GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A judge has given tentative approval to a $54 million settlement involving 3M Co., a shoe manufacturer and property owners in western Michigan who said their land and wells were contaminated by toxic “forever chemicals.”
The deal involves approximately 1,700 properties north of Grand Rapids.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A judge has given tentative approval to a $54 million settlement involving 3M Co., a shoe manufacturer and property owners in western Michigan who said their land and wells were contaminated by toxic “forever chemicals.”
The deal involves approximately 1,700 properties north of Grand Rapids.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/michigan-property-owners-settle-pfas-case/
The cost of algae in Lake Erie is falling on shoreline communities like Toledo, where toxic algae blooms hike water bills by $100 per year for a family of five. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-water-cost
A group of researchers want to make it easier for scientists to get a better picture of when flooding events might occur in Michigan by developing a new groundwater model to monitor surface and groundwater flow. Read the full story by WKAR-TV – East Lansing, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-flooding
Leaders with the University of Toledo say it was a productive season of testing new technology on Lake Erie. Read the full story by WTVG-TV – Toledo, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-alage-monitoring
Wisconsin’s Bayfield County residents will soon have access to a map of the county’s artesian wells, following a controversial proposal to bottle and sell water from a well near Lake Superior. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-bottled-water
Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new federal health advisories for forever chemicals in drinking water and stated its intention to deliver enforceable standards by the end of 2023. For Ohio, that means more than 1,500 public water systems across the state would be forced to comply with whatever mandates come down the pike. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-pfas
Wisconsin anglers are banding together to clean-up Pike River, a known rearing pond for many popular sport fish in Lake Michigan. Read the full story by WTMJ-TV – Milwaukee, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-river-clean-up
A TVO documentary mini-series premiering this coming Monday called Great Lakes Untamed will bring a “Planet Earth-style” production to the largest freshwater ecosystem on Earth. Read the full story by the Manitoulin Expositor.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-tv-series
Lockhart Chemical Company was the source of an oily spill that spread more than 20 miles downstream along Michigan’s Flint River earlier this year. Now the company has been ordered to stop using defective wastewater and stormwater tunnels on its property. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-lockhart-chemical
The cruise ship industry is booming on the Great Lakes, and port cities are embracing it as an economic driver, with cities like Duluth — which hadn’t hosted any cruise ships in nearly a decade — investing in infrastructures such as new docks and customs facilities to welcome them. Read the full story by Minnesota Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-cruise
Wild rice, or manoomin (good seed) in Ojibwe, is sacred to Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region but changing climate, invasive species and pollution are threatening the plant. Read the full story by WHEC-TV – Rochester, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220921-wild-rice
Emily Pavlovic, EPA Fellow in avian toxicology, holds a northern saw-whet owl. Submitted photo
Emily Pavlovic’s love of birds didn’t come to the fore until after college when she worked at an Audubon Center. She turned that love into her vocation and is now a fellow at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division in Duluth, Minnesota. Under mentorship from Matt Etterson, Pavlovic is looking at the impacts of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) on the reproductive success of birds in the Duluth area.
After Pavlovic earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Earlham College, she spent five years working as an environmental educator at various nature centers around the U.S. before earning her master’s degree.
Emily Pavlovic holds an American kestrel. Submitted photo
“I was able to work up-close and personal with the birds and really see the power they have on engaging the public,” Pavlovic said. “The birds capture people’s attention so that you can teach about other really important things like contaminants in the environment, or basic ecology.”
At the Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm in Dayton, Ohio, Pavlovic had the chance to work with an American kestrel. This small, fierce raptor became an educational bird after an accident broke its wing.
“This kestrel was spunky and loud. It didn’t always do the things I wanted it to do. It taught me a lot,” Pavlovic said. “Seeing peoples’ reactions when they saw this beautiful bird up-close was pretty incredible.”
Pavlovic’s passion for birds led her to the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth, a nature reserve along the Lake Superior coast that’s one of the premier bird-watching sites in fall as birds migrate south. For her master’s degree in integrated biosciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Pavlovic collected feathers from three different species of juvenile raptors that were caught in mist nets (red-tailed hawks, sharp-shinned hawks and northern saw-whet owls). Analyzing the feathers for hydrogen-stable isotopes allowed her to identify where geographically the birds had been born, providing more information for the ridge’s long-term dataset.
