Lake Erie’s 2024 walleye hatch is being characterized as “low,” meaning that in two years, when the current crop grows to legal keeper size of 15 inches, something fewer than 10 million will be added. The most recent hatch and the only other rated low during the past 10 years happened in 2016. Read the full story by The Columbus Dispatch.
Michigan’s freshwater sand dunes make up the largest collection of freshwater dunes on the planet. A pair of West Michigan lawmakers seek to solve the problem of vague legal protections with planned legislation to protect the state’s most sensitive dunes, or those that were designated as “critical dunes” in 1989. Read the full story by Great Lakes Echo.
Huron Pines, a Northeast Lower Michigan organization, has reached a landmark $1 million fundraising goal as part of its Community-Driven Conservation fundraising campaign marking the organization’s 50th anniversary. Its funds will support public recreation opportunities, protect wild lands, and improve water quality. Read the full story by the Oscoda Press.
A complaint filed by a Michigan state employee with the Michigan Attorney General’s office Thursday alleges that state regulators have failed to stop chemical giant BASF from releasing toxic chemicals into the Detroit River from its Wyandotte facility over several decades. Read the full story by Planet Detroit.
According to a recent Canadian government study, the average water temperature of the St. Lawrence River is at a record high. At measurements of 300 meters deep, in 2022, the temperatures exceeded 44.6 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time ever. Read the full story by Spectrum News 1.
The University of Michigan recently received nearly $200,000 in state funding to figure out ways to make cargo shipping, recreational boating, commercial fishing, ports and ferries more sustainable. The project’s goals will be in line with the state’s MI Healthy Climate Plan that sets targets to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Read the full story by WCMU – Mount Pleasant, MI.
The wreck of the James R. Bentley, a 170-foot-long schooner, has sat 165 feet beneath the surface of Lake Huron since 1878. Within its hold was an unlikely treasure. A group of divers sponsored by a Northern Michigan distilling company aimed to retrieve a few scoops of 145-year-old rye seeds aboard the ship. Read the full story by The New York Times.
The City of Lorain, Ohio, plans to invest over $15 million in revitalizing its Lake Erie lakefront on the eastern shore of the Black River, with hopes of creating a park, improved public boat ramp and space for mixed-use development. Read the full story by The Chronicle-Telegram.
The phosphorus load, the nutrient that feeds harmful algae, into western Lake Erie is trending downward, but the 40% reduction target has yet to be met consistently. Read the full story by The Associated Press.
Ohio State Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson has been elected by the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus to represent Ohio on its executive committee for the next two years. Read the full story by The Toledo Blade.
Sea lampreys are the newest residents at Michigan’s Cranbrook Institute of Science. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission provided the sea lampreys along with an enclosure and tank fittings for the exhibit which will allow guests to get up close to the invasive species. Read the full story by the Birmingham-Bloomfield Eagle.
The F.T. Barney, a two-masted schooner, collided with another ship and sank within minutes on Oct. 23, 1868, off the shore of Presque Isle, Michigan, in Lake Huron. Today it’s one of the best-preserved shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by MLive.