Lake Michigan

Environmentalists want Arcadia Bluffs to remove golf balls from Lake Michigan

By • Jul 24, 2019
Wikimedia Commons

Environmentalists are calling for Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club to remove golf balls from Lake Michigan. Arcadia Bluffs is a popular course north of Manistee.

States to foot portion of $830 million to keep Asian Carp out of Great Lakes

By Ben Thorp • Jul 3, 2019
KATE GARDINER / FLICKR - HTTP://BIT.LY/1RFRZRK

Michigan lawmakers visited Illinois on Monday to learn more about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to stop Asian Carp from reaching Lake Michigan.

Points North, Ep. 19: High water

By • Jun 27, 2019
Dan Wanschura / Interlochen Public Radio

This week on Points North, the water is so high in Michigan this summer that shorelines are disappearing, docks are underwater and rivers are overflowing. Plus hear how high water is affecting public access to beaches and research on avian botulism. 

 


Public beach access affected by high water

By & • Jun 27, 2019
Dan Wanschura / Interlochen Public Radio

Michigan has complicated laws when it comes to private beaches and public access, and the rules for inland lakes are different from the Great Lakes.

Points North, Ep. 17: Protecting endangered wildlife

By • Jun 13, 2019
Wikimedia Commons

This week on Points North, we look at animals and the threats they face. Great Lakes piping plovers were on the verge of extinction in the 1980s, but recently they’ve been making a comeback. Still, their slow recovery is hindered by absent-minded beach walkers, high water levels and racoons.

 


Biologists try a new tactic to bring back endangered piping plovers

By • Jun 13, 2019
Taylor Wizner / Interlochen Public Radio

Half a century ago, hundreds of pairs of piping plovers lived in the Great Lakes. But by the 1980s, they were on the verge of extinction and only a dozen pairs remained.

Over time, wildlife biologists have helped increase the population. But it’s still well below a stable number and each year there’s a new threat.

 

Piping plovers are small, stout white-gray birds. In the spring, they can be found nesting on the shores of the Great Lakes. Once a fixture on the lakes, the birds are now on the federal Endangered Species List.

Stateside: Changing anti-vaccine beliefs; competitive bearding in W. MI; study links pesticides, ALS

By • Apr 11, 2019

 

Today on Stateside, we talk with vaccine-hesitant parents as measles cases spread. Plus, learn how your old photos can help researchers track changes to Lake Michigan's dunes.

U.S Supreme Court won't touch Great Lakes beach access case

By Jacob Wheeler • Feb 20, 2019
Morgan Springer

The public has the right to walk the Great Lakes shoreline even along privately owned beaches. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that right on Tuesday when it declined to hear a case from Indiana.

Agencies investigating whitefish decline in the Great Lakes

By • Aug 28, 2018
Morgan Springer

Lake whitefish are the most important commercial fish species in Michigan. But in the last decade, state biologists say fishers are harvesting about a third of what they used to get. 

Foxconn wants to divert 5.8 million gallons of Lake Michigan water a day. Is that legal?

By • Jun 28, 2018

 

President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan will be in Wisconsin this Thursday for the groundbreaking of the $10 billion Foxconn plant.

The Taiwanese electronics company has promised thousands of jobs in Racine County and in return has been offered $4.5 billion in tax incentives. 

Endangered plovers face new threat: snowy owls

By Naina Rao • Jun 20, 2018
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

A new predator has emerged for piping plovers in the Great Lakes.

Snowy owls were recently seen eating plovers in several locations along the Great Lakes, including Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in lower Michigan and Vermilion Point in the Upper Peninsula.

State should buy Lake Michigan sand mine, says Natural Resources Trust

By Aaron Selbig • Apr 24, 2018
Aaron Selbig

A state board recommends the State of Michigan buy 300 acres of Lake Michigan shoreline that’s currently owned by a sand mining company. The Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund board of directors has voted to spend $7.5 million toward a new deal with Sargent Sand Company.

Sargent Sand has been mining sand on its property inside the borders of Ludington State Park since the 1930s. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has tried several times to buy the land back from the company but the deals have always fallen through.

Grand Traverse Bay officially frozen

By • Feb 13, 2018
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

On Tuesday, The Watershed Center said Grand Traverse Bay was officially frozen. The official designation happens after West Bay is frozen from Traverse City to Power Island for more than 24 hours. Even though that's only a fraction of the bay, that's been the official measurement for over a hundred years.

Heather Smith, Grand Traverse Baykeeper at The Watershed Center, says the bay didn’t freeze over the last two winters – not since 2015. She says, since 1990, it has only frozen between 20 to 30 percent of the time.

DNR reverses course on Chinook salmon stocking, proposes increase

By Aaron Selbig • Jan 17, 2018
Peter Payette

State biologists want to stock Lake Michigan with more Chinook salmon. A new proposal from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources would increase stocking by 67 percent over the next two years.