A nest box holds a black-capped chickadee nest and eggs. Submitted photo
For her six-month EPA avian toxicology fellowship, Pavlovic is studying tree swallows, black-capped chickadees and house wrens. “We’ve got a bunch of nest box locations around Duluth that we’re assessing for reproductive success and various metrics of how the birds are doing. Then we’re relating that to the amount of PFAS in the environment in those areas,” Pavlovic said.
The goal of this research is to create a toxicology model that scientists can use to predict, based on contamination concentrations in the environment, what the exposure risk would be to birds in that area.
The three-year U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Human Health and the Environment Research Fellows program fellowship program is a partnership between the EPA, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its Aquatic Sciences Center. The goal is to train the next generation of scientists in environmental and ecosystem health.
The post EPA Fellow Emily Pavlovic: Up-close and personal with birds first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/epa-fellow-emily-pavlovic-up-close-and-personal-with-birds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=epa-fellow-emily-pavlovic-up-close-and-personal-with-birds
As Michigan enters peak color season, local officials across the state have nominated the best roads for motorists to enjoy the changing foliage.
The post And the winners are…best Michigan roads for color first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.Great Lakes Echo
http://greatlakesecho.org/2022/09/21/and-the-winners-arebest-michigan-roads-for-color/
By Laura Gersony, Circle of Blue
The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television; and Michigan Radio, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; 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/2022/09/failed-algae-strategy-hurts-poor-communities/
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of widespread man-made chemicals that don’t break down in the environment or the human body and have been flagged as a major contaminant in sources of water across the country.
Keep up with PFAS-related developments in the Great Lakes area.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/pfas-news-roundup-forever-chemicals-concern-reduce-exposure/
Crystal M.C. Davis leads the Alliance’s policy and advocacy efforts related to Lake Erie and manages the organization’s Ohio office. She has played an integral role in the Alliance’s emerging work around drinking water and developing a people-centered model for protecting the Great Lakes.
As the Alliance’s Agricultural & Restoration Policy Director, Tom leads work in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio to achieve the Alliance’s agriculture and water goals and implements regional restoration initiatives. In addition, he serves as a convener, organizer, and relationship builder at all levels of government and stakeholders, emphasizing state-level agriculture water policy.
Five Years Later: Lessons From the Toledo Water Crisis – Alliance for the Great Lakes
Tom Zimnicki, Agricultural Pollution in the Great Lakes – Alliance for the Great Lakes
The post Crystal M.C. Davis and Tom Zimnicki – Harmful Algal Blooms and Downstream Costs appeared first on Alliance for the Great Lakes.
News - Alliance for the Great Lakes
News - Alliance for the Great Lakes
https://greatlakes.org/2022/09/crystal-m-c-davis-and-tom-zimnicki-harmful-algal-blooms-and-downstream-costs/
William Dichtel, a Northwestern University chemistry professor, developed two great lifelong loves — for swimming and science — that he has pursued with an abiding passion. He has found a way to marry his passions, using science to discover better ways to remove toxic contaminants such as PFAS from water. His research found that heating a combination of a widely used solvent and lye can destroy many types of common cancer-causing PFAS found in Teflon pans and many other products. Read the full story by WBEZ – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-foreverchemicals-solutions
The summer of 2021 brought an onslaught of heavy rain, flooding freeways, knocking out power and leaving standing water in basements in communities across metro Detroit. While those memories are fresh for many, NOAA warns an increase in extreme rainfall could be on the horizon. Read the full story by the Louisiana Illuminator.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-climatechange-michigan
Cruise the Great Lakes is having a record year, as passengers return by the thousands to Midwest cruise lines. In their first full season since the pandemic began, the group found an all-time high of nearly 150,000 passengers visiting Great Lakes ports, up 25 percent from 2019. Read the full story by the Holland Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-greatlakes-cruiseindustryrebounds
Members of the Binational Public Advisory Council (BPAC) for the St. Clair River Area of Concern (AOC) gathered Tuesday evening aboard the Duc D’Orleans to celebrate four milestones in the restoration of the St. Clair River – the re-designation of four environmental challenges to Not Impaired on the Canadian side of the St. Clair River. Read the full story by the Sydenham Current.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-remedialactionplan-stclairriverboatcruise
