The project on Detroit’s Oakman Boulevard will drain 64 acres to prevent flooding by installing permeable medians as much as 15 feet below the street surface. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201013-green-infrastructure
According to the Chamber of Marine Commerce, from April through the end of August, cargo volumes in the St. Lawrence Seaway, was down 8% compared to 2019’s figures. Read the full story by NPR.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201013-shipping-slowdown
More than 91,000 dams impede the passage of rivers all around the United States. Most dams have a lifespan of about 50 years, and many that exist in the United States were built long before the 1970s—including the Edenville Dam in Michigan, which failed earlier this year. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201013-aging-dams
The ongoing disaster striking the coastal communities of the Great Lakes has not captured national attention like hurricanes and wildfires in other parts of the country, but those communities are reeling from untold billions in damage and the prospect that climate change will make things worse in the years to come. Read the full story by Wisconsin Examiner.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201013-coastal-damages
By Brett Walton, 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/2020/10/utility-data-customer-water-debt-problems/
From lead pipes to PFAS, drinking water contamination is a major issue plaguing cities and towns all around the Great Lakes. Cleaning up contaminants and providing safe water to everyone is an ongoing public health struggle.
Keep up with drinking water-related developments in the Great Lakes area.
Click on the headline to read the full story:
Indiana:
The Environmental Protection Agency is set to install six groundwater monitoring wells to investigate the contaminated water plume beneath much of Kokomo.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/10/drinking-water-wisconsin-wells-septic-first-nations-lead-pipes/
Wisconsin Water Library
https://waterlibrary.aqua.wisc.edu/indigenous-peoples-day/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=indigenous-peoples-day
University of Wisconsin-Superior researchers are trying to figure out how to better regulate small invasive organisms that stow away in the ballast water of large vessels traversing the Great Lakes Basin. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-ballast-water
Community members, local officials and supporters celebrated the grand opening of a free water testing lab in Flint, Michigan, that fosters STEM education, job-skill training, and trust in the community amid the Flint water crisis. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-flint-water-testing
A new study reveals that other invasive species may be impacting invasive mussel populations in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Capital News Service.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-invasive-mussels
Record setting amounts of water flowed through some Michigan rivers this year on the way to Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-michigan-rivers
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula residents are waiting to see how much of the $500 million for water infrastructure upgrades announced by Michigan Gov. Whitmer last week will make it to the region. Read the full story by Your Daily Globe.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-indrastructure-investment
Nearly three dozen public health and environmental organizations are calling on Wisconsin state officials to require thousands of public water systems to test for hazardous chemicals known as PFAS. Read the full story by Kenosha News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-pfas-testing
A smell that some residents in Saginaw, Michigan, have noticed in their tap water is due to a seasonal turnover in the city’s water source out of Lake Huron. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-tap-water-odor
Lawmakers in Washington are again making bipartisan efforts to push for funding to protect the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Port Clinton News Herald.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-great-lakes-support
Lakefront erosion is not hurting property values for communities along Lake Michigan’s shoreline, where housing prices have been on the rise since months after the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the full story by the Post-Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-lake-michigan-property
Storm chasers and meteorologists observed a record number of waterspouts over the Great Lakes this month, according to the Toronto-based International Centre for Waterspout Research. Read the full story by Michigan Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201012-waterspouts
After nearly a century of generating hydroelectric power on the St. Regis River in upstate New York, the Hogansburg Dam came down in December 2016. Fish who could now swim freely along the river weren’t the only ones celebrating. The end of the dam also marked the first time a tribal nation led the decommissioning process for a federal dam.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/10/dams-great-lakes-aging-infrastructure/
As they traveled the globe filming the three-part “Age of Nature” documentary, the series producers knew foreboding stories and failed projects were not going to make it onto the screen.
