Echo

Photo Friday: Re-reversing the Chicago River

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(Photos by Lloyd DeGrane, Alliance for the Great Lakes)

The course of the Chicago River, reversed over a century ago by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to prevent the flow of waste water into Lake Michigan, was re-reversed April 18 to alleviate flooding in the city in the wake of serious storm conditions, according to an Associated Press report. These photos show dark stormwater and untreated waste water flowing into the lighter waters of Lake Michigan, according to the Chicagoist, a popular news blog for the Chicago area. Echo has previously reported on the increasing frequency of urban flooding problems in Chicago and the Midwest.

Echo

Photo Friday: The Great Lakes from orbit

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The Great Lakes appear through the clouds in this photo taken from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. He posted it recently on his Twitter account  as part of a social media campaign to promote his team’s mission. Hadfield is the commander of Expedition 35, marking the first time a Canadian astronaut has been in command of the station, according to the Canadian Space Agency.

Water

Photo Friday: Thawing ice on Lake Michigan

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In this photograph from NASA’s Earth Science Photo of the Day, a January thaw caused this ice shelf on the Lake Michigan shoreline to collapse near Winnetka, Ill., according to photographer Neil Libby. As successive winter storms buffet the coast with strong winds and large waves, icy slush builds up on the newly-formed shore ice, creating ice shelves. The ice shelf pictured here stood 8 feet above the water.

Echo

Photo Friday: Snow moon over Lake Ontario

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According to photographer Rick Stankiewicz, February’s full moon is called the snow moon, signaling the deepest snows of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. On February 25, the moon rose over Lake Ontario’s Bay of Quinte, witnessed by Stankiewicz and his friends while ice fishing for walleye. This photo was contributed to Earth Science Picture of the Day, a service of NASA’s Earth Science Division and the Universities Space Research Association.

Echo

Photo Friday: Frozen lighthouses

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Tom Gill, an environmental photographer, has a soft spot for frozen lighthouses. The slideshow above showcases photos of the St. Joseph Pier Lighthouse and the South Haven South Pier Lighthouse, which become coated in ice after Lake Michigan waves crash and freeze. More can be found on Gill’s Flickr and blog. Gill’s icy Lake Michigan lighthouse photos have been published in the Huffington Post, Australia News Limited and the Daily Mail in Great Britain. “Only 4 more continents to go,” Gill joked.

Nearshore

Photo Friday: The beaches of the Indiana Dunes

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Although Kathleen Stachowski now resides in Montana, the Great Lakes, and Lake Michigan in particular, will always hold a special place in her heart. Born and raised in Michigan City, Ind. near Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Stachowski’s life has always been tied to the dunes and the lake. Her childhood was filled with family trips to the lake and the dunes, seeing it then as a place of both wonder and solace. “The dunes had a truly wild feel in those days and not many people went there,” she recalled.

Echo

Photo Friday: Hungarian Falls freezes over

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A February snowshoeing trek to lower Hungarian Falls, near the town of Hubbell in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, revealed the 50-foot cascade to be largely encased in ice. Water could be heard trickling beneath the frozen surface, running into the winter-diminished Dover Creek and out into nearby Torch Lake. Photos by Julie Dau.