With the Lake Michigan lakefront now open to swimmers for the season, the Chicago Park District will be using a new system to monitor bacteria level and ensure a safe swimming environment for visitors.
From The Chicago Tribune:
“Chicago’s new elaborate system of buoys and statistical models will monitor 16 of the city’s 24 beaches, and Park District officials are seeking grant money from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to expand the system to cover all beaches by next summer.
The model will predict the levels of harmful bacteria at each beach using data on the location of sources of contamination, like colonies of sea gulls or sewer outlets; the motion of waves that can disturb bacteria growing in the sand; lake-current speeds; water temperature; and sunlight.”
A data collection project is currently underway that would help communities prepare for and prevent flooding in the Great Lakes basin. There are also six technical workshops for coastal management and associated professionals to be held next month at several locations around the Great Lakes.
“Federal officials are studying how to help Great Lakes communities better prepare for hazardous floods.
‘It will be the most comprehensive study ever conducted of shoreline flooding,’ said Ken Hinterlong, a senior engineer with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. So far, only ‘…the first phase of the project is done, which is a basin-wide data collection for Lake Michigan and Lake St. Clair.’”
Visit the link above for the full article including a link to the full workshop schedule.
Loyola University in Chicago is committed to the environment in a number of ways, and one of their approaches holds benefits for Lake Michigan as well.
<span”>The University recently installed their seventh green roof system, this one on Cuneo Hall. Green roof systems provide a number of benefits, but one of them is the reduction of rainwater runoff. By providing natural materials to absorb, filter, and utilize the water, it reduces pollution and runoff volume that can wind up negatively impacting the Lake.</span”>
From the article on Earth Techling:
“A green roof acts like a natural sponge that absorbs stormwater and curtails runoff,” Aaron Durnbaugh, the university’s director of sustainability, explained in a statement. He went on to note that the university’s Chicago campus is located on the shores of Lake Michigan, which makes reduced runoff a real priority for protecting local water quality.”
