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

Echo

Professors find clue to dead zone in lake

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(OH) Toledo Blade – For decades if not centuries, a portion of Lake Erie’s central basin has been so depleted of oxygen that it has not supported life. Two Bowling Green State University researchers believe they have uncovered cold-weather diatoms, or microscopic pieces, of algae that contribute to the lake’s infamous dead zone.  
The research that Michael McKay and George Bullerjahn have done into Aulacoseira islandica (pronounced All-LE-sa-SY-ruh Eye-LAND-icka) is not likely to solve the dead zone’s mystery. More

Echo

UWM water school at Greenfield Ave. site to cost $50 million

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – The headquarters for University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s new School of Freshwater Sciences would cost an estimated $50 million to develop at the university’s Great Lakes WATER Institute, according to a newly drafted proposal. That estimate is part of a preliminary construction spending proposal that UWM officials will soon submit to the UW-System Board of Regents. The proposal will undergo changes before it’s reviewed by the regents. The proposal to put the freshwater school at the institute, which overlooks the harbor at 600 E. Greenfield Ave., was termed a “place holder” by Tom Luljak, vice chancellor of university relations. More

Echo

Canada Announces Funding for Great Lakes Clean-Up Projects

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(ON) Benzinga – On behalf of Canada’s Environment Minister Jim Prentice, Jeff Watson, Member of Parliament for Essex, today announced $410,000 in funding from the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund for four projects to clean up the Detroit River Area of Concern. Thirty-seven projects throughout the Great Lakes are receiving $2.2 million in funding this year. “The Government of Canada is using the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund to support partnered projects to restore water quality in the Canadian Areas of Concern,” said M.P. Watson. “Locally, the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund is supporting projects like the LaSalle Riverfront Park Habitat Restoration. These types of projects represent real action to ensure that Canada’s communities and families can thrive in a healthy environment.”

Echo

Great Lakes: Protecting Michigan’s Treasure

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(MI) The Michigan News – Michigan is defined by the Great Lakes. Our two peninsulas border four of the five Great Lakes and we are
the only state completely within the Great Lakes watershed. As Attorney General, one of Mike Cox’s
primary environmental priorities has been protecting our Great Lakes. Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes, “great” because they contain approximately 20% of the Earth’s –
and 95% of the United States’ — fresh water. More than 40,000 square miles of Michigan’s surface area is
water.

Echo

Erie and Ottawa counties to benefit from lake funding

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(OH) Sandusky Register – Erie and Ottawa counties are slated to receive millions of dollars of new federal funds from a measure just signed by President Barack Obama that seeks to restore the health of the Great Lakes. Obama signed the $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative measure Oct. 30. More