Protect the Great Lakes Now. Protect Them for Generations to Come. We believe the Great Lakes belong to us all. With your gift, we’re empowering communities and leaders to protect the Great Lakes Basin through public trust solutions. Sustain our mission to safeguard 20% of the world’s surface freshwater and donate today. To honor the… Read more »
Photo courtesy of SpeedontheWater.com. The author, Nikki Hayes, who grew up in Elk Rapids, Michigan, is a FLOW intern. Currently a junior at Loyola University Chicago (LUC), she has spent her life close to the Great Lakes. While organizers are optimistic that an August powerboat race that would be hosted by Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor… Read more »
Just as water does not stop at the international boundary in the middle of the Great Lakes, climate change is having dramatic effects on both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the shared waters. In its triennial report issued last week on Great Lakes water quality progress, the International Joint Commission (IJC) called for the two nations to begin coordinating the response to wide fluctuations in water levels, warming lake waters, shrinking ice cover, threats to biological diversity, and storms of increasing intensity that release large pollution flows to the Great Lakes and their tributaries.
Growing up in Elk Rapids, FLOW intern Nikki Hayes was fortunate to have a summer job throughout high school working as a dock attendant at the Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor. She got to see both the good and the bad of human behavior in environmental stewardship.
By Janet Meissner Pritchard COVID-19 has already taken the lives of more than 8,100 Michiganders, and the pandemic is surging in Michigan, with more than 7,000 new cases per day diagnosed in Michigan over recent days. Given this grim context, it is essential for public health to secure access to safe, affordable drinking water for… Read more »
FLOW is taking advantage of 2o20 Shop Your Community Days in Traverse City, November 12-14, to celebrate our Business Partners who are supporting FLOW and our effort to protect the Great Lakes. Please support these businesses during Shop Your Community Days and the upcoming holiday shopping season. FLOW Development Specialist Calli Crow recently chatted with Matt Myers, co-founder of the apparel brand M22, about their support for FLOW and protecting fresh water.
The COVID-19 pandemic that has so overwhelmed us all for these past many months has made me draw inward, wanting to protect the waters and all things of natural beauty just for myself, writes FLOW supporter and author Jerry Beasley in his essay, “A Matter of Reverence.”
Water is becoming unaffordable in communities across the state and the nation. The village of Beulah is one of many places across Michigan and the United States where residential water rates have skyrocketed. In fact, water bills have risen by 80 percent in the past decade for millions of Americans. This water affordability crisis is especially acute and painful during the COVID-19 pandemic, which requires frequent washing.
When Ohio’s Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969—the same year Michigan’s Rouge River blazed because of waste oil—America had had enough of worsening water pollution. Public opinion strongly favored tougher laws and enforcement to protect water. It took a little more than three years, but on October 18,1972, overriding a veto by President Richard Nixon, Congress enacted what has come to be known as the federal Clean Water Act. Along with considerable federal aid for construction of municipal sewage treatment facilities, the Act called for water quality standards and action by the states to implement the law and achieve the benchmarks.
Today, October 12, is Indigenous People’s Day, a holiday that celebrates and honors Native American peoples and commemorates our histories and cultures.
