Great Lakes Daily News

The Michigan Department of Attorney General filed a motion for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan as part of the State’s ongoing enforcement action against the former owners of the Edenville Dam. The east embankment of the dam failed on May 19, 2020, sending a surge of water downstream that resulted in catastrophe for the surrounding communities. Key facts have now been uncovered showing the dam’s owners, Boyce Hydro, knew of this potential failure since 2010 without divulging the defect to the state or federal government. Read the full story by The Morning Sun.

Robert Michaels, senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, hopes his latest legal victory will result in a healthier Lake Erie with smaller harmful algal blooms by forcing closer regulation of the industrial-sized livestock farms that produce large amounts of manure in Lake Erie’s watershed. Read the full story by The Sandusky Register.

The City of Highland Park, Michigan, and the Great Lakes Water Authority failed to meet a court-ordered deadline of May 31 to come up with a payment plan for the estimated $24 million the city owes to the suburban water authority. The two sides are still engaged in talks in hopes of having a payment plan ready for a June 6 court hearing. Read the full story by The Detroit News.

Thunder Bay, Ontario, has said goodbye to the Viking Octantis, the first cruise ship that docked for the 2023 season, but there are plenty left to come. A total of 15 cruise ship stops by four ships have been booked for this season and 24 stops by five ships have been booked for the 2024 cruise season. Read the full story by CBC News.

Detroit City Council Member Mary Waters sent Governor Gretchen Whitmer a letter asking her to rescind a permit issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) that she believes could result in the release of raw sewage into the Detroit River from Grosse Pointe Park. In February, EGLE issued the permit to Grosse Pointe Park, allowing them to construct the extreme emergency relief valve. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.

After sustaining significant damage in 2019, the West Barrier Bar Pier in Fair Haven, New York, has undergone a $10 million repair project with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021. The Army Corps of Engineers highlighted the project’s benefits, including safe navigation between Little Sodus Bay and Lake Ontario and supporting the local economy by ensuring safe passage to 550 boat slip rentals and eight launch ramps. Read the full story by The Citizen.

With help from the Clinton River Watershed Council and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, the city of Center Line, Michigan, added four rain gardens to the corners of a newly paved and graded parking lot to ensure water will flow into the rain garden cells and go into the ground instead of into the stormwater drain. Read the full story by Macomb Daily.

At Anchors Away Marina in Marblehead, Ohio, the charter boat “Myrmidon” awaits her captain, Carole Vukmer, who is one of just a handful of female charter captains on Lake Erie. Being a female captain in a male-dominated industry is a challenge. There are just over a thousand licensed charter captains that make a living fishing Lake Erie; of that number, just 46 are women. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.

Since its first sighting recorded near Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the Huron River in 1933, officials say there have been dozens of freshwater jellyfish findings in Michigan’s streams and inland lakes. Freshwater jellyfish typically appear in northern temperate inland lakes during the late summer and there is little-to-no evidence that they have any significant impact on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by WDIV-TV – Detroit, MI.

In Houghton County, Michigan, the Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entrance Light is now available for purchase through public auction; the opening bid is $10,000. Read the full story by WBCK – Battle Creek, MI.