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Sleeping Bear researchers to discuss DNA methods for monitoring beach water quality

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Historically, water quality monitoring programs have relied on traditional techniques, such as culturing microorganisms (e.g., E. coli, enterococci) in the laboratory, to evaluate if beaches are safe for swimming, surfing, and other water-exposure recreational activities. However, the significant time-lapse between sample collection and results, typically 18 hours or longer, can result in inaccurate management decisions due to rapidly changing water quality conditions. This results in either unnecessary beach closures or beaches open to swimming when the water quality is actually poor. Recent advancements in DNA-based technology are increasingly becoming indispensable tools in environmental applications, including water quality monitoring. With these techniques, water quality results are achievable on the same day of sampling, within hours of sample collection.

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The Homestead Real Estate

The Homestead is a resort community located on about 350 acres of land with a mile of frontage on Lake Michigan, two more miles on the Crystal River. It is a community comprised of neighborhoods — lakefront, river and lakefront, riverfront, lake view and forest view — separated by nature.

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What lurks beneath

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Environmentalists, activists, citizens and a growing number of Michigan policymakers worry that if Pipeline 5 under the Mackinac Straits were to rupture and spill oil directly into the world’s largest freshwater resource, the damage could decimate aquatic ecosystems, local economies and the tourism industry. One in five Michigan jobs are tied, directly or indirectly, to safe and clean water.

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Can riparian landowners fix their Lake Michigan beach?

With Lake Michigan as high as it is right now, 579.6 feet, that means less than one foot of elevation from the water’s edge would require a DEQ permit if a beach owner wanted to “move around” the sand or remove vegetation.

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Walking the Lake Michigan beach — a public right, or trespassing?

It’s common knowledge that the public can walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline. You can walk it anywhere on public property. That means public road ends, or the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The question is: how far from the water’s edge can a person legally walk along private property? This is an important issue, since about 70 percent of Michigan’s “third coast” is privately owned. The answer is unclear, because neither courts in Michigan nor in other Great Lakes states have offered a clear and consistent answer.

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Coldwater kayaking not a hot idea

Thinking of taking your kayak or canoe from Sleeping Bear Point to South Manitou Island? Think again. The air temperature may reach a balmy 80 degrees, and the surface water temperature near the beach is slowly approaching swimmable levels. But the open water temperature out in the Manitou Passage never reaches the 60s. That’s frigid. And it can kill you.

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Water—LOTS of it—means trouble down below

It began last March over at Woodstone. While Karen and Peter Van Nort were off in sunny Arizona, their house sitter was out walking their dog one day when an acquaintance drove by in a Glen Arbor Outdoor truck. He mentioned that he was checking their clients’ vacant homes as a precaution and asked if she had checked the Van Nort’s basement.

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Paddling Across Lake Michigan

By the time you read this, Andrew Pritchard, Kwin Morris, Jeff Guy, Joe Lorenz and J Mueller may be sitting at Frankfort’s Stormcloud Brewery, tipping back a round of well-deserved pints. Or they may be still en route, traversing 60 miles across Lake Michigan, from Wisconsin to Frankfort beach on standup paddleboards. The goal of the journey is to raise $10,000 for the Alliance for the Great Lakes, which has preserved and protected the “freshwater seas” since 1970.

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Volunteers at Inland Seas

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There are approximately 250 volunteers helping out at the Inland Seas Education Association. “We’d be unable to function without all the amazingly talented and amazingly dedicated volunteers,” says executive director Fred Sitkins. There are doctors, lawyers, teachers, fish biologists, interior decorators, housewives and retirees of all kinds, including retired school administrators, pipe fitters and electronic hospital equipment salesmen.

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Hoisting the Anchor

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Empire celebrates its annual Anchor Day festival on July 18-19 to commemorate the raising of an anchor found 37 years ago in 18 feet of water off the Lake Michigan shore. The celebration kicks off Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Township Hall with the Empire Museum showing of two films.

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