Editor’s Note: “Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A direct descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, she lives and works in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her two books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and she is at work on a children’s story.
Waves of Change is an online interview series highlighting the diverse faces and perspectives shaping the environmental justice movement throughout the Great Lakes region.
This month, we spoke with Brenda Coley, Co-Executive Director of the urban network and non-profit organization Milwaukee Water Commons.
Listen to the full interview
The group has a Water City agenda that takes an intersectional approach to laying out climate issues and proposed solutions for Wisconsin’s largest city.
The long, fast, toothy muskellunge (also known as muskie or musky) is nicknamed the “Fish of 10,000 Casts” due to its notoriously elusive nature. It is the apex predator in all waters where it’s found, known to hide in underwater cover, aggressively ambushing prey. They eat fish almost exclusively, though they have been known to consume just about anything they can swallow including birds, small mammals, and their own kind.
I Speak for the Fish is a monthly column written by Great Lakes Now Contributor Kathy Johnson, coming out the third Monday of each month. Publishing the author’s views and assertions does not represent endorsement by Great Lakes Now or Detroit Public Television.
The Lake Guardian is currently in its winter home, nestled along the docks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In warmer months, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses this ship to gather data on water quality, and has for over forty years. And each year since 1991, a group of lucky educators has squeezed on board and, for nine days, also called this ship home.
As apex predators, adult muskie occupy the very top tier of the Great Lakes food chain. Reaching up to six foot in length with teeth lining their jaws, the roof of their mouths and their throats, few can escape them. They are feared by most species underwater and revered by many people above.
Catching and eating fish is a way of life for many people around the Great Lakes and connecting St. Lawrence River, but decades of industrial pollution have made it unsafe to eat too many, too often. The advice about how many and how often can vary wildly depending on which jurisdiction, even though the fish don’t care about the lines humans draw on a map.
By Todd Richmond, Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — An attorney for the energy company Enbridge tried to persuade a federal appellate court Thursday to vacate an order that would shut down part of a pipeline running through a Wisconsin tribal reservation.
About 12 miles (19 km) of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation.
In order to do meaningful things at scale, everyone has to be at the table. This is what Curt Wolf, Managing Director of the University of Michigan’s Urban Collaboratory, said about the Michigan Center for Freshwater Innovation in an interview with Great Lakes Now. Last month, he explained the benefits of pulling together stakeholders, the Great Lakes Water Authority, and major universities like the University of Michigan, Wayne State, and Michigan State to all work alongside each other to collaborate on grand challenges, like catastrophic flooding in the region.
WHITEFISH POINT, Mich. (AP) — Shipwreck hunters have discovered a merchant ship that sank in Lake Superior in 1940, taking its captain with it, during a storm off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society and shipwreck researcher Dan Fountain announced Monday the discovery of the 244-foot (74-meter) bulk carrier Arlington in about 650 feet (200 meters) of water some 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.
By Kelly House, Bridge Michigan
The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television; Michigan Public, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water.
By Seth Borenstein and Steve Karnowski, Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — For the eighth straight month in January, Earth was record hot, according to the European climate agency. That was obvious in the northern United States, where about 1,000 people were golfing last month in a snow-starved Minneapolis during what the state is calling “the Lost Winter of 2023-24.”
For the first time, the global temperature pushed past the internationally agreed upon warming threshold for an entire 12-month period, with February 2023 to January 2024 running 2.74 degrees Fahrenheit (1.52 degrees Celsius) hotter than pre-industrial levels, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Space Agency.