Series Producer Verity White and her team were looking for segments — many about water — that would show successful efforts to restore natural environments and improve habitats for critters, plants and humans.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/10/global-good-news-age-of-nature-success-environmental-restoration/
Join Great Lakes Now‘s “Shipwrecks and ecosystems in the Great Lakes” watch party on Monday, Oct. 12, at 7 p.m. EST. A maritime archaeologist with NOAA’s Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and a benthic ecologist with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory will be participating in a Q&A.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/10/what-grows-shipwrecks-ecosystems-nuclear-testing-sites/
Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Brown (WIC009) Wisconsin Issued by the National Weather Service
https://alerts.weather.gov/cap/wwacapget.php?x=WI125F6A267E5C.SpecialWeatherStatement.125F6A276600WI.GRBSPSGRB.b285147c305bf465a56c0c98235c529b
Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Brown (WIC009) Wisconsin Issued by the National Weather Service
https://alerts.weather.gov/cap/wwacapget.php?x=WI125F6A267E5C.SpecialWeatherStatement.125F6A276600WI.GRBSPSGRB.c5e726e36637f3cd069a3a970fe21dab
Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Brown (WIC009) Wisconsin Issued by the National Weather Service
https://alerts.weather.gov/cap/wwacapget.php?x=WI125F6A267E5C.SpecialWeatherStatement.125F6A276600WI.GRBSPSGRB.3b77a733acfe35fc01f412b80021d336
Great Lakes Echo
http://greatlakesecho.org/2020/10/12/researchers-want-invasive-aquatic-critters-out-of-great-lakes-ballast-water/
Four dams were built along the Boardman River in Northwest Michigan to generate hydroelectric power for Traverse City.
But by 2004 they were no longer economically viable. A decision was made to remove three of the dams and renovate the last one in downtown Traverse City.
Now the removal of the dams has changed the nature of the river and allowed native fish to return.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/10/damming-decisions/
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet watched “The Age of Nature,” you might want to limit your clicks here.
That way when you’re viewing the stunning aerial footage of the Panama Canal and the Himalayas or getting alongside orcas, wolves and elephants, or hearing from fishermen, scientists and youth activists in the documentary, you’ll get to experience the full impact of seeing it all for the first time.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/10/mapping-age-of-nature-locations-pbs-documentary-great-lakes-sites/
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/2020/10/pfas-news-landfills-wisconsin-action-plan-congress/
By Brett Walton, 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/2020/10/house-democrats-cdc-halt-water-shutoffs-pandemic/
Recently, the Michigan Supreme Court struck down Governor Whitmer’s moratorium on water shutoffs and restoration of water services to residents. NOW is not the time to resume water shutoffs – we are heading into flu season during a pandemic and the CDC says washing hands frequently is the best prevention to spreading COVID-19.
COVID-19 has already put an unprecedented number of Michiganders out of work and with children learning remotely, we must ensure all families have access to running water in their homes for good individual and public health. The Henry Ford Global Health Initiative found that patients who live on blocks that experienced water shutoffs were 1.55 times more likely to be diagnosed with a water-associated illness, not to mention the mental health stress that comes along with a lack of running tap water.
No one should have to worry about how they will wash their hands and masks, cook their food, and get their drinking water. Please take action today by calling on and writing to your legislators to keep water on and restore water services to those still without running water in their homes.
