The Great Lakes: Unprotected documents how novel rule-making, staff cuts, and dramatic shifts in funding priorities are systematically unraveling a 60-year-old program of safeguards for the region’s rivers, lakes, wetlands, habitat, and drinking water. The government’s neglect sharply increases the region’s vulnerability to water pollution, land degradation, economic disruption and harm to human health.
This American City Perfected Clean Water for Beer — Now It’s Fighting to Keep Cancer-Causing Nitrates Out of the Tap
Ever since Jacob Leinenkugel discovered spring waters here that were pure enough to brew his famous beer, this small Wisconsin city’s devotion to clean water has been paramount. That’s why in 1997, when Chippewa Falls utility managers detected potentially dangerous concentrations of nitrates in a well supplying city water, officials acted. They installed new filtration…
Despite Supreme Court Decision, Bayer Faces More Challenge Over Roundup
Top executives of Bayer, the German chemical maker, were understandably elated on June 25, the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor in a product injury case involving the company’s Roundup herbicide. The high court reversed a state court…
Inside America’s First Data Center-Only Utility
NORTHWEST INDIANA — The defining scenes of the era of artificial intelligence look nothing like science fiction. They are bright yellow, neon orange, dusty, sweaty, greasy, and loud. They are excavators parked in a tallgrass field in rural Indiana. They are…
Ohio Scraps Controversial Plan to Ease Data Center Wastewater Discharges
COLUMBUS, Oh. — After months of deliberation, Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) has decided not to move forward with a proposed general permit that would have allowed all data centers across the state — regardless of their size, location, or type…
The AI Boom Is Prolonging Indiana’s Fossil Fuel Era, With Hidden Costs for Water
JASPER COUNTY, IND. — Growing up in the shadow of a coal plant in rural Indiana gives a child a unique relationship with the passage of time. As a little girl in the small town of Wheatfield, population 900, Barb Deardorff…
Trump Moves to Open America’s Wildest Forests to the Bulldozer
Dawn is most memorable, the awakening hour in Bear Swamp, a 3,915-acre expanse of the Huron-Manistee National Forest in northern Michigan. Even after the somnolence of night, morning light is not nudged by the sound of anything connected to industrial America.…
When Forests Burn, Lakes Suffer
Wildfire risk is high in the upper Great Lakes, and research shows that large, scorching wildfires spell trouble for lakes in the region’s remote watersheds. The reason: Vegetation burns in the fire. Scorching, high temperatures make the soil hydrophobic, which causes…
Ethanol Was Marketed to Help Agriculture. But It Fouled Our Water and Injured Our Health.
Just like his presidential predecessors – George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden – Donald Trump has a thing for ethanol. But why? Inordinately expensive to taxpayers, monstrously polluting, and now linked to mounting cancer incidence in Midwest Corn Belt states,…
On Menominee Lakes, Wild Rice Is Coming Back. It Isn’t Easy.
MENOMINEE, Wisc. — On a cool bluebird morning, DJ Micik guides his canoe through the narrow channel connecting Little Rice Lake with Rice Lake, two of the largest bodies of water on the Menominee reservation in northern Wisconsin. Sitting behind Micik…
Illinois Fails to Pass Landmark Act Requiring ‘Responsible’ Data Center Energy and Water Use
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois lawmakers this week failed to pass landmark legislation that would have required data centers in the state to publicly disclose their water usage and adhere to a strict set of energy and environmental standards. Supported by climate…
Political Surprise in the Corn Belt
Expect the unexpected. That’s the only certainty of planting season across the Corn Belt. Heat. Frost. Insects. Too much rain, or none at all. Now add the distress the Trump administration has cursed farmers with: Broken markets. Tariffs. Rising fuel costs. …
Illinois Tightens PFAS Oversight Amid Federal Rollback Efforts
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois lawmakers last week passed a new law establishing more robust requirements for monitoring per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — better known as PFAS “forever chemicals” — in wastewater discharges at major facilities across the state. The deciding 64-34…
Ohio Needs Power For Its Data Centers. Lawmakers Want to Redefine ‘Clean Energy’ to Get It
COLUMBUS, Oh. — Lawmakers in Ohio are considering a proposed bill that would redefine the state’s consideration of “clean” and “reliable” energy to include sources that burn hydrocarbons — namely natural gas and coal — while effectively banning the development of…
Solar, Wind, and E.V.s Rise from Shadow of Trump’s Iran War
Here are two more reasons to be appalled by President Trump’s order to attack Iran. First, fuel shortages caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz exemplify how China has taken command of renewable energy and electric vehicle manufacturing, the…
Supreme Court Rules For Public Interest in Line 5 Case
In a ruling that puts vital decisions about operating the Line 5 oil pipeline back in a Michigan state court, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided on April 22 against the effort by Enbridge Inc., the Line 5 owner, to move…
Northern Michigan’s Extreme Climate Disaster
On April 7, 2026, a light drizzle began to fall from the dark clouds over the forests of Michigan’s lower peninsula. A spring rain, nothing especially unusual in a region of uncommonly clean lakes, the magnificent shorelines of two Great Lakes,…
Proposed Michigan Bill Would Tie State Wetland Protections to a Recently Narrowed Federal Standard
LANSING, Mich. — A bill introduced last month in the Michigan House proposes changing the state’s definition of “wetland” to more closely align with recently narrowed federal standards. The bill’s authors say it caters directly to residents, farmers, and developers faced…
Senate Overturns Ban On Mining Near Boundary Waters Wilderness
The U.S. Senate in April 16 voted to overturn a 20-year ban on mining on federal forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The vote draws Chilean-owned Twin Metals a step closer to gaining permits to open an underground copper mine…
Stalled Farm Bill, Slashed Grants Undercut Farmers’ Water Protection Efforts
More than two years have passed since the Agriculture Improvement Act — better known as the Farm Bill — expired, leaving the nation’s primary agricultural policy framework in a state of prolonged uncertainty. The bill, which steers the economics, logistics, and…
States Challenge Right to Protest Damage to Water, Land, Environment
Behold the “No Kings” protests last month. Millions of Americans in the streets opposing the Trump administration’s reckless governing principles. Thousands of communities expressing the solemn right to push back against a clear and present danger. At least for the time…
Executive Order Puts Oldest Polluting Coal Plants Back in Action
Until May 2025, utility executives like those at Consumers Energy in Michigan operated in the world of orderly oversight of electricity generation. In coordination with MISO, the regional transmission agency, and the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), Consumers Energy decided when…
EPA Reversal Opens the Door to More Mercury Pollution
The practice of reporting on the environment starts with a working knowledge of a range of scientific disciplines. One of them is chemistry. To wit: since the 1960s, when Americans and visionary lawmakers voted to hold polluters accountable for their wastes,…
Global Collapse of Migratory Freshwater Fish Drives Calls for Transboundary Cooperation
Migratory freshwater fish populations have declined by 81 percent worldwide since 1970, a collapse that underscores the urgent need for coordinated river and lake management across national borders, the United Nations warns. A report published today — the first global review…
The Great Lakes Are Wasting a Massive Source of Clean Energy
The energy system in the Great Lakes region, as in most parts of North America, is wasteful. Stupendously wasteful. Consider these data points. Two-thirds of the energy generated by the 2,100-megawatt Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, east of Toronto, comes in the…
Great Lakes States Face a Data Center Governance Gap
The rapid build-out of hundreds of AI data centers across the Great Lakes basin is reshaping rural communities, straining fragile ecosystems, and forcing states to rethink energy and water policies. More than 220 facilities are still planned across the region. But…
