Governor Gretchen Whitmer had pledged to crack down on bottled water companies taking water at the same time Flint, Michigan, faced a water crisis. Six years later and in her second term, little has changed. Read the full story by ProPublica.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-bottled-water
Scientists at University of Toledo’s (UToledo) Lake Erie Center have studied lake ecology for years, but after the 2014 water crisis, the center has added new goals for water safety: protecting the water supply and understanding the toxins harmful algae produce. Read the full story by WTOL-TV – Toledo, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-utoledo-science
Fish fly season has begun, bringing thousands, if not millions, of the winged insects to swarm the backyards, screen doors and car windows of metro Detroiters. Considered by many to be a messy inconvenience, the mayfly swarms are an indicator of nearby freshwater ecosystems’ health. Read the full story by The Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-fish-flies
Global warming is fueling the spread of the nonnative peach blossom jellyfish in the Great Lakes region. Researchers urge the public to submit sightings to various online databases so that their changing distribution can be understood. Read the full story by The Mining Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-invasive-jellyfish
The Clyde S. VanEnkevort, an integrated tug and barge, spilled red dye diesel into Lake Superior in Silver Bay, Minnesota, on May 29. The cleanup of nearly 400 gallons of fuel is complete. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-diesel-cleaned
Health officials recently closed nine Michigan beaches due to high E. coli levels. Of these, eight beaches are back open and four additional beaches are either closed or under contamination advisories. Swimmers should stay out of water infested with high levels of E. coli or risk getting sick. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-ecoli-levels
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife assessment crew will conduct a sea lamprey assessment project at the Long Lake outlet in Alpena County, Michigan, this month. The study will estimate the abundance of sea lampreys and determine if there is a need for population control operations. Read the full story by The Alpena News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240607-lamprey-study
By Izzy Ross, Interlochen Public Radio
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with IPR and Grist, a nonprofit independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
Laurie Stanek shovels hay in front of a group of young, black and white Holstein cows.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2024/06/none-of-us-saw-this-coming-michigan-confronts-bird-flu-in-cows/
By Anna Clark, photography by Sarahbeth Maney
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
When Gretchen Whitmer campaigned for Michigan governor in 2018, she took aim at Michigan’s bottled water industry — and the state policy that gave it unfettered access to free water.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2024/06/michigan-bottlers-still-get-free-water-despite-governors-tough-talk/
Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition
Contact: Lindsey Bacigal, BacigalL@nwf.org, (734) 887-7113
Jordan Lubetkin, Lubetkin@nwf.org, (734) 904-1589
ANN ARBOR, MICH. (June 6, 2024)—A recent audit by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General found that Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grants supported the EPA’s program goals for the Great Lakes, overall, but could benefit from improved monitoring and reporting.
The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition supports continued auditing of federal programs, as they are essential to continue to improve successful programs like the GLRI. Overall, the report found no gross financial mismanagement, rather, recommendations primarily focused on issues with reporting and training structures. These are problems across government programs due to insufficient funding for staff capacity and training, further showcasing the need for continued - and increased - funding for core functions of federal programs like the GLRI.
The report also emphasized the need for EPA to better track and report how projects help contribute to meeting the GLRI’s environmental justice goals. The Coalition, along with other organizations in the region, has been advocating for a stronger emphasis on environmental injustice within the GLRI Action Plans, most recently within the drafting of Action Plan IV, which is set to come out this fall.
“The report affirms that the EPA is running a successful program. Like with anything, it can do better,” said Laura Rubin, director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. “Over the last several years, the EPA has committed itself to targeting the region’s biggest environmental challenges and prioritizing areas hit hardest by pollution. We are glad to see this reflected in the recently released draft of the Great Lakes Action Plan IV, but we need to do more. We will keep advocating for EPA and the other federal agencies to make a strong program even stronger so that it can help the people and communities most impacted by environmental harm.”
Since 2004, the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition has been harnessing the collective power of more than 180 groups representing millions of people, whose common goal is to restore and protect the Great Lakes. Learn more at HealthyLakes.org or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads @HealthyLakes.
Latest Updates - Healthy Lakes
Latest Updates - Healthy Lakes
https://www.healthylakes.org/latest-updates/great-lakes-restoration-initiative-grants-documenting-continued-improvements
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.
