The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy has released the 2025 Michigan State of the Great Lakes Report, outlining a variety of initiatives in the past year to protect the Great Lakes and looking ahead to challenges in the coming year.
EGLE spokesperson Jeff Johnston tells us the report is required yearly and covers Great Lakes-related topics statewide. He notes Ox Creek in Benton Harbor is mentioned in one of its articles.
“That’s an area where EGLE has been and continues to be very involved with this community driven effort to revive and rehabilitate the Ox Creek corridor,” Johnston said.
Johnston says the report covers an upcoming effort to create a maritime strategy for the state so the shipping industry and related businesses can thrive in a sustainable and responsible way. It also celebrates the removal of Muskegon Lake as a state Area of Concern after cleanup efforts there and explores the never-ending fight to control sea lampreys in Michigan waterways.
“When the COVID pandemic led to some of the anti-lamprey efforts being ramped down temporarily, we saw an almost immediate resurgence in the numbers of sea lamprey. So it just reinforced how vital these efforts are.”
For Lake Michigan, Johnston says the report outlines efforts to keep trash out of waterways, pointing to a new bubbler system being tested in Lansing to protect the Grand River. Upstream programs like that ultimately affect the Great Lakes. That’s why the state will be doing more to eliminate PFAS contamination in the year ahead.
“In the year ahead, we’re going to be doing more drinking water well testing,” Johnston said. “There are grants that will be available to airports for studying the issue from the perspective of firefighting foam that’s a contributor to the problem. The list goes on and on.”
Johnston says protecting the Great Lakes is a wide-ranging effort that takes all kinds of partners.
You can read the 2025 Michigan State of the Great Lakes Report right here.
