Echo
WhadayaKnow? What percent of the world’s water is drinkable?
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This week Echo reporters asked the public and an expert what percent of the world’s water is drinkable.
Make your own guess before you launch this brief video.
Echo
Video: Tackling environmental education creatively
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What’s the best way to deliver environmental education?
Try getting students out of the classroom.
Echo
Farmers markets expand with demand for local produce
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The demand for fresh, local produce has boosted a statewide uptick in the number of Michigan farmers markets.
And a state grant program aims at ensuring low-income communities don’t miss out.
Echo
What is the best beer brewed with Great Lakes water?
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Outside Magazine recently released a list of the top 10 canned beers of 2012. The magazine claims these as the best of 100 brands sampled. Apparently they were sampled at once and by very few judges. How else to explain the impaired judgment resulting in a selection containing only two beers brewed in Great Lakes states: Sly Fox Pikeland Pils from Pottstown, Pa., and Sixpoint Resin Ale in Brooklyn, N.Y.
And those two aren’t even in the Great Lakes watershed. Sorry Outside.
Echo
Continued ice loss on the Great Lakes may cause widespread change in ecosystems
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Can lack of ice affect both the economy and ecology of the Great Lakes?
Getting a handle on that is difficult when studying one of the most dangerous times to be on them.
Echo
Timetable for mercury standards disputed by utility companies
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Environmental advocates urge legislators to support the federal mercury and air toxic standards, but the electric utility industry say that would create a huge burden.
Echo
Another college bans bottled water sales
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Chicago’s Loyola University became the latest university in the region to ban campus bottled water sales, the Chicago Sun Times recently reported. The paper said that a student group notes: “We consider the sale of bottled water on campus in conflict with the Jesuit tradition and Loyola’s mission ‘to be in service of humanity through learning, justice and faith.”
Great Lakes Echo recently wrote how campus bottled water bans – and the establishment of water bottle filling stations – appear to be increasing regionally and nationally. At the same time, bottled water manufacturers are pushing back, noting that bans restrict the freedom to choose an alternative to less healthy drinks that continue to be sold on campuses.
Echo
Photo Friday: Super mooning the Great Lakes
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Miss the super moon last Saturday? You know, that’s when the moon appeared 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than other full moons this year. That’s when it’s orbit brought it closest to Earth at about the same time it appeared its fullest. Super moons appear about once a year, according to NASA. This one got a lot of play on YouTube.
Nearshore
Pull down lake breakwalls to stop erosion, Michigan officials say
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Environmental experts are urging property owners to get rid of lakefront lawns and stone breakwalls in favor of a new approach to landscaping.