Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/water-quality/page/15/)
This tag is further segmented with tags for pharmaceuticals, plastics, sewage, algae
Short’s Brewing Company in Bellaire, Mich. released its American Double IPA “Superfluid” this spring. (Photo: Short’s Brewing Company)Short’s Brewing Co. in Bellaire, Mich. is using the creation of one of its popular summer beers to draw attention to an oil pipeline that the company fears could taint the waters of the Great Lakes.
The IJC recommends halving the phosphorus entering the Great Lakes from farms, sewers and lawns. The public trust is a blueprint for action.
Sales from specialized license plates in Ohio are resulting in $60,000 in grants to help clean up the state’s only Great Lake. A pair of Ohio’s plates raised money for the Lake Erie Protection Fund, which was established to finance research and implementation projects to protect and restore Lake Erie and its watershed. One plate featured the Lake Erie “life ring,” while the other showcased Marblehead Lighthouse, a state landmark north of Sandusky across the Sandusky Bay. The plates are sold for an additional $25, with $15 of that going to protecting Lake Erie. According to the Ohio Lake Erie Commission, the $60,000 raised will be spent on four separate projects totaling $15,000 each.
Ongoing concern over a proposed nuclear waste site very near Lake Huron took a new twist recently. A Canadian government review panel is exploring the viability of a new underground storage facility in Kincardine, Ontario. That’s about 111 miles across the water from Port Huron. The facility is almost a half mile underground but little more than a kilometer from the lake. It would hold low to intermediate radioactive waste.
By Kate Golden
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Six leading researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health are warning northeastern Wisconsin rural residents that over-application of manure at intensive livestock operations could cause them a host of health problems and damage the environment. The authors, all at the school’s Center for a Livable Future, cited dozens of studies, including one 2005 article suggesting that 71 percent of Wisconsin dairy farms generate more manure than needed by the cropland where it’s applied. A growing body of evidence has implicated the generation and management of manure from intensive livestock operations in the spread of infectious disease (including antibiotic-resistant strains), the introduction of microbial and chemical contaminants into ground and surface waters, impacts to air quality, and the wide range of adverse health, social, ecological and economic outcomes that result from these events, according to the March 27 letter. The letter was requested by Kewaunee CARES, a Kewaunee County water quality advocacy group that has criticized the intensity and oversight of large dairies in the area. The county is in northeastern Wisconsin, which has some of the densest livestock farming in the state.
More than a year since the beginning of the second half of Ontario’s 40th parliament session, environmental groups across the province are calling for adoption of key legislation to protect and improve the health of the Great Lakes.
Mr. Great Lakes (Jeff Kart) reports from Bay City, Michigan’s Delta College Q-90.1 FM. Mr. Great Lakes, March 21, 2014.
This week, Kart discusses two upcoming Saginaw Bay events about algae, an Earth Day essay contest and the Kirtland’s warbler population in Ogemaw County, Mich. Text at Mr. Great Lakes
At the end of each month Current State check in with Great Lakes commentator and journalist Gary Wilson for updates on environmental stories from around the basin. Today’s Great Lakes Month in Review, focuses on Governor Snyder’s environmental efforts and algae blooms.
Lined along Lake Huron’s Canadian coast stand beach cottages and vacationers… and green globs of algae.
Michigan received $152,000 in federal grants in 2014 to monitor the cleanliness of its lakes and beaches.
That’s more than $200,000 less than the state was allotted in 2013.