Archive for March 20, 2020

Great Lakes waters at risk from buried contaminants and new threats

Nickle Beach, Copper Harbor, Silver Bay. These places, all situated on the shores of the Laurentian Great Lakes, evoke the legacy of mining connected with the region.

People gather outside Flint, Mich., city hall in January 2016 to protest the governor’s handling of the city’s water crisis.

While mining operations for metal ores and their refining have all but ceased here, there are renewed concerns over the safety of our Great Lakes source waters. One only has to think back to the 2014 water crisis in Flint, Mich. that exposed more than 100,000 people to elevated lead levels or to more recent headlines over lead contamination in water distributed from Canadian taps. Read more