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.
National AI Boom Hits Home as Demand for Power Surges
PLYMOUTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN — On a warm fall afternoon, dairy farmer Chris Kestell pushes through prairie brambles taller than himself, tracing a path overgrown with thickets and swarming with bees as he hikes toward a hidden waterway. Though the route is unidentifiable to the untrained eye, Kestell, 47, has lived here, in the small town…
Momentous Court Decisions Near For Line 5 Oil Pipeline
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – For 72 years, in order to serve as a shortcut for crude oil from production fields in western Canada to refineries in eastern Ontario, Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5 pipeline has transported 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids daily beneath the forests and wetlands of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. Opened…
Three Great Lakes States at Greatest Risk as EPA Rolls Back Wetland Protections
On Monday, the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers proposed a set of new rules that would leave millions of acres of wetlands, small waterbodies, and ephemeral streams across the country unprotected — threatening the drinking water of millions of Americans and leaving crucial habitat and floodplains susceptible to filling. These proposed changes were…
The Next Deluge May Go Differently
In early August, days after thousand-year rain fell on southeastern Wisconsin, officials waded through the devastation’s wake — and liked what they saw.
New Era of Confrontation Between Energy and Water Opens in Great Lakes
With accumulating force and accelerating speed, a new era of electrical generation and power demand is taking shape across the eight states of the Great Lakes basin – and with it come potentially treacherous consequences for the region’s environment and its world-leading supply of clean, fresh water.
Fresh: A Great Lakes Policy Briefing
The Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water, making them a vital resource for drinking, agriculture, industry, and energy across North America. But they are also at the frontlines of climate change, facing rising temperatures, fluctuating lake levels, pollution, and stressed ecosystems. What happens here offers a preview of global water challenges — from ensuring safe drinking water to balancing economic growth with environmental protection. Paying attention to Great Lakes news is not just about regional concern; it’s about understanding how water security shapes our shared future.
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.
The Latest
Fresh, December 17, 2025: Ohio EPA Considers Fast-Tracking Water Discharge Permits for Data Centers
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
- U.S. representatives from Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio have introduced legislation to improve the affordability of water infrastructure projects in low-income communities.
- The Ohio EPA is considering approving a new permit that would regulate discharge from data centers, while acknowledging that water quality may suffer.
- House Republicans in Michigan abruptly cancelled nearly $650 million in state spending, including tens of millions of dollars earmarked for environmental agencies.
- Wisconsin has announced that it will allocate roughly $160 million to replace lead service lines across 29 municipalities.
Fresh from the Great Lakes News Collaborative
- B.C.’s failure to fund flood response ‘troublesome’ as atmospheric river strikes again — The Narwhal
- $18M approved in bill credits for Pennsylvania customers in ‘forever chemicals’ settlement — Great Lakes Now
- Worries over Michigan’s dams resurface as repair funds run dry, reforms lag — Bridge Michigan
- Michigan DNR approves Recreation Passport grants to fund local recreation projects — 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
Affordable Clean Water Infrastructure Act: A bipartisan cohort of U.S. representatives from Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio have introduced a bill in the U.S. House to support the construction of clean water infrastructure in high-need communities.
“Everyone deserves to have clean water. Too often, rural, poor, and tribal communities can’t afford important upgrades to their wastewater and stormwater systems,” Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat from Michigan, said in a statement. “Our bipartisan bill unlocks important resources to ensure every family, regardless of their zip code, is supported by safe and reliable water infrastructure.”
The legislation would expand the potential of the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a state-federal partnership that offers lower-cost financing opportunities for water improvement projects in low-income, rural, and tribal communities. Over its 37-year life, the fund has disbursed $181 billion for a wide variety of infrastructural enhancements. This fiscal year, each state received roughly between $43 million and $470 million for relevant drinking water projects.
If the bill passes, states would have the ability to use their appropriations to subsidize a greater share — up to 50 percent — of water project costs, and would also be required to subsidize a minimum of 20 percent of eligible projects.
In the News
Michigan Funding Cuts: In an effort to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” from the Michigan purse, nearly $650 million in state funding for ongoing projects was abruptly canceled last week by the GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee, without Senate approval.
“What my colleagues across the aisle did this week was as unprecedented as it was harmful,” state Rep. Denise Mentzer said in a statement. “In a corrupt and heartless move, House Republicans have decided to cut more than half a billion dollars in critical project funding, harming thousands of Michiganders who rely on that money.
Among the lost funding is roughly $6 million earmarked for the Department of Natural Resources, $18 million for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, and smaller cuts to renewable energy projects, nature centers, and trail improvements.
Lead Service Replacements: Together with the state Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced last week that more than $159 million would be made available to replace lead service lines in 29 municipalities. The appropriations come through the Lead Service Line Replacement Program, which is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Milwaukee (over $50 million) and Racine ($40 million) will receive the most money.
When signed in 2021, BIL allocated $15 billion nationwide for the replacement of lead service lines, which remain in prevalent use in Wisconsin. Across the state, roughly 260,000 public and private service lines are known to be made out of lead, and another 208,000 lines of unknown composition are suspected to contain the heavy metal.
“Every family, every business, every school, and every community needs to know when they turn on their tap, it’s clean water coming out,” said Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin in a statement. “Sadly, that is just not the case in too many of our communities, and the consequences of lead poisoning, especially for our children, are dire.”
Looking Ahead
Data Center Discharge: The Ohio EPA is considering approving a controversial new type of general permit that would regulate how data centers across the state are allowed to discharge stormwater and wastewater, prompting concerns from environmental watchdogs.
Critics say that fast-tracking necessary environmental approvals to bring these facilities online comes with environmental risks, and are particularly concerned about the permit’s “one-size fits all” approach. All of Ohio’s current and future data centers — regardless of their size, location, architecture, or the individual watersheds with which they interact — would be subject to the new general code.
“It has been determined that a lowering of water quality of various waters of the state associated with granting coverage under this permit is necessary to accommodate important social and economic development in the state of Ohio,” the draft permit reads.
The new permit does not mention limits on PFAS chemicals, which are used inside data centers in both gas and liquid form to cool servers. The permit also does not require baseline water quality testing to determine if discharges are affecting natural resources.
No Great Lakes state has more data centers than Ohio, which by one count is home to 217 such facilities. The public comment deadline, originally scheduled for December 17, is now January 16.
You can find more stories from the Great Lakes region here.
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