It seems like every year winter creeps forward into being one of my favorite seasons. It’s not lost on me that this budding love affair began once I gained the courage to venture into Northern Michigan during the months almost everyone will tell you to avoid. The truth is: Metro Detroit isn’t made for the cold and snow, so I’m allowing the North Woods to change my mind.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/ian-outside-a-detroiters-journey-to-calumet-for-copperdog/
Catch the latest energy news from around the Great Lakes region. Check back for these biweekly Energy News Roundups.
Hundreds of energy projects may have their permits fast-tracked by the Trump administration, including Enbridge’s tunnel for Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac and a roughly $1 billion gas plant in Superior.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/oil-and-gas-projects-fast-tracked-while-minnesota-power-plans-to-quit-fossil-fuels/
This is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.”
In the Great Lakes, the maple syrup harvest season begins when daytime temperatures rise above freezing while nights remain cold — typically from mid to late February for much of the region, and a bit later further north.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/tapping-into-tradition-its-maple-syrup-season/
Great Lakes Moment is a monthly column written by Great Lakes Now Contributor John Hartig. Publishing the author’s views and assertions does not represent endorsement by Great Lakes Now or Detroit PBS.
Common terns are known for their aerial acrobatics, performing rapid turns and swoops to the delight of those watching.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/03/great-lakes-moment-detroit-river-common-terns-under-threat/
“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/02/nibi-chronicles-invisible-borders/
By Katie Myers, Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, & Izzy Ross
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist, BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina, WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region, and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/02/us-forest-service-firings-decimate-already-understaffed-agency-its-catastrophic/
Catch the latest updates on what’s happening with PFAS in the Great Lakes region. Check back for more PFAS news roundups every other week on our website.
A new bill introduced in the Minnesota Legislature by Republican Rep.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/02/latest-minnesota-pfas-bill-allegedly-shifts-power-sparks-controversy/
