The U. S. Coast Guard has begun taking delivery of their new "Response Boat-Medium," or RB-M, a 44-footer which will replace their existing multi-mission 41-footers. They will receive 180 of these boats over the next 7 years. The first one in the Great Lakes will be stationed in Milwaukee, arriving October 24, 2008. Details are here...
Several GLCC members from the Lake Superior Region participated in the popular Duluth Maritime Festival, which was held in early August. Click here to see the official site for the event. It includes both a video clip and photo gallery.
The record rainfall last week in Chicago overwhelmed the deep tunnel and surface reservoirs, resulting in 99 billion gallons of stormwater and sewage being dumped into Lake Michigan. Here's a newspaper account...
The deep tunnel—a major engineering marvel, shown in the photo—will be toured by GLCC members attending the annual meeting in October.
To put it in perspective, this sewage dump would be the equivalant of 247,500,000 boats dumping their 40 gallon holding tanks into Lake Michigan
The Old Farmer's Almanac predicts below average precipitation for the coming winter throughout the Great Lakes area. Here's a newspaper account. The new 2009 edition of the Almanac was released Tuesday, September 9. The National Weather Service takes a different point of view. Here's another newspaper account...
Here's a projection of what the Great Lakes will look like in 1000 years, if current trends continue. Open the full-size image.