The Great Lakes hold nearly 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater, making them a resource of national and international importance. They power regional economies, support shipping routes vital to global trade, and provide drinking water to 40 million people across the U.S. and Canada. Safeguarding the Great Lakes is not only essential for the communities that rely on them daily, but also for the stability of North America’s environment, economy, and international partnerships.
Fresh is a weekly newsletter from Circle of Blue that unpacks the biggest international, state, and local policy news stories facing the Great Lakes region today. Sign up for Fresh: A Great Lakes Policy Briefing, straight to your inbox, every Wednesday.
— Christian Thorsberg, Fresh Editor
Weekly Watershed
- The U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers this week proposed revisions to Clean Water Act definitions that would remove protections from an estimated 70 million acres of wetlands.
- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is stripping the license from a hydroelectric dam in Michigan for failing safety tests that could result in massive flooding.
- A new bill introduced in the Michigan Senate would ban the sale and use of coal-tar sealants, which are known to be carcinogenic and pollute waterways.
Fresh from the Great Lakes News Collaborative
- Alberta wants to release treated oilsands waste into the Athabasca River. Mikisew Cree First Nation says it’s ‘unacceptable’ — The Narwhal
- Anti-nuclear groups file suit against Palisades restart in southwest Michigan — Bridge Michigan
- Stanton Yards development merges art, nature on Detroit River, envisions ‘thriving new community destination’ — Great Lakes Now
- Climate change is shrinking fish in Michigan’s inland lakes, study finds — Michigan Public
Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, Michigan Public and The Narwhal work together to report on the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes region’s water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work here.
The Lead
On Monday, the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers proposed new rules that would redefine “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the federal Clean Water Act, potentially leaving millions of acres of wetlands and streams across the country without federal protection.
According to a Natural Resources Defense Council analysis, these regulatory changes would expose between 38 million and 70 million acres of wetlands to pollution, filling, and development — up to 85 percent of wetlands nationwide, the New York Times reports.
“When finalized, the rule will cut red tape and provide predictability, consistency, and clarity for American industry, energy producers, the technology sector, farmers, ranchers, developers, businesses, and landowners for permitting under the Clean Water Act,” an EPA news release reads.
The proposition comes two years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA, which set a precedent for reduced Clean Water Act protections. The court ruled then that the Act only covered wetlands and permanent bodies of water that maintained a “continuous surface connection” to “traditional interstate navigable waters.”
The new revisions will leave seasonal, ephemeral, or isolated surface waters particularly vulnerable. To remain federally protected, tributaries would need to connect directly to larger navigable waters or via waterways with “predictable and consistent flow,” while wetlands “must touch a jurisdictional water and hold surface water for a requisite duration year after year.”
These rigid standards, critics of the new rules say, are incompatible with both the natural movement of water across many landscapes, and increasingly erratic precipitation patterns.
Climate change-induced drought and heavy rains — in addition to more predictable rainy and dry seasons — mean that many waterways naturally have irregular connections to larger rivers or lakes. Ephemeral streams contribute roughly 55 percent of the water which flows through the country’s riversheds.
Meanwhile, the inherent nature of wetlands as effective floodplains — often called “nature’s kidneys” for their ability to absorb excess water during storms and filter pollutants — means they swell and recede. That is a financial and life-saving benefit for communities. On the country’s coasts alone, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wetlands provide about $23.2 billion in storm protection annually.
The Army Corps of Engineers receives permit applications for proposed wetland fillings, and determines if these locations are federally protected. In Wisconsin, where recently rolled-back state-level protections for wetlands have left significant swaths of land vulnerable to development, the Corps has reported an uptick in these applications.
Across the Great Lakes basin, the loss of historic wetlands is significant. Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio have all lost between 85 percent and 90 percent of these natural floodplains, while losses in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are at roughly 50 percent.
“Revoking these long-standing protections will hit families in their pocketbooks by raising water treatment costs and home insurance rates,” said Jim Murphy, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior director of legal advocacy, in a statement. “This rule will increase the risk of elevated nitrates and cyanotoxins in drinking water, harming our health. Over time, the impacts to water quality, wildlife and our way of life will be significant.”
In Context: The Next Deluge May Go Differently
In the News
Au Train Dam: For at least 15 years, the century-old dam and its spillway, located on the Au Train River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, has been unable to control what officials call a “Probable Maximum Flood,” the largest flood possible at its site. With crumbling concrete walls, the structure has tenuously held back a 1,557-acre reservoir while being designated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as a “high hazard” site, meaning a failure could kill people, Michigan Live reports.
For 15 years, FERC has demanded that the dam’s owner, Wisconsin-based Renewable World Energy, invest in improvements to address repeated safety violations. But the company has continuously delayed maintenance. This week, FERC took a step toward the most drastic action possible: stripping the dam of its license, which would transfer ownership to the state.
But even if that happens, safety at the location could remain a concern. Aging water infrastructure is a problem that extends far beyond Au Train. Michigan has more than 2,500 publicly and privately owned dams, many of which are past their design life. Of these, 160 state-regulated dams are classified as “high hazard.” The average age of a Michigan dam is 80 years, 16 years older than the national average, according to the National Inventory of Dams.
In late October, Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) published an article warning that current state funding is “enough to hold back the pressure on Michigan’s numerous aging, deteriorating, dangerous dams.” The piece highlighted local tensions that arise from decommissioning dams, such as local pushback for the loss of recreational lakes and ponds.
EGLE’s Dam Safety Emergency Action Fund, created in the aftermath of high-profile dam failures in Edenville and Sanford 2020, has about $3 million left, to use before next October 1.
“Neglect any infrastructure long enough, and it will fail,” Luke Trumble, head of EGLE’s Dam Safety Unit, wrote in the article. “Dams that have lasted a lifetime can fail in an instant. Preventive action must be our top priority when people’s lives and homes are at risk.”
Coal-Tar Sealants: A new bill referred last week to the Michigan Energy and Environment Committee seeks to ban the sale and application of coal-tar-based sealants to the state’s roadways, parking lots, and driveways.
According to USGS research, these sealants contain potent amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which drain easily into waterways during storms. Studies have shown that coal-tar-sealant runoff is lethal to fish and other aquatic life, and increases the risk of skin cancer in humans.
The substance has already been banned in multiple states. Minnesota enacted a ban in 2013 after finding elevated levels of PAHs in stormwater ponds across the state; New York followed suit in 2022. The city of Milwaukee banned the sale and use of high-PAH sealants in 2017.
You can find more stories from the Great Lakes region here.
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