The Toledo Blade reports today that Ohio lawmakers could override the governor’s veto of a bill establishing the Great Lakes region’s weakest water protections.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich vetoed the hotly contested bill earlier this month.

House Speaker Bill Batchelder told the Blade that nothing’s off the table, and that he wasn’t sure how to move forward in drafting legislation that would comply with the 2008 regional compact to protect the Great Lakes.
Two former Ohio governors and environmental groups opposed the bill on grounds that it failed to …

Chicago teen Luis Vega organized a march to protest pollution from the Fisk Generation Station.

His story is part of a multi-media report documenting the impact of the nation’s dependency on coal power.

The report also shows how states swap air pollution and the connection between Wyoming’s coal mines and Chicago’s citizens.

Check out the Africa Echo link where we aggregate some of the environmental news produced in the Great Lakes region of Africa’s Rift Valley. Can news communities formed around similar natural features transcend continents?

Chicago is the most walkable of Great Lakes cities with a population of at least 75,000.
This is according to a ranking system by the website Walk Score. The top 10 Great Lakes contenders among cities of that size, with their national rank in parentheses, are:
Chicago, Ill. (11)
Minneapolis, Minn. (24)
Cicero, Ill. (36)
Pittsburgh, Pa. (50)
Rochester, N.Y. (59)
Syracuse, N.Y. (62)
St. Paul, Minn. (72)
Milwaukee, Wis. (82)
Buffalo, N.Y. (87)
Erie, Pa. (88)
Also on the site, you can search for your home or business address, get your neighborhood’s individual walk score and see how you match up …

Fifteen Great Lakes area educators worked with scientists for a week, deepening their understanding of the environment.

The hope is that the experience will ultimately benefit their students.

Today, a year after the oil spill on the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan, it still poses a major cleanup challenge, the Associated Press reports.
Enbridge Inc., the owner of the pipeline that caused the 800,000-gallon oil spill, has an Aug. 31 deadline given by the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the oil.
But the oil footprint is larger than anticipated and many pockets of oil may not have been identified.  Regulators told the Associated Press that this could mean the cleanup may continue for a couple of years.
Enbridge says more …

Attempts to limit state authority over ballast water rules fell flat last Friday, but the legal tug-of-war continues this week as lawmakers consider the nation’s environmental spending.
Last week’s decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit supported states in regulating water used in balancing shipping vessels more strongly than federal rules.
This week the U.S. House of Representatives votes on a spending bill that includes an amendment penalizing states with stronger protections by withholding Environmental Protection Agency funding of any kind.
That means states like New York, …

Seventeen state troopers who ordinarily patrol Michigan’s roads also serve underwater.

They recover bodies and crime weapons. But they also patrol shipwrecks, documenting features and artifacts.

New York has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to bar boaters from dumping treated sewage into Lake Ontario. Proposal affects even discharge of sewage treated with on-board devices.