The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

by Dan Egan

The Clean Water Act missed those marks, but the improvements it brought have been immense. In the early 1970s two-thirds of America’s lakes, rivers and coastal waters were unsafe for fishing or swimming. By 2014 that number had been slashed in half.

under the surface Lake Michigan bears little resemblance to the freshwater wonder that left early European explorers awestruck with its teeming herring, trout, sturgeon, perch and whitefish. Down below, the lake has pretty much become just a goby show. They thrive on the invasive mussels amid a shin-high forest of a nuisance seaweed-like plant called Cladophora, which needs three things to thrive: sunlight, nutrients and a hard surface.