Last year, the DNR cut the stocking numbers. But Jay Wesley, the DNR's Lake Michigan Basin Coordinator,  says that plan got pushback from the public.

Don’t you miss our freezing winters? Let’s crank up that Lake Michigan snow machine.

By Tamar Charney • Dec 5, 2017

When I moved from Tennessee to Michigan, winter hit me like a ton of bricks, or maybe it was a full body ice cream headache.

Remember how winters used to be really, really cold? One day you’d wake up and there was no doubt – fall was gone. Winter had arrived. Suddenly the wind rushed straight from the arctic and smacked you in the face. Snow piled up around you, and your eyes stung from the cold.

Enbridge reveals new spots missing coating on Line 5

By • Nov 14, 2017

State officials say they’re troubled by a new safety report from Enbridge Energy on Line 5. The report says there are more spots that have been laid bare to the metal because its safety coating has worn off.

Enbridge reported that to state officials Monday.  

The company is being called before the Michigan Pipeline Safety Commission next month to give a status report on Line Five.

Guy Jarvis of Enbridge says Line Five is safe, but the company has done a poor job of sharing details on how it’s managed.

New report shows sea lamprey uptick in Lakes Erie and Michigan

By Angelica Morrison • Oct 24, 2017
Paul Zybczynski

There’s some bad news in the Great Lakes and it’s all about the sea lamprey, an eel-like creature that literally sucks the life out of fish. They do a lot of damage and now they’re on the rise in some lakes and trend has stumped scientists.

A jar thuds on a table in Helen Domske’s office at the University at Buffalo. It’s a clear, large, one gallon container, just like the ones found in grocery stores, filled with crisp, green, dill pickles.

But, in this case it’s filled with a liquid solution, and a preserved gray corpse of a sea lamprey.

Lakes Michigan, Huron are now clearer than Superior

By editor • Oct 12, 2017

Lake Superior is cold, deep and clear. But it’s no longer the clearest of the Great Lakes.

Lakes Michigan and Huron have gotten clearer, bumping Lake Superior to number three.

Scientists have been able to figure how much clearer by using satellite imagery.

Autopsy reveals more on Asian carp caught near Lake Michigan

By Angelica Morrison • Aug 22, 2017

Cross section of Asian carp's vertebrae Credit U.S. Geological Survey Edit | Remove

Back in June, an Asian carp was caught just nine miles from Lake Michigan. Somehow it got past electric barriers designed to keep those fish out of the Great Lakes. Now an autopsy reveals new details.

Why did the Asian carp cross the electric barrier? This scientist is on the case.

By editor • Aug 10, 2017

An Asian carp was caught this summer in a place where it shouldn’t be – beyond an electric barrier meant to keep the species out of Lake Michigan and the rest of the Great Lakes. Now, a researcher at Southern Illinois University is trying to figure out just how it got there.

Lake Michigan has a way of conjuring up days gone by

By Tamar Charney • May 11, 2017

Lake Michigan is a giant time capsule. It swallows stuff up and spits it back out somewhere down the line, both in time and place.

All sorts of things get pushed up on the beach by waves in summer and by the freezing and thawing of ice in the winter. When the snow melts in spring, there aren’t that many people combing through the odds and ends in search of lost treasure or even just cleaning up the trash. That means it's easier to see how Lake Michigan is its own special sort of time capsule coughing up treasures up and down the shore.

Leland raises $250k for dredging gear

By Aaron Selbig • Feb 22, 2017
Amanda Holmes

The town of Leland has raised $250,000 to buy its own dredging equipment. The money comes from private donations through the crowd-funding website FundLy.

Leland Harbormaster Russell Dzuba says the federal government used to pay for harbor dredging, but in recent years, it hasn’t been a priority.

Waukesha full speed ahead as mayors fight Great Lakes water diversion

By • Jan 23, 2017
Susan Bence

A Wisconsin town is getting a lot of attention these days, on the issue of drinking water. Waukesha lies outside the Great Lakes basin, but it has received permission to take water from Lake Michigan. Officials are still debating the political and financial impact, and a group of mayors is challenging the town’s action.

Remnant fish species discovered in Antrim County

By Joe VanderMeulen • Jan 2, 2017
Photo Credit: MDNR

Researchers have discovered a very special population of fish lurking in the depths of Elk Lake in Antrim County. These fish share a unique heritage, linking them to the native lake trout that disappeared from Lake Michigan over 50 years ago.

'A living hell': extortion case reveals the dark side of TC parasailing

By Aaron Selbig • Nov 21, 2016
Aaron Selbig

If you’ve spent a summer day on the beaches of Grand Traverse Bay, you’ve probably seen parasailers soaring across the sky. Parasailing is a popular, fun way to get out on the water, but the Traverse City parasailing business also has a cutthroat side.

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