A new report is recommending ways to protect an artesian aquifer in Bayfield County following a controversial proposal to bottle and sell water from an artesian well in a Lake Superior watershed that’s now being fought in court. Residents and tourists have long been drawn to the region’s artesian wells because they don’t require pumping.…
Dr. Sarah Johnson stood in Spur Lake with waders on, her hand searching below the surface as part of an effort to revive wild rice. She pulled up what looked like a long white monster the size of her arm. “It’s only a water lily rhizome,” she said, reassuring the shocked faces in front of…
On a sunny, summer Monday afternoon, Dr. Alissa Hulstrand, assistant professor of biology and affiliated faculty of the Burke Center, ate lunch at Maslowski Beach while keeping her eyes on the seagulls nearby. She was waiting for one of them to defecate so she could swoop in for the poop. One did but she realized…
In 2018, flooding over Father’s Day weekend carved a hole through a major highway in far northwestern Wisconsin, disrupting travel for months and sending three times the amount of sediment that flows each year into one Lake Superior bay. Now, a project aims to slow the flow of runoff as the region faces more frequent, intense storms…
More than one hundred and fifty people attended a groundwater-focused panel discussion, “Aversion to Diversion: Groundwater, Bottled Water, and the Great Lakes Compact,” at the Big Top Chautauqua on September 27, 2021. Organized by the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, Director Peter Annin moderated a discussion with leading Wisconsin water experts Todd Ambs,…
Kreher Park Beach has been closed twice this year so far due to high E. coli levels, which leaves local residents and visitors wondering—are the Ashland beaches safe to swim in? What is causing this—seagulls, geese, aging sewer pipes? Where is the bacteria coming from? The Wisconsin Coastal Management Program (WCMP) has awarded the Mary…
In 2015, the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation initiated the Penokee Lakes project to provide an assessment of the quality of eleven inland lakes located in the Penokee Hills at the headwaters of the Bad River watershed. This largely undeveloped suite of lakes is located in and around a site that was proposed…
In September of 2019, the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation hosted a conference with the International Joint Commission (IJC). The purpose was to give local experts and the public an opportunity to share their water quality concerns for Lake Superior and the larger Great Lakes basin. The public hearing portion of the event…
The United States and Canada should work together to eliminate blue-green algae blooms in Lake Superior, according to one of three recommendations outlined in a report released by the International Joint Commission (IJC) on Thursday. The commission is an independent bi-national organization that evaluates work by the U.S. and Canada to protect and restore the…
The Great Lakes Protection Fund—the world’s first ecosystem endowment—named three individuals and three organizations as recipients of the 2020 Great Lakes Leadership Award for Communication Excellence. This award celebrates the recipients’ outstanding storytelling efforts—better connecting their audiences to the ecosystem, its challenges, and efforts to solve those challenges. Peter Annin, director of the Mary Griggs…