A controversial plan to build a 200-acre retail development along the Indianapolis border with Greenwood is on hold after a state agency denied the developer’s permit application.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2024/06/indiana-attorney-general-fights-epa-rule-that-would-reduce-pollution-indys-west-side/
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.d136e33d904625dc333f298dca990585e602ddde.001.1.cap
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.947361886fa306755eade3af62c1ef82cc19b1d2.001.1.cap
By Fatima Syed, The Narwhal
Rania Hamza calls it “a coincidence” that an engineer, a biologist and a lawyer at the same Toronto university were independently worrying about the harmful substances and chemicals being flushed down Ontario’s toilets. Three years ago, after figuring out they were all interested in the same thing, the unlikely trio came together to highlight a major gap in policy.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2024/06/drugs-microplastics-and-forever-chemicals-new-contaminants-emerge-in-the-great-lakes/
More than 31,000 Atlantic salmon raised in a Michigan fish hatchery had to be killed after failing to recover from a bacterial kidney disease, officials said Tuesday. The unhealthy fish would have posed a risk to other fish if they had been released into Michigan waters. Read the full story by the Associated Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-slamon-disease
Scientists studying unregulated “emerging contaminants” say Ontario and the federal government need a coordinated plan to protect our water and health. Read the full story by The Narwhal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-drug-microplastics-pfas
The federal government’s premiere Great Lakes restoration program, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, has improved the health of rivers and lakes across the region, but has sometimes overlooked environmental justice goals, according to a new audit from a federal watchdog. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-glri-audit
This year’s Michigan Great Lakes and Fresh Water Week, which will take place June 1 – June 9, will focus on events and resources related to physical, mental, and spiritual wellness as a result of connecting with water, as well as continuing to dive into enjoyment, recreation, appreciation, stewardship, and protection of the Great Lakes, their environment, and their communities. Read the full story by WHMI – Howell, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-fresh-water-week
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.
It was mid-morning on a beautiful early May day. It was clear and sunny and the white puffy clouds were a perfect contrast to the pale blue waters of the lower Detroit River.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2024/06/great-lakes-moment-birds-of-a-feather-flock-together/
Researchers at the University of Michigan have received a $6.5 million grant to serve as a hub for studies investigating how climate change is impact on the harmful algal blooms on the Great Lakes and the overall impact on human health. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-algal-blooms
Health officials closed seven Michigan beaches on Friday after water testing showed high levels of E. coli. Read the full story by Bridge Michigan.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-beach-closures
In Ohio, a city of Avon Lake council member presented at a recent meeting regarding stormwater runoff and allegations of heavy metals leaking into Lake Erie from the ongoing demolition of the Avon Lake Power Plant. Read the full story by the Sun Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-avon-lake-power-plant
On Tuesday, hundreds of Wisconsin residents congregated for a multi-session public hearing on the controversial Enbridge Line 5 pipeline project. The hearing focused on the proposed construction of a new segment of the pipeline, some 40 miles of which would be constructed around and upstream of the Bad River Reservation. Read the full story by the Wisconsin Examiner.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-line-5
Beaver Island, a remote island off the coast of west Michigan, could become the testing ground for a new energy prototype that harnesses Lake Michigan’s tides. Read the full story by WJBK-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-wave-energy
1.6 million Wisconsin residents get their drinking water from Lake Michigan or Lake Superior, so why are we not doing more to protect this freshwater resource from continuous PFAS contamination? Read the full story by The Capital Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240605-pfas
A group surveys a site along the East River in Green Bay that was hardest hit by flooding in 2019. Photo: Lamont Smith, The Nature Conservancy
Since 2020, the East River Collaborative has demonstrated that it takes a village—and coordination between municipalities, state and federal government, nonprofits and universities—to improve water quality and flood resilience at the watershed level.
“It’s very challenging for municipalities to work across boundaries with other municipalities,” said Julia Noordyk, water quality and coastal communities outreach specialist with Wisconsin Sea Grant. Noordyk works alongside partners at The Nature Conservancy and NEW Water (the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District) on a core team that provides coordination and technical assistance to communities in the East River watershed.
“Every community is extremely different, and we’re not there to tell them what to do,” said Noordyk. Municipalities in the watershed span the rural-urban spectrum and vary in population, budget size and capacity.
“We’re there to listen and to figure out how to help them achieve flood resiliency based on what their community’s goals are.”
The 40-mile-long East River spans three counties in northeastern Wisconsin—Calumet, Manitowoc and Brown—and passes through agricultural, suburban and urban landscapes before it meets the Fox River and empties into the Bay of Green Bay. Historic flooding in March 2019 resulted in 50 houses being condemned and spurred the creation of the East River Collaborative the following year.