I Speak for the Fish is a new 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/2022/09/i-speak-for-the-fish-a-fishs-shelf-life/
A group of 31 registered volunteers spent two hours picking up litter from the Headlands Beach State Park along the shore of Lake Erie, in Mentor, OH on September 17. This Adopt-a-Beach program was organized by Alliance for the Great Lakes, a non-profit organization based out of Chicago. Read the full story by The News Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-headlandsbeachcleanup-adoptabeach
Water levels are again a conversation on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Instead of devastating floods, in 2022, the conversation is the exact opposite. A dry summer, with little precipitation, has led to low water levels on both the lake and river, which has caused frustration throughout these communities as recreational seasons are being cut short. Read the full story by WSYR-TV – Syracuse, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-lowwaterlevels-stlawrenceriver
The Saginaw Bay Sturgeon organization has been spearheading a push in recent years to reintroduce sturgeon into the Saginaw Bay Watershed as a part of a larger statewide, multi-year rehabilitation plan to develop self-sustaining sturgeon populations across the state. Before releasing the sturgeon, they will be fitted with a PIT tag that will help researchers track the sturgeon as they travel through the river system and into the Saginaw Bay. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-lakesturgeon-saginawbay
Officials in Yorkville, Illinois are getting ready for a hearing on the city’s use of Lake Michigan water. The hearing involves multiple states, agencies, and countries. It’s on October 21. The hearing is part of Yorkville’s ongoing project to switch to a new water source. Read the full story by WSPY News – Plano, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-yorkville-lakemiwaterhearing
A lighthouse in Kewaunee and a shipwreck near Marinette have both been added to the National and State Register of Historic Places, respectively. The Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse and the Sidney O. Neff Shipwreck have been recognized by the Wisconsin Historical Society and were named to the Register of Historic Places on Thursday, September 15. Read the full story by WFRV Local 5 – Green Bay, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-wilighthouse-shipwreck-historicplaces
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, located in Akwesasne, NY received more than $300,000 in federal funding from bipartisan legislation to prevent road salt pollution during the winter months. The pollution prevention funding will open up services and workshops to facilitate informed decision making in the utilization of road salt. Road salts have been a concern to Great Lakes researchers in recent years as they have been the cause of increasing salt levels in the Great Lakes and its tributaries. Read the full story by Watertown Daily Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220919-roadsaltpollutionprevention-stregismohawktribe
If you catch fish in a Great Lakes state on a river, pond, stream or reservoir and keep any to eat, most likely you’ll have to clean them yourself. But if you get close to one of the big lakes, especially Lake Erie, you could have a fish cleaner do it.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/fish-cleaning-houses/
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson joined more than 25 other mayors from across the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin for a discussion about safe water Thursday, Sept. 15. Read the full story by WITI-TV – Milwaukee, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-safe-water
A federal judge said Enbridge has been trespassing for years with its Line 5 pipeline on sovereign tribal lands in Wisconsin, and some believe elements of the ruling eventually may be felt in Michigan. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-line-5
Along the shores of Lake Erie, a Northeast Ohio grassroots effort is underway. A small non-profit called Eriesponsible is doing its part to help keep the lake free of marine debris and raising awareness to protect the health of Lake Erie for generations to come. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-eriesponsible
In 2021, an invasive aquatic plant Hydrocharis morsus-ranae, or European frogbit, was sighted in the Green Bay area. Now the invasive plant has been slowly spreading in northeast Wisconsin. Read the full story by the Eagle Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-efb
The U.S. Coast Guard Station in Kenosha, and two others in Wisconsin, could receive a big boost from proposed bipartisan legislation that would authorize as much as $40 million to reconstruct each facility, according to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, one of the bill’s authors. Read the full story by Kenosha News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-coast-guard-station
Supported by the Michigan Invasive Species program, the monthly, hourlong webinars are designed to keep people informed about available programs, current research and emerging issues in the state and the Great Lakes region. Read the full story by WCHT – Escanaba, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-webinars
