Phosphorus pollution feeds cyanobacterial blooms in the western basin of Lake Erie. Ohio submitted a plan to reduce phosphorus runoff, but many believe it will fail.
As researchers learn more about the hazards of plastics and microplastics in the Great Lakes, it's becoming clear Canada and the U.S. need to cooperate in stopping the pollution.
Training exercises like the one that recently took place in Rogers City help companies that transport or store oil in the Great Lakes prepare for a worst-case scenario.
NOAA satellite images and a research vessel sampling Lake Erie water both found evidence of harmful algal blooms on July 5, a much earlier date than typical.
Great Lakes whitefish are in decline, in part because dams block their passage to rivers where they once spawned. Tribal scientists are looking to save a fish of economic and cultural importance.
Some call it prom night for amphibians: When warm rain falls in early spring, Michigan’s normally-elusive salamanders and other species gather at ephemeral wetlands to dance in the dark, looking for a mate.
Outdated federal water laws and chemicals that were approved for industry without assessing for risk leave Ann Arbor and other communities struggling to ward off water contaminants before they foul drinking supplies.
Climate change is already affecting the Great Lakes. One group is urging Michigan, other Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces to coordinate efforts to make the Great Lakes basin more resilient to those changes.
Democrats and Republicans, hunters, fishers and birding groups want Michigan to invest $30 million in federal funds for wetlands to help reduce algal blooms in Lake Erie and Saginaw Bay.
The seabird, which feasts on alewifes in the Great Lakes, is thought to be particularly susceptible to spreading disease because they nest closely together.
The Great Lakes News Collaborative asked state and national experts how Michigan could break the cycle of underfunding and poor decision-making that has left water systems across Michigan in sorry shape.
Towns across Michigan face increasingly desperate choices as they struggle to maintain their infrastructure – many of them with a shrinking number of taxpayers to foot the bill.
Septic systems are common around Elk Lake and many other lake communities. If they’re maintained, they usually manage to keep bacteria and viruses in check. But failing systems can allow contaminated water to seep into nearby bodies of water.