Since that time, the collaborative has worked with communities to identify shared goals across the watershed and developed maps and models to visualize flooding impacts. Now, with a new wave of grant funding, the collaborative is moving to the next phase: developing an implementation plan to identify and prioritize new projects.
Volunteers replace turf grass with native plants along the East River in Ledgeview. Photo credit: Stephanie Schlag, town of Ledgeview
To help communities make these decisions, the East River Collaborative team is building a new tool to evaluate how well different nature-based solutions capture, slow and clean stormwater on the landscape. Nature-based solutions include practices like planting native plants, using rain barrels, building agricultural runoff storage systems and stabilizing streambanks.
Even though the tool is still in the planning stages, communities aren’t waiting to get local projects off the ground.
At the fourth annual East River Collaborative Winter Forum in February, partners gathered virtually to share their work restoring wetlands, removing invasive species, planting pollinator plants and designing canoe/kayak launches for the East River water trail—among many other projects.
“[The implementation plan] has really been a catalyst for other communities to think about this and start moving forward on resiliency themselves,” said Noordyk.
Another goal of the implementation phase is to build relationships with underserved residents who are likely to experience flooding and need the most support to recover from it due to factors like income, language and age.
A federal grant from NOAA Digital Coast will allow partners to connect with and learn from other municipalities that have worked with underserved communities on similar projects. The team is also pursuing funding for a survey that will gather residents’ feedback on strategies to prepare for and reduce flooding.
Adam Bechle, Wisconsin Sea Grant coastal engineering specialist and member of the East River Collaborative core team, is particularly excited to work with partners on establishing a flood warning system for the river.
“We worked with the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Weather Service and other partners to figure out what needs to happen so that the Weather Service can start putting together a forecast model,” said Bechle.
Both he and Noordyk said it’s been encouraging to see communities’ sustained interest in working together on these issues, even when flooding isn’t an imminent threat.
“We still have the same number of people showing up to meetings as when we kicked off,” said Bechle.
The East River Collaborative has been funded by the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, The Fund for Lake Michigan and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. To learn more, visit the East River Collaborative’s website.
The post Northeastern Wisconsin communities build flood resilience at the local and watershed level first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/northeastern-wisconsin-communities-build-flood-resilience-at-the-local-and-watershed-level/
Application deadline: June 30, 2024 | Download PDF
The Great Lakes Commission (GLC) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) are seeking an experienced ecologist with conservation and restoration expertise for a shared position between the two agencies. This position will work under a joint GLC and USGS GLSC team to advance specific outcomes in GLC’s Action Plan for a Resilient Great Lakes Basin (Action Plan) and related efforts within GLSC’s Restoration and Conservation (ReCon) Science Branch. Resilience is a priority for the GLC and a key goal of its strategic plan. The GLC and its partners developed the Action Plan to provide a foundation for regional coordination around climate resilience. This position is designed to support coastal ecosystem resiliency efforts and foster the development of strategic tools and practical on-the-ground actions. The work will involve close coordination with a variety of federal, state, and university partners with vested interest in these topics.
The ecologist will primarily be responsible for developing a science-based framework for understanding how to build healthy and resilient coastal ecosystems that can adapt to changing conditions and climate-related stressors. This work will give special attention to elucidating economic, ecological, and social return on investment of restoration and conservation activities within nearshore and coastal ecosystems; providing rationale for when and where to use nature-based solutions to accomplish climate resilience; valuing ecosystem services; and/or bridging with indigenous knowledge systems where appropriate. [65%]
Other responsibilities include:
Ideal candidates will have at least a Master of Science degree in a related field and four or more years applied academic or professional experience addressing climate related scientific issues. Additional qualifications include:
This is a full-time, two-year term position. The salary for this position is $70,000. Benefits include paid time off, flexible schedule, and medical, dental, and vision insurance. Desired start date: August 1, 2024.
This position is located at the USGS GLSC Lake Michigan Ecological Research Station (LMERS) in Chesterton, Indiana. LMERS is located within, and shares a close relationship with, the Indiana Dunes National Park. Some telework may be considered. This position requires periodic travel between Chesterton, Indiana, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, and occasional travel to meetings and workshops around the Great Lakes region.
Applicants must submit a cover letter and resume stating their interest in and qualifications for the position in a single PDF emailed to vacancy@glc.org. Please use the subject line “Ecologist.” All required items must be provided for an application to receive consideration. No phone calls, please.
The Great Lakes Commission is a binational government agency established in 1955 to protect the Great Lakes and the economies and ecosystems they support. Its membership includes leaders from the eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces in the Great Lakes basin. The GLC recommends policies and practices to balance the use, development, and conservation of the water resources of the Great Lakes and brings the region together to work on issues that no single community, state, province, or nation can tackle alone. Learn more at www.glc.org.
