Dear Subscriber, We may all feel like our lives are on pause because of coronavirus. Paused, and irregular – for example, I'm writing this column from my living room couch with 10 days of stay-at-home stubble on my face. But Mother Nature has not pushed pause. And that’s why, starting today, MLive is presenting an extraordinary reporting project on the health, or unhealth, of the Great Lakes. Today’s installment focuses on steadily rising lake levels, which show no sign of abating and are wreaking havoc in many ways. “High water in the Great Lakes, and especially Michigan, was a major story last fall and into the winter,” said Mickey Ciokajlo, a regional news manager for MLive.com who oversees our environmental reporting team. “Spring is here, and water levels are even higher. Unfortunately, it’s going to be an issue all through 2020.” MLive’s reporters across the state have documented the carnage caused and costs mounting from this unstoppable force – shoreline erosion that is destroying property; flooding; disruption to commercial shipping. The main culprit identified in our reporting is polarizing, but necessary to address. “A recurring theme is that climate change is a major contributing factor,” Ciokajlo said. “Lake levels have always fluctuated over time, but experts are saying that the fluctuations are becoming more pronounced and more frequent.” In the past several years, MLive has committed more journalistic firepower to environmental issues. We brought the PFAS “forever” pollution into the national spotlight; reported on the controversy around the Line 5 pipeline under the Mackinac Straits; and have done in-depth reporting on the Nestle groundwater withdrawals. “Now, we are taking that environmental reporting talent and turning it on the Great Lakes. We want to focus it on a topic of great interest and concern to our readers in Michigan,” Ciokajlo said. Today’s first installment pivots on a trip by environmental reporter Garret Ellison and photojournalist Cory Morse down through the Great Lakes, to where they empty into the St. Lawrence Seaway at the Moses-Saunders Power Dam in upstate New York. This is the “plug in the bath tub,” as Ciokajlo put it, where the surging Great Lakes are trying to drain toward the sea. However, he noted, “the faucet is still on full blast, and they had to delay the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.” That is one of the many facets of this sprawling, complex topic that MLive journalists will be unpacking for you over this spring and summer. In the meantime, we won’t falter on our coverage of coronavirus. The world isn’t stopping, and neither will we. For ongoing coverage of the Great Lakes environmental series, click here. For ongoing updates on the coronavirus pandemic, click here. You also can sign up for regular text updates directly to your phone by texting 517-200-3045. |