Blog – Freshwater Future
https://freshwaterfuture.org/uncategorized/take-action-now-keep-tap-water-on-during-covid-19/
The Anishinaabe people lived along the Great Lakes for centuries before European explorers arrived, however the history of indigenous people is overlooked by many. Organizations in Michigan are working to include more details about the lives of Native Americans in exhibits, museums, and statewide historical markers. Read the full story by Upper Michigan’s Source.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-anishinaabe
The American shipping industry has kept itself safe on the Great Lakes during the pandemic, but the shippers are feeling the economic impact of the shutdown that caused declines in manufacturing output. Read the full story by Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-ore-down
A western Michigan woman honored by the federal government for her environmental activism is attributing her recent cancer diagnosis to toxic PFAS chemicals that polluted her community’s drinking water supply. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-pfas-activist
Sleeping Bear Dunes turns 50 this month and is a cornerstone of tourism in northern Michigan. But it took nearly a decade to establish the National Park site because of heated opposition from residents. Read the full story by Interlochen Public Radio.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-sleeping-bear
Western Lake Erie’s summer 2020 algal bloom is still present and visible from space. With fall temperatures dropping, the remaining toxic microcystin chemicals will soon deteriorate. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-tough-bugger
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management will host a free virtual webinar series to teach about watershed protection and restoration efforts within the Lake Michigan basin. Read the full story by the Indiana Environmental Reporter.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-idem
Researchers at Michigan Technological University have partnered with a Canadian shipping company to develop autonomous marine vessels to use for cargo shipping on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by State Scoop.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-boat-research
Temperamental fall weather and high lake levels threaten a beleaguered stretch of shoreline road in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, that has been closed due to erosion. Read the full story by The Community Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-lake-erie-autumn
An upstate New York couple is scrambling to protect their water supply after they were denied state funding to repair damages from record flooding on Lake Ontario in 2019. Read the full story by WWNY – TV – Watertown, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-ontario-flooding-dw
To make beaches safer, the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project confronts the issue of drowning on five fronts: gathering statistical data, education, support and advocacy for drowning victims and their families, lifeguard and service training and first responder training. Read the full story by the Petoskey News-Review.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-swimming
It’s just the beginning, but Saugeen Shores, Ontario, is taking its first crack at protecting part of its shoreline from erosion. Hardening the shoreline is happening up and down the Lake Huron coast, as record setting lake levels batter the water’s edge. Read the full story by CTV News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201009-saugeen
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2020
Flint, MI – On Friday, October 9th, 2020, The McKenzie Patrice Croom Flint Community Lab, part of the Flint Development Center, celebrated its grand opening with a live streamed virtual event featuring lab staff and students, partners, community leaders, and funders ending with a ceremonial ribbon cutting.
The Flint Community Lab — the first community-based laboratory of its kind in the world — provides Flint residents with a trusted resource for free water testing of lead and other pollutants. Through generous financial support from both philanthropic and private funders, the Flint Community Lab unifies residents around a common issue: the safety of water in their homes. The success of this project to date is due to the commitment of Flint Development Center and Freshwater Future along with the involvement from a host of dedicated partners. This innovative approach and collaborative community involvement has already received national recognition including the 2020 US Water Prize.
The project’s focus is providing residents with knowledge about the safety of their water, and resources to help people trust that their water is safe, as thousands of pipes have been replaced in the City of Flint and the system continues to improve. The lab will provide free water testing and resources in Flint to help residents navigate the myriad of information they see and hear about water quality, to ensure their families’ health. Shelly Sparks, Director of the Flint Development Center, hopes that “The community lab will provide an opportunity for Flint to be a model as an innovative approach for the community to take the lead to gather data, analyze, and find solutions to our future water issues.” With the lab now fully functional, teams of students and volunteers will take and analyze water samples, survey homeowners, and provide filter, fixture and plumbing education.
April 2014 marked the beginning of the Flint Water Crisis. The cameras may be gone from Flint, but the real truth is that for many still living there, the crisis isn’t over. Trust in the drinking water and government waned after the Flint water crisis, which resulted in roughly 140,000 people being exposed to lead contaminated drinking water between April 2014 and October 2015.
The importance of having a way for residents to access trusted information about the water quality in Flint became so evident that the next step was to create a permanent community lab located in a trusted facility. In fact, The Flint Community Lab is named in honor of McKenzie Patrice Croom, whose father Juwan Croom is a life-long Flint resident and the son of Sharon Reeves and Michael Harris, a founding partner of Flint Development Center. Mckenzie was born with seizures that were complicated by her exposure to Flint’s drinking water. Mckenzie was only two years old but so strong, full of life and a true fighter at heart. She represents the need for the community to know and trust that their families have safe drinking water in their homes. This coordinated vision for this community lab provides Flint residents a long-term trusted source for water tests, a place where residents can go to have their water tested for lead and other heavy metals at no cost.