The USGS Great Lakes Science Center exists to provide scientific information for restoring, enhancing, managing and protecting living resources and their habitats in the Great Lakes region. The GLSC is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and has biological stations and research vessels located across the Great Lakes basin. The Restoration and Conservation Science Branch maintains scientific expertise in coastal wetland restoration; wetland and terrestrial plant ecology; invasive species biology and adaptive management approaches; landscape ecology, assessment, and conservation design; microbiological processes and eDNA; terrestrial coastal migration; and harmful and nuisance algal blooms.
Equal Opportunity Employer
The Great Lakes Commission strives to create an inclusive, diverse and non-discriminatory workplace. The Great Lakes Commission is an equal opportunity employer; the Great Lakes Commission complies with applicable federal, state and local laws prohibiting discrimination. It is Great Lakes Commission policy that no person shall be discriminated against, as an employee or applicant for employment, because of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, marital status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
The United States government does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service or other non-merit factor.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/news/position-available-ecologist-2024
In an innovative approach to addressing uranium mining's impact in the Grand Canyon region, the U.S. Geological Survey has released a visually stunning fact sheet that combines the power of art and science.
Upper Midwest Water Science Center
Upper Midwest Water Science Center
https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/art-illuminates-grand-canyon-exploring-environmental-puzzle?utm_source=comms&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news
For Madison’s Jane Elder, the timing was optimal when she launched a career in environmental activism. She was coming of age and interested in the environment in the early 1970s. At the same time, interest in the environment was “blossoming” as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established and the Clean Water Act became federal law.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2024/06/wisconsins-jane-elder-chronicles-personal-and-professional-great-lakes-journey-in-new-book/
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.3f4d1c9eb5fc1c7d5bc422003c3d6e1ccff006f6.001.1.cap
The United States Coast Guard says hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel spilled into Lake Superior on Wednesday morning, May 29. The Coast Guard estimates the quantity of the spill to be around 300 gallons, and it is now contained. The clean-up effort is still in effect as of May 30, and it’s unclear how long it will take. Read the full story by WCCO-TV – Minneapolis, MN.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-oil-spill
Within the Great Lakes watershed there are 23 nuclear power plants, four sites for mining uranium, six for uranium processing and 12 places where nuclear waste is stored. An interactive map shows all the nuclear power operations within the Great Lakes watershed. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-nuclear-sites
A piping plover egg has been spotted at Montrose Beach in Chicago and could hatch within the next month. The egg is a culmination of yearslong efforts by nature groups to boost the Great Lakes piping plover population, which has been listed as federally endangered since 1986. Read the full story by WTTW-TV – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-plover-egg-spotting
In 2019, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine started a program called H2Ohio to encourage farmers to change the way they manage farm runoff to slow down the entry of phosphates into the Maumee River watershed. Currently, 2,600 producers have enrolled in the H2Ohio program, covering 1.8 million farm acres working to prevent heavy rain from washing out fertilizer and soil. Read the full story by WTOL-TV – Toledo, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-nutrient-pollution-program
Michigan’s Great Lakes and Fresh Water Week is back, running from June 1 to June 9 to celebrate the connection between water and wellness in the state. Free fishing weekend will take place from June 8 to June 9, and the Library of the Great Lakes is offering two free books through their inaugural Great Lakes, Great Read program. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-freshwater-week
The city of Highland Park, Michigan, has been grappling with a water debt crisis for years, owing millions of dollars to the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA). In October 2023, a tentative deal was reached between GLWA and Highland Park to end the dispute, but the agreement is still unsettled and needs approval from all parties involved. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-water-debt
Great Lakes Tribes are reviving the population of wild rice, or manoomin, an ecologically important wetland species, after two centuries of decline. Today, rising temperatures threaten the rice’s future because the seeds are supposed to grow while submerged in snow and ice, but the lack of snow coverage has made that difficult. Read the full story by The Cool Down.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-manoomin-restoration
In Oneida County, Wisconsin, Crescent Lake has an adequate adult population of walleye, but stakeholders are concerned about the lack of juvenile fish. While reproduction typically fluctuates, with a strong generation every three to four years, reproduction from those adult walleyes within the lake hasn’t been recorded for the last six years. Read the full story by WXPR – Rhinelander, WI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-walleye-reproduction
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 2025, open water swimmers will have an opportunity to participate in a 17-stage, 411-mile relay swim from Lake Superior, where the shipwreck lies, to Detroit, the ship’s intended destination. Read the full story by WSTM-TV – Syracuse, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240603-shipwreck-journey
A path to a beach on northern Lake Michigan. Image credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant
With the unusually warm winter this year, swimsuit season might be approaching earlier than previous ones. With recreational beach season comes the scientific testing to ensure beaches are safe for the public. An estimated 8 million people visit Great Lakes beaches every year. Unfortunately, because traditional testing methods take 18-24 hours to process, information used to evaluate water quality and communicate health risks is generally a day old, meaning swimmers might be recreating when conditions aren’t safe. On the other hand, swimmers could be kept out of the water at times when no problems exist.
