Great Lakes (IL IN MI MN OH WI)

"While Flint battles a water crisis, just two hours away the beverage giant pumps almost 100,000 times what an average Michigan resident uses into plastic bottles".

"A potentially harmful algae bloom covered more than 700 square miles in the western basin of Lake Erie last week, turning the lake bright green and alarming residents and local officials."

"The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District's $3 billion Project Clean Lake is designed to one day capture and clean 98 percent of the 4.5 billion gallons of stormwater and sewage that it receives each year before it pours untreated into Lake Erie. But even that federally mandated, 25-year program wouldn't have prevented pollutants from 236 wastewater treatment plants in Northeast Ohio from being discharged into our waterways over the past five years".

"SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — After a year of scouring the depths of Lake Michigan with a sonar-equipped fishing boat, Steve Radovan finally got a hit on the gray-scale monitor in the captain’s cabin in May 2016. The 71-year-old shipwreck enthusiast powered down the Discovery’s engines and dropped a waterproof camera attached to a rope into roughly 300 feet of water. The images revealed a three-masted barquentine, covered in mussels and algae but lying on the bottom still largely intact."

"The city of Flint saw fewer pregnancies, and a higher number of fetal deaths, during the period women and their fetuses were exposed to high levels of lead in their drinking water, according to a new research study that reviewed health records from Flint and the state."

"This will be a busy week for Flint water crisis prosecutors."

"East Chicago is in the process of replacing lead service lines throughout the city, an action the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is critical to ensure the safety of the drinking water."

"Enbridge's proposed new crude oil pipeline across northern Minnesota isn't needed, and moreover the aging line it's supposed to replace should be shut down, the Minnesota Department of Commerce said in an analysis released Monday."

"Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday ordered an accelerated and “aggressive” review of Enbridge Energy operations and maintenance procedures after the company revealed that at least two areas on twin pipelines running under the Straits of Mackinac are missing enamel coating."

"The fate of a mine near headwaters of a sacred river hinges on a wetlands permit; the tribe wants tougher federal standards to apply—not looser state ones."