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…
Rocking gently on a boat in Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay, undoing the latch for the acoustic doppler current profiler, setting the instrument upright to dip just below the water’s surface, and opening the laptop to watch the information scroll across the screen in real-time is a common experience for Andy Kasun. Kasun started at the…
There are those who dream of a socially just world and there are those who dare to make that dream a reality. Joe Fitzgerald, a 2016 graduate, didn’t settle for a path of least resistance. Environmental justice is at the core of what he does. He isn’t just dealing with water issues as they come;…
A PBS documentary featuring researchers with the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation has been awarded an Emmy by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Michigan Chapter. Linking Land and Lakes: Protecting the Great Lakes’ Coastal Wetlands follows the work of forty Great Lakes researchers and experts and explores the vital role…
The adult dragonflies that we often see flitting about near any lake or stream, are quite the common sight. But did you know that just below the water’s surface, hunting in the shallows, there are also dragonflies? Well, baby dragonflies. The larval stage of this insect—which is about the size of your thumb—is a very…
The Department of Administration’s Wisconsin Coastal Management Program has awarded the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation $59,667 to implement Phase 2 of their research investigating the potential sources of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) to Chequamegon Bay. The Burke Center researchers started their investigation a year ago (also with Wisconsin Coastal Management funding) to learn…
The Great Lakes keep rising. Last year the five lakes that together hold 20 percent of the fresh surface water on the planet broke 10 high-water records, and more are expected to fall this year. The inundation follows a 15-year span from 1999 to 2014 when the so-called upper lakes of Superior, Michigan and Huron…
A recent report by Northland College shows increased vulnerability in Lake Superior’s water quality. More severe storms are contributing to erosion, infrastructure damage and algae blooms. WPR Host Larry Meiller talks with Matt Hudson, water scientist at the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, about the report, and ways citizens can alleviate the impacts…
Minnesota has shoreline on only one Great Lake, but it happens to be the greatest: largest, clearest, coldest and, until recently, seemingly least vulnerable to various environmental afflictions elsewhere in the five-lake basin. The world’s biggest lake by surface area, Superior happens to hold one-tenth of the fresh water on the face of the Earth.…
