The Great Lakes region is blessed with an abundance of water. But water quality, affordability, and aging water infrastructure are vulnerabilities that have been ignored for far too long. In this series, members of the Great Lakes News Collaborative, Michigan Radio, Bridge Michigan, Great Lakes Now, and Circle of Blue, explore what it might take to preserve and protect this precious resource.
This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
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It's "common knowledge" that Great Lakes recreational fishing is a $7 billion industry. But that comes from a report released nearly two decades ago. A new report has a substantially lower number. -
Tribes and environmental groups are challenging the Michigan Public Service Commission's decision to grant a permit to tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac for Line 5. -
According to the Annual Report of the Great Lakes Regional Water Use Database, 35.4 billion gallons of water per day were withdrawn from the Great Lakes basin in 2023. -
The State of the Great Lakes report includes a number of accomplishments and jobs still ahead for improving the environment and the well-being of the people who drink, fish, and swim in the waters. -
A federal district judge has approved the Ohio EPA's request to be added as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging that the Ohio EPA and the U.S. EPA devised a defective program to control phosphorus flowing into Lake Erie, a chief cause of harmful cyanobacterial blooms in the Great Lake. -
In June 2022, approximately 15,000 gallons of an oily mix of chemicals was discovered seeping into the river from Lockhart Chemical's facility. -
Invasive sea lamprey damage or kill Great Lakes fish. The COVID pandemic reduced the ability to implement population control efforts. Now sea lamprey populations are higher. -
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is investigating a 69,000 gallon oil spill from Enbridge Line 6, about 60 miles west of Milwaukee. -
Fifty years ago, on December 16, 1974, Ford clinched a public health victory when he signed a bill that joined the pantheon of federal environmental protection laws enacted that decade.Today, the country still reaps the benefits from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Most Americans are provided high-quality water from their taps. -
Drainage systems carry away excess water, but they also take fertilizers that can fuel harmful algal blooms. Researchers, companies, and farmers are deploying systems that can control that flow.
