For Friday, Oct. 30, 2026 🎃👻🍬🦇💀🧡
1 – Large spills may grab headlines, but small oil spills happen more often on the Great Lakes, and their ecological effects are largely unstudied.
Lake Superior State University looked at a decade of oil spill records from the U.S. and Canada.
They documented 6,453 oil spill incidents in the lakes from 2015 to 2024. Of those, almost 57 percent were reported in the U.S., most of them shipping-related.
Only 35 percent of U.S. incidents included a reported spill volume. Canadian records contained no volume data before 2023.
Researchers say the study emphasizes the need to better understand the ecological impact of smaller releases, and highlights the need to improve oil spill reporting in the basin.
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2 – Are you thinking of snow yet? Think microplastics.
They’re in the snow. Scientists from the University of California, Riverside, measured microplastic pollution during snowstorms and found significant amounts even in remote locations.
A news release explains that microplastics enter the air when plastic products shed fibers or wear down into small fragments. Clothing can emit fibers directly into the atmosphere. Wind lifts particles from the ground and transports them elsewhere.
The study was done in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the snowpack supplies about 30 percent of California’s freshwater. The study didn’t look at related health effects, but some chemicals used in plastics have documented health effects including cellular damage.
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3 – Michigan’s water infrastructure needs fixing. It’ll cost almost $40 billion over the next 20 years.
That’s not including ongoing costs of about $860 million a year.
A new report from the University of Michigan and Public Sector Consultants in Lansing is the first-of-its-kind statewide inventory of water funding needs.
The water infrastructure assessment covers six categories.
And officials note that some of those are “blind spots.” For instance, no one has measured the condition of private wells that about 1 million Michigan households drink from, and no one has fully estimated source water and groundwater protection needs.
Those blind spots would add to the estimated $3.6 billion total. Michigan communities have historically spent about half as much per year on water fixes as it would take to close that gap.
The president of the Mott Foundation, which funded the report, said he hopes the information gets leaders talking about addressing water infrastructure needs.
– Mr. Great Lakes is heard at 6:45 and 8:45 Friday mornings on Delta College Public Radio 90.1 FM WUCX in University Center, Michigan, near Bay City (listen live). Follow @jeffkart on Twitter or Bluesky #MrGreatLakes
