It’s not just the fresh water of the Great Lakes system that commercial interests want.  It’s the water of California and now Florida, too.

As Tom Henry’s excellent August 2 article for the Toledo Blade reports, It has now been five years since an algae bloom freighted with toxic microcystins in effect shut down the water supply for Toledo and nearby communities. And what have we to show for it?

A robust turnout at a public meeting of the International Joint Commission in Traverse City proves that while the Great Lakes are in a checkered condition at best, the state of public awareness and concern about the Great Lakes is flourishing.

The recent forecast of a large algae bloom this summer in western Lake Erie was about as surprising as a lame tweet from the White House.  Both are symbols of a troubled governance system.

The public trust doctrine is the central organizing principle of the group for which I work, FLOW. It’s a simple and fundamental concept but somehow difficult for many to grasp. A recent action by the US Supreme Court provides clarity for us all.

With 16 days left in office, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is moving at breakneck, if not reckless speed to bind the State of Michigan to a 99-year lease with Enbridge to operate an oil tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac — and to permit the current submerged pipelines to continue operating up to another 10 years, posing a continuing risk to the Great Lakes.

Why even wonder that the Great Lakes are in trouble?  When leaders declare their love for the lakes yet announce policies that treat them cavalierly, at best, and with the intent to deceive, the Lakes are being ill-served.

Who decides the fate of the Line 5 pipelines at the Straits of Mackinac? Definitely not the governor of Michigan, but you wouldn’t know that if you just read the news.

The International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board released its second survey of the Great Lakes public today.  For the second time, the survey revealed a high degree of caring but a modest degree of knowing about the Lakes.

Fifteen years after serious algal blooms reappeared in western Lake Erie and four years after a toxic algal bloom shut down Toledo’s drinking water for a weekend, it’s time to stop pretending and ask a basic question: can our governance system deliver a solution to the problem? Does it even want to?

It has been three weeks since the State of Wisconsin thumbed its nose at the Great Lakes Compact and approved a Lake Michigan water diversion. Where are the seven other Great Lakes states to hold Wisconsin accountable?

As the Toledo Blade said not long ago, how many wake up calls do we need for Lake Erie?

Most residents of the Great Lakes states probably thought they were getting a ban on tapping the Great Lakes for water diversions when a regional compact was approved in 2008. Even then, the fine print of the Compact provided exceptions — and now it’s possible those exceptions could create a water keg to be used for economic development outside the Great Lakes watershed. What happened?

How hard is it to fashion an interstate compact? Harder than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. And now the monumental effort that culminated in the 2008 Great Lakes Compact is at risk.

The question of public access to the Great Lakes shoreline continues to perplex people. And the courts.

Governor Snyder has sent a letter to the Pipeline Safety Advisory Board he created telling them he is ignoring the advice it gave him last month. They should send it back.

A Great Lakes prophecy from a 14-year old book was way off. My book.

International Joint Commission U.S. Section Chair Lana Pollack:
“Most people do not think a great deal about the connection between public policy and the health of the lakes. They don’t recognize that without strong standards that include protections from pollution and laws that hold corporations and people legally accountable as well as financially responsible, it’s inevitable that the lakes will be polluted.”

In this, the third winter where I’ve spent considerable time on the shore of Lake Huron, I’ve started to see the problem with our relationship to the Great Lakes is that they are too often an abstraction.

In a season of gift-giving, it’s timely to remember that the people of the Great Lakes Basin inherited the greatest freshwater gift in the world.

It’s the oldest story in the environmental policy playbook.

Michigan needs a big clean water investment.  Voters should have a chance to vote on a $2 billion bond in November 2018.  But how should the money be invested?  Here’s one proposal.

Michigan voters should be asked in 2018 to authorize the sale of $2 billion in general obligations for clean water.

Candidates for governor of Michigan are all talking up their commitment to the Great Lakes. They should be offering more than warm fuzzies.

Every time I see this decal, I think of another image.

It’s available.

A stop at the northbound I-75 rest area just south of Grayling this weekend reminded me of something most people don’t know about.

A slender journal of a summer on Lake Huron will become available in two weeks through Amazon.

It is now three years, three months since the formation of the first of two State of Michigan task forces to examine petroleum pipeline safety — and the end of the pipeline is not in sight. 

Here we go again. Lake Erie is the victim of a gap in our environmental policies.

Less than 15 months until Michigan elects a new governor, and it’s still not clear what the candidates are for, as opposed to what they’re against.

The time has come to shut down Line Five. No more studies, no more excuses. If you’re a politician who talks about how much you value the Great Lakes, you need to back it up with actions.

In an age of division, people of the Great Lakes continue to come together in a shared devotion to their vast, fresh waters.

A Pennsylvania State Supreme Court decision affirming public trust principles shows the way for the State of Michigan – if it chooses to follow. 

A little more than three years after the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland caught fire in 1969, Congress approved the Clean Water Act.  It’s coming up on three years since a harmful algal bloom shut down the Toledo drinking water supply, and where are we?  We’re hearing predictions of a bigger than average algae bloom in western Lake Erie.

It’s Huron, and I have lived next to it for two years.  I rarely thought about it until 2015.  Now I think of it every day.

If you’re a landlord and your tenant behaves irresponsibly, do you reward his behavior and extend his lease?
Well, you are and you shouldn’t.

The U.S. and Canadian governments have released a 2017 State of the Great Lakes report.  The news is overall not good.  It’s important to understand why.

A poem by William Wilfred Campbell fits life on Lake Huron.

It will take more than money to save the Great Lakes. In fact, money alone won’t save them.

A modest sign in a small community park has a story to tell.

What do you do when your hosts are making every effort to serve your needs but they unintentionally test your principles? The correct action isn’t always easy to determine.

On Tuesday, April 4, I begin work at a uniquely effective and important organization, Traverse City-based FLOW. Here’s why.

You’re something, Lake Huron.

Cutting federal Great Lakes 97% is harmful, but other actions of the Trump Administration could disrupt the Lakes more in the long run.