Echo

1 Asian carp turns up after fish kill

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – Dozens of boats combed the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal starting in the pre-dawn hours today, ultimately finding a lone Asian carp among tens of thousands of poisoned fish. After officials launched what’s believed to be the largest deliberate fish kill in state history Wednesday night, biologists sifted through the carnage at dump sites along the popular shipping canal near Romeoville. But by late this evening, they had identified just one 22-inch Asian carp, an invasive fish that officials say has the potential to devastate the region’s commercial fishing industry if  allowed to enter the Great Lakes. More

Echo

Environmentalists, shippers criticize ballast plan

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(MI) The Associated Press – A government plan to prevent foreign species carried in ship ballast tanks from invading seacoasts, the Great Lakes and inland waterways is riddled with loopholes and would take effect too slowly, environmentalists say. Shipping companies, meanwhile, contend the regulations proposed by the U.S. Coast Guard would make costly and unreasonable demands while adding to a confusing patchwork of federal and state requirements for handling ballast water. The Coast Guard is accepting public comments on the rules through Friday and could make changes before issuing a final version, said Cmdr. Tim Cummins of the 9th District Prevision Division in Cleveland. No deadline has been set for completing the regulations. More

Wildlife

More than $590,000 awarded for restoration in Great Lakes

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(MI) Petosky News-Review – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced $590,190 in federal funding for fish and wildlife restoration projects in the Great Lakes Basin. The projects will be matched by $309,949 in partner contributions and will focus on the rehabilitation of sustainable populations of native fish and wildlife and their habitats. More

Echo

Waukesha postpones Great Lakes water diversion application

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Mayor Larry Nelson has canceled a Dec. 8 public hearing and special Common Council meeting on the city’s proposed switch to Lake Michigan water. 

The meeting will be rescheduled in early January to give city staff more time to complete a draft application, officials said. Waukesha intends to seek the approval of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and each of the governors of the seven other Great Lakes states to buy Lake Michigan water. More

Echo

8 groups request crackdown on invasive species in Lake Superior

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(MN) Pioneer Press – Eight Minnesota environmental and conservation organizations are urging the U.S. Coast Guard to adopt tougher ballast-water standards for ships on the Great Lakes to stop the introduction and spread of harmful invasive aquatic species. In a letter to the Coast Guard this week, the groups said the first step of a proposed rule is too weak and takes too long to put into place. They said that it must be effective in killing even small organisms in the ships’ ballast water and that the deadlines should be moved up. More

Water

Highland Park project aims to curb sewage flow

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – A plan is under way in Highland Park to help keep at least a small amount of raw sewage out of Lake Michigan — the source of drinking water and recreation for millions of people across the region. In a project that will eventually cost millions of dollars, the North Shore Sanitary District recently approved $150,000 to design the replacement of a mile-long stretch of concrete pipe, three feet in diameter, from a sewage pumping station at Highland Park’s Rosewood Beach to the Clavey Road treatment plant, also in the city. More

Recreation

Some hardy souls around Lake Michigan brave the cold

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – Lake Michigan can be an angry beast in late autumn, when icy winds whip across its surface and thrashing waves lay siege to the receding shoreline. The same Chicago-area beaches that buzz with activity each summer become like a barren moonscape — inhospitable to all but the most peculiar of aquatic life: The Great Lakes surfer. More

Echo

Legislature OKs Michigan Tech lake research center

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – The state Legislature has given Michigan Technological University a go-ahead for its planned $25.3 million Great Lakes Research Center. The Legislature’s Joint Capital Outlay Committee decided Thursday to let the school seek construction bids. The center is planned for a waterfront site near Michigan Tech’s campus in Houghton. The state is to pay 74 percent of the cost and the university 26 percent. More

Water

Sewage work should be the No. 1 priority for the Great Lakes

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(MI) Bay City Times – To think we are receiving $475 million to help repair our precious Great Lakes, but not being able to use the money to clean up the sewage that is dumped into those same Great Lakes every time we get a heavy rain is ridiculous.I cannot believe in good conscience why this problem isn’t a No. 1 priority. I don’t care about the cost! More

Echo

One-man fight against pipeline proposal fades to background

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(MI) Flint Journal – The man fighting the plan to run a $600 water pipe from Lake Huron to Genesee County stands alone. Cheboygan County Administrator Michael Overton made that clear in a letter last month to Genesee County officials. Cheboygan County Drain Commissioner Dennis Lennox’s campaign against the water pipe to serve Genesee, Lapeer and Sanilac counties is a one-man band. And he’s dead wrong. More