A private Ontario transport operator promising 30-minute hovercraft service between Niagara Region and the Greater Toronto Area says it expects the first trips will be made in the Summer of 2023. Read the full story by Global News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-hovercraft
During a recent sampling trip in Rocky River, Ohio, a Cleveland Metroparks crew caught a pink salmon, a type of Pacific salmon that is native to Alaska. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-pink-salmon
As the focus on water safety continues to heat up, Ottawa County, Michigan’s, largest employer Gentex donated multiple digital displays to identify water and swimming conditions more prominently. Read the full story The Holland Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-water-safety
Earthjustice estimates 2 million tons of coal ash fill will still be left behind at Indiana’s Michigan City Power Generating Station even after the planned excavation. Read the full story by the Indianapolis Recorder.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220916-coal-ash
By Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, University of Michigan, The Conversation
is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
Powerful storms across the South, following flash floods in Dallas, Death Valley, St. Louis, Yellowstone and Appalachia, have left cities across the U.S.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/americas-summer-of-floods/
By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television; and Michigan Radio, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; 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/2022/09/year-of-water-quality-reckoning-national-imperative-impeded/
This article, first posted here, was republished with permission from Wisconsin Watch.
By Eva Tesfaye, Harvest Public Media
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/how-groups-monitor-toxic-algae-in-absence-state-testing/
Milwaukee will host three prominent Great Lakes summits this fall, drawing in 1,200 attendees and over $1.2 million projected in total estimated economic impact. The US Water Alliance’s One Water Summit, The Water Council’s Water Leaders Summit, and Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Conference will be heading to Milwaukee in the next few weeks. Read the full story by WTMJ-TV – Milwaukee, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-milwaukee-summits
Project partners including NOAA, the Great Lakes Commission and the Ohio Public Works Commission celebrated the completion of a 200-acre renaturalized area at the Valley View Area of Cascade Valley Metro Park in Ohio, located near the confluence of Cuyahoga and Little Cuyahoga rivers that flow into Lake Erie. Read the full story by the Akron Beacon Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-restoration
As a part of a water trail network called the Great Lakes Way, officials in Michigan and Canada signed a memorandum of understanding last week to connect pedestrian trails on either side of the border of a new bridge over the Detroit River. The bridge is scheduled to open by the end of 2024. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-international-path
Michigan legislators in 2021 approved a five-year, $25 million budget for the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to target farms in five 20,000-acre sub-watersheds in southeast Michigan for intensive analysis of nutrient runoff. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-nutrient-runoff
A resolution for flooding at Sheba’s Island causeway and general improvement and protection are the focus areas for the West Lake Community Association, located East of Toronto along Lake Ontario, to help sustaining a healthy lake and wetlands. Read the full story by County Live.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-community-wetland
Federal officials announced plans this week to list the tricolored bat as endangered, the second U.S. bat species recommended for the designation this year as a fungal disease ravages their populations. The northern long-eared and the tricolored are among a dozen North American bats afflicted by white-nose syndrome, which disrupts their crucial winter hibernation. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-bats
After 25 years of discussions, the Port of Oswego Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have agreed to fund and conduct a study to deepen Oswego Harbor in Lake Ontario. Once complete, Seawaymax Class freighters, the largest to travel the Great Lakes, U.S. Navy ships and Great Lakes cruise ships could use the Port of Oswego. Read the full story by Spectrum News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-harbor
It has been more than two years since the collapse of the Sanford and Edenville Dams in mid-Michigan, which drained the lakes the dams once held back. While the lakes have remained dry, the beds of the drained lakes are now teeming with vegetation. Read the full story by WNEM-TV – Sanford, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-dams
As Great Lakes cruising picks up, the town of Bayfield, Wisconsin, weighs the pros and cons of more ships and their impact on the town and the environment. Read the full story by The New York Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220914-cruising