An analysis published in 2014* determined that nearly one in five decisions to post or remove swim advisories were made in error in the Great Lakes (between 2008 and 2010), including nearly 3,000 unnecessary advisories/closures and at least 4,500 missed advisories or closures.
A free Windows software developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named Virtual Beach addresses these shortcomings by providing beach managers with timely and cost-effective alternatives to traditional monitoring. It can help them to decide whether to issue (or lift) swim advisories/closures on a given day.
By using the software to build a model, users can predict water quality conditions at any time, on both sampled and non-sampled beaches that are monitored on the Great Lakes Coasts.
With a grant from the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program, Wisconsin Sea Grant has updated video tutorials that accompany six training modules for the Virtual Beach software and created a training course that can be completed at any time via the Canvas platform. Beach managers can use it to familiarize themselves with the software.
“While our Virtual Beach training modules have been available for several years, the decommissioning of the data service EnDDaT limited their usability. Our new course explains how to collect the data needed to build a Virtual Beach model without EnDDaT and allows beach managers to go through Virtual Beach training on their own time,” said Natalie Chin, Wisconsin Sea Grant’s climate and tourism outreach specialist.
Chin worked with Madeline Magee with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Casey Garhart with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension’s Instructional Design Unit to develop training materials. If you are interested in completing Virtual Beach training, please contact Natalie at nchin5@wisc.edu.
The Virtual Beach software was developed by the U.S. EPA’s Ecosystem Research Division, in partnership with the USGS Wisconsin Water Science Center, the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources and Wisconsin Sea Grant.
* Expanded Beach “Nowcast” Modeling Across Wisconsin, Adam Mednick and Dreux Watermolen, Bureau of Science Services, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, August 2014.
The post Checking beach health virtually first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/checking-beach-health-virtually/
In case you missed it, here are highlights from the Upper Midwest Water Science Center's social media channels from March 1 - May 31, 2024. Follow us on social media, linked below!
Wisconsin
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/upper-midwest-water-science-center/news/upper-midwest-water-science-center-spring-2024?utm_source=comms&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news
“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/2024/05/nibi-chronicles-krishnas-quest-for-ticks/
Below are all products released by the Upper Midwest Water Science Center from March 1 through May 31, 2024.
Wisconsin
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/upper-midwest-water-science-center/news/upper-midwest-water-science-center-products-5?utm_source=comms&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has designated a National Estuarine Research Reserve bordering Green Bay on Lake Michigan. It is the 31st national site along the Great Lakes, coastal states, and territories. Read the full story by Public News Service.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-green-bay
A cross-border collaboration between stakeholders on both sides of the St. Mary’s River aims to further protect the Great Lakes by bolstering research into oil spills and their impacts upon freshwater environments. Read the full story by Soo Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-oil-spills
3rd Coast Cruising, a sailing academy, has helped hundreds of Chicagoans, many over the age of 50, discover new adventures on the lake. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-sailing-academy
A new study by researchers at the University of Indiana has broken down how PFAS circulates through the Great Lakes and shows that the so-called forever chemicals are building up in Lake Michigan. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-pfas-study
Before you head out, check this list of Michigan beaches closed or under contamination advisories for water quality that’s unsafe or questionable for human contact. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-michigan-beaches
Both state and federal organizations are working to keep Lake Erie and surrounding streams healthy, but an invasive species called the sea lamprey threatens local ecosystems. Many groups are involved in making sure sea lampreys are held in check and they’re bringing in more measures to combat them in west Erie County, Pennsylvania. Read the full story by WJET-TV – Erie, PA.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-invasive-species
Yellow perch used to be a common catch in Saginaw Bay and people would come to Michigan’s Thumb from all over to fish for them. Now, the population is dwindling and the DNR is working to boost their numbers. Read the full story by the Midland Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20240531-perch-numbers
