The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system on the Earth's surface, home to a fragile fishery, and delicate shoreline beaches and dunes. They are also central to northern Michigan tourism, economies and our way of life.
As fewer men fish in the Upper Great Lakes, more women are taking up the sport.
The percentage of Americans who fish is in decline and that decline has had an impact on conservation projects, because hunting and fishing licenses help fund everything from habitat restoration to clean water programs.
If caretakers of the Great Lakes aren’t careful, thirsty people from all corners of the world could come calling for our abundant supply of fresh, clean water.
So warns Peter Annin’s book “The Great Lakes Water Wars," first published in 2006.
Over 4,000 miles of Great Lakes shoreline assessed by the Environmental Protection Agency have been deemed impaired.
A new EPA report found miles of Great Lakes shoreline and open water are contaminated by PCBs, dioxin, mercury, and pesticides.
Kyla Bennett is with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental watchdog. She said the data are particularly concerning for the open water of the lakes.
Saturdays are for selling fish. On this Saturday, Ed and Cindi John aim to earn a week's income in only five hours.
Cindi unfolds the tables while Ed drags big, blue coolers off their truck bed. They’re filled to the brim with fish – cisco, lake trout and lake trout patties.
“We come out rain or shine,” says Cindi. “If it’s pouring rain, we’ll be here.”
There are renewed calls to kill cormorants in the Great Lakes. There are far fewer of these migratory birds left in the region after years of lethal control. But anglers and some congressmen say there are still too many and they eat too many fish. Conflict with these waterbirds is longstanding in coastal communtities where fishing is important and the birds nest by the hundreds or even thousands.
In 2004, there were almost 1,800 double-crested cormorant nests on Goose Island, a strip of land in northern Lake Huron about 500 feet wide and less than a mile long.
Scientists are creating an experimental warning system for meteotsunamis in the Great Lakes.
Meteotsunamis are potentially dangerous waves that are driven by storms.
Eric Anderson is a physical oceanographer with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Meteotsunamis are a very particular kind of wave and we don’t yet have the ability to forecast when and where they’re going to occur,” he says.
There's a scene in the 1967 film The Graduate where a well-meaning friend of the family pulls Dustin Hoffman's character aside at his graduation party, and gives him this advice:
"There's a great future in plastics - think about it, will you think about it? ... That's a deal."
But back then, the downside of plastic wasn't apparent.
Stateside's conversation with Michigan State University hydrologist Dr. David Hyndman
There's nothing better during a Michigan summer than spending time at the Great Lakes.
Stateside asked you what questions you had about the state's freshwater seas, and we'll be bringing you answers all summer long.
We'll start today with a question from listener Ted Bonarski in Grand Rapids.
"Are there areas of the Lower Peninsula where the aquifer is filled with Lake Superior water, so that someone pumping up from a well was getting water that was chemically traceable to Lake Superior?"
Listen to this warning. It might save your dog's life.
What happens if your dog likes to swim in the lake, but there might be toxins in the water?
It can happen in a local lake or somewhere like the western basin of Lake Erie. Toxin-producing cyanobacteria appear. Some people still call it blue-green algae.
Beaches along Lake Michigan are closed when E. coli bacteria gets too high. But a nasty critter found on the bottom of the lake might help keep the beaches open.
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.
Stateside's conversation with Brad Carrier, leader of Mermaid MegaFest Productions; Sadie Johnson, one of the founding members of the festival team and a performing mermaid; and Lily Holshoe, a 15-year-old aspiring mermaid performer.
If South Haven figures in your Memorial Day plans, get ready: You're going to see mermaids, mermen, and even merkids.
It's the first-ever Mermaid MegaFest – four days of celebrating merfolk while focusing on preserving our natural freshwater resources.
Michigan’s attorney general is suing an Escanaba-based shipping company that he claims is responsible for a mineral oil leak in the Straits of Mackinac earlier this month.
CORRECTION 4/13: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the U.S. Coast Guard said damage to an electric transmission line under the Straits of Mackinac may have been caused by an "anchor strike." The Coast Guard says the leak may have been caused by "damage from vessel activity."
Governor Rick Snyder is asking Enbridge Energy to accelerate it’s decommissioning of the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac.
The U.S. Coast Guard has organized a command post in Mackinaw City to respond to a mineral oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac. Around 600 gallons of fluid leaked from underwater electrical lines west of the Mackinac Bridge earlier this week.
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Coast Guard Ensign Pamela Manns gives an update on the mineral oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac.
At least 400 gallons of mineral oil have leaked into the Straits of Mackinac.
American Transmission Company operates power lines that deliver electricity between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The company called the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday night to inform them of a leak of dielectric fluid, which is used to insulate the electrical lines under the Straits.
When you think about greenhouse gasses that are driving our warming climate, maybe you think about power plants or your car. But lakes can release greenhouse gasses, too, and the amount of nutrients that get into lakes from farms and cities matters.
A Great Lakes group wants paddlers to help in the fight against invasive species.
Michigan Sea Grant – a group run by the University of Michigan and Michigan State University – is starting a program to teach kayakers and canoers to report aquatic invasive species found along waterways.