Fifty years ago, on December 16, 1974, Ford clinched a public health victory when he signed a bill that joined the pantheon of federal environmental protection laws enacted that decade.Today, the country still reaps the benefits from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Most Americans are provided high-quality water from their taps.

Drainage systems carry away excess water, but they also take fertilizers that can fuel harmful algal blooms. Researchers, companies, and farmers are deploying systems that can control that flow.

The Great Lakes system system is no stranger to invasive species, but grass carp could upend the Great Lakes' ecology, as well as the operations of some of the world’s most significant freshwater commercial fisheries. So far, the Great Lakes have successfully held grass carp at bay. Those involved in managing the grass carp — not to mention the fishermen who rely on the abundance of native fish — can only hope that success is sustainable.

Michigan and Ohio are both struggling to reduce the fertilizer runoff getting into Lake Erie which feeds cyanobacterial blooms, also called harmful algal blooms. Those toxic blooms can be hazardous to people and animals.

The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are more than 50 years old. They are not equipped to effectively deal with issues like climate change, agricultural pollution and toxic contaminants like PFAS ("forever chemicals”) that have emerged.

Prompted by persistent complaints of odor and contamination, regulators from the Ohio Agriculture Department and the state Environmental Protection Agency investigated earlier this year and cited nine farms for manure mismanagement, and issued fines to three farms for failing to secure proper operating permits.

Former International Joint Commission (IJC) chairs (one a Republican and one a Democrat) on how presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris might handle three Great Lakes issues: Great Lakes restoration, Enbridge's Line 5, and groundwater.

A study in the journal Science outlines the many consequences of the loss of ice on lakes because of climate change. Fishing, cultural activities, transportation, water quality, and greenhouse gas releases are all consequences of the loss of lake ice coverage.

A bipartisan group of representatives proposed two statutes last June that would essentially exempt manure digester wastes from EGLE's new oversight.

Baby boomers are part of a "silver tsunami" of retirements sweeping across the nation's drinking water and wastewater systems.