While filters are being used to reduce lead in water and the system continues to heal, many residents still don’t have enough information to trust the water in their homes. Jill Ryan, Executive Director of Freshwater Future, notes that “Community leaders helped us realize that the key to developing trust was through a multigenerational approach including training and education for youth who could then pass that information along to adults in the process of testing homes for current lead levels.”
Residents will receive a personalized report with the results from their tap water and have the option to meet with lab staff to review the findings. The reports will emphasize the importance and need of using filters and filter maintenance as well as helping uncover needed pipe or fixture changes within residents’ homes. Ryan believes that this project’s ultimate goal is “having a lab that is based in Flint, operated by Flint residents, with the purpose of serving Flint residents that embraces the resilience of Flint residents.”
Staff at the Flint Community Lab aim to test tap water from every occupied household in Flint by the end of 2022. Testing will be free for the first three years. In addition to restoring trust, Sparks believes that the lab will also help drive prosperity on the northside of Flint. “Our idea is to allow the community to dream again and believe in a community that is safe,” Sparks said. “What we are doing here really brings more opportunities for our youth. It helps the kids to dream. Maybe they become a chemist or water advocate and then they become advocates for the city. That’s the dream for the whole city.”
Thank you to Project Funders: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Cedar Tree Foundation, CPI International, Consumers Energy, Freshwater Future, Crown Foundation, Hagerman Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Nalgene Water Fund, Ruth Mott Foundation, TCF Bank, and Donors to Patronicity/Online Fundraiser
Thank you to Project Partners: City of Flint, Flint Development Center, Freshwater Future, Genesee County Latino Hispanic Collaborative, Flint Neighborhoods United, University of Michigan Biological Station, University of Michigan Flint Bio-Chemistry Department
To view the virtual ribbon cutting video:
Flint Development Center’s Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/flintdc/videos/250196159741161/Freshwater
Future’s YouTube page – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD2Ee5J1e3E
View a virtual tour of Flint Community Lab – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6E6uVOSsE
For more information, please visit Flint Development Center website –http://www.flintdc.org/
Blog – Freshwater Future
https://freshwaterfuture.org/uncategorized/the-first-community-based-laboratory-of-its-kind-in-the-world-the-flint-community-lab-celebrates-grand-opening/
Fish and Wildlife Service News
Fish and Wildlife Service News
http://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ref=%0Acaution-advised-in-several-northern-wisconsin-counties-as-outdoor-users-&_ID=36787
Great Lakes Echo
http://greatlakesecho.org/2020/10/09/engaging-with-nature-and-just-getting-outside-help-in-the-age-of-covid-19/
Together, the five Great Lakes contain upwards of 6,000 shipwrecks. These vessels are scattered across the entire Great Lakes from the Thousand Islands on the eastern end of Lake Ontario to Duluth on the western end of Lake Superior and provide habitat for fish and other aquatic species. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-shipwrecks
The Trent Port Marina in Trenton, Ontario is using cutting-edge technology to filter plastic waste out of the water and stop more plastic from finding its way in. Read the full story by The Intelligencer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-plastics-cleanup
Researchers at the University of Windsor have been using an underwater robot to study harmful algal blooms and low oxygen levels in Lake Erie. Read the full story by CTV News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-uwindsor-robot
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials visited Cleveland, Ohio Wednesday announcing they will start the process to delist the Ashtabula River as an Area of Concern (AOC) “as final beneficial use impairment is removed.” Read the full story by WEWS-TV -Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-ashtabula-river
Both the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University are recipients of large federal grants announced this week to address the national rise of harmful algal blooms and the toxins they create which can endanger public health. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-lake-erie-algae
Northwestern Michigan College students aided in the multi-million dollar FishPass Project on Wednesday in Traverse City, MI. Scientists implanted radio trackers in some fish, and the students scanned the river to find them and monitor their movement. It will serve as baseline data before the systems installed. Read the full story by WWUP-Cadillac, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-fishpass
For more than a decade, dozens of agencies and millions of dollars in state funding have supported the Black River Watershed Initiative in New York, and stakeholders continue to push for environmental remediation in the mostly-forested north country drainage basin. Read the full story by Watertown Daily Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20201008-black-river
