The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is creating a board to advise federal agencies carrying out two wide-ranging programs to protect the Great Lakes, EPA chief Lisa Jackson said. Jackson leads a task force with representatives of 16 federal agencies that have roles in the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The new panel will make suggestions.

EPA is establishing the Great Lakes Advisory Board (GLAB). The purpose of the GLAB is to provide advice to the Administrator in her capacity as Chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force established per Executive Order 13340 (May 18, 2004),on matters related to Great Lakes restoration and protection. The major objectives will be to provide advice and recommendations on: Great Lakes protection and restoration policy; long term goals and objectives for Great Lakes protection and restoration; and annual priorities to protect and restore the Great Lakes that may be used to help inform budget decisions.

In response to public comment on the available options or technologies that may be effective at preventing the transfer of ANS through aquatic pathways in the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS), new information was added to the ANS Control Paper, and the final version was released April 18. 

This spring brings "new life" to the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS), as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) says farewell to retiring Program Manager Gary O'Keefe and welcomes the new Interim Program Manager Dave Romano. Romano brings 13 years of USACE Civil Works and Planning experience to the GLMRIS Team .

A mournful headline in the Daily Cleveland Herald marked the passing of the Sultan during a storm in 1864, a few miles offshore from what is now the Collinwood neighborhood.

The 148-year-old wreck got a marker of a different sort Saturday, when 15 divers placed a white-and-blue buoy over the site, then made multiple dives to view the ship, which still lies in 45 feet of water in Lake Erie.

“Things have been going slower then what we expected, but we are making good progress overall,” said Tan, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University.

Great Lakes Echo covered the early development stages of Tan’s robofish in 2009. His latest prototype can submerge, something the initial robofish couldn’t do.

Canada said it will devote $17.5 million to protecting the Great Lakes from Asian carp, including development of an early warning system with U.S. agencies so authorities can react quickly if the invasive species is detected.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and a group of volunteers from Lake Huron Sportfishing, Inc. worked to help ensure the future of angling on the AuSable River and Lake Huron on May 16.

The partners released more than 40,000 yearling steelhead into the river, half of which from the DNR fish pens in Oscoda.

Illinois fisheries biologists netted two Asian carp in a Chicago lagoon as part of a stepped-up effort to track and remove the invasive species from Illinois waterways.

The bighead carp found in the Garfield Park Lagoon were about 60 pounds each and probably had been there for many years, perhaps brought there when the pond was stocked or by a fisherman's bait bucket, state Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud said.

A $12 million cleanup of contaminated mud from the bottom of Muskegon Lake is complete, making the lake safer and moving it a step closer to removal from an international list of polluted Great Lakes sites.