Editorial: Our Great Lakes deserve a group effort to protect them
Taken separately, the threats to the health of the Great Lakes are enough to raise alarm.
Together they are a crisis, the root of which we must recognize and take seriously.
Mercury, PCBs, PFAS, fertilizer, pesticides, microplastics, water withdrawal, toxic algae, botulism, invasive species, sewage leaks â they all damage the Great Lakes every day.
And they all sprout from the same root cause: us.
Every major threat to the health of the Great Lakes finds its origin in our activities. Our carelessness.
Individually, each of those problems is a serious challenge, and many are being addressed in a somewhat disconnected array of efforts. And it seems with each passing month, there is a new catastrophe brewing.