The Great Lakes piping plover recovery effort has been ongoing since the mid-1980s when the population got as low as a dozen nesting pairs. This year, the number reached 85 nesting pairs for the first time.

The common loon, Fe, has broken records again with the arrival of loon chicks 43 and 44. Fe is the "world's most productive" loon known to exist.

Whitefish have survived and fed Michiganders for centuries. It's synonymous with Great Lakes food and Great Lakes living. But things have taken a bittersweet tone as the whitefish near collapse.

A cultural icon for Native Americans and a popular fish across the Great Lakes region is becoming harder to find as its population declines due to invasive mussels, which filter out the bottom of the food web.

Flint, Michigan, is nearly finished replacing lead pipes 11 years after the water crisis. Financial struggles still cloud the water system's future.

There’s tons of documentation on the plume’s legal, technical and local history, but finding answers to big-picture questions can be difficult. Here's what I've learned after 18 months of research.

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement needs to be updated to address the urgent issue of microplastic pollution. Scientists suspect high levels of microplastics in the Great Lakes because they are landlocked, and closer to people, which are the main source of plastic pollution.

Locals have been pushing for more aggressive solutions to the Gelman plume, but the company isn't required to fully clean it up. EPA intervention could change that — if it survives Trump 2.0.

Since the 1990s, cyanobacterial blooms have become increasingly common each summer in western Lake Erie. The blooms are cause by an overabundance of nutrients, namely phosphorus, that spills into the lake off farms.

The Great Lakes temperatures are slightly cooler than typical for this time of year. Overall climate change is causing the lake temperatures to increase.