Scientists want the U.S. and Canada to designate microplastics as a “chemical of mutual concern.”

The recommendation is part of a new report on how to monitor microplastics in the Great Lakes, released by the Great Lakes Science Advisory Board at the International Joint Commission, an organization that helps the U.S. and Canada tackle water quality issues together.

“The Great Lakes have a lot of microplastic. There’s absolutely no doubt,” said Chelsea Rochman, an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Toronto and an author of the report. “The amount of microplastics that I see in urban areas — for example, in Toronto — is striking. It is much higher than I see in the open ocean, or even in the ocean in urban areas. And the amount that we see in our fish, including in our sport fish, is also striking.”

The designation would add microplastics to a list of contaminants like PCBs and mercury that both countries are required to monitor under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

“We have a lot of policies on both sides of the border,” Rochman said. “But we can do better, specifically for microplastics.”

Microplastic particles can negatively impact aquatic organisms, ranging from stress on an organism’s diet to its reproductive system. Emerging research also shows that microplastics can leach toxic chemicals into organisms.

“We see hundreds of particles in the gut of an individual fish here in the Toronto Harbor … and we also see tens or dozens of particles in the muscle, which is the filet, the part that we eat,” Rochman said. “We also know that the concentrations we see in some parts of the Great Lakes are above those that we consider to be a threshold for risk, meaning that the organisms now in our Great Lakes are exposed to levels that could be harmful.”

But there’s currently no coordinated regional effort to monitor microplastics across the Great Lakes. That would change if microplastics are added to the binational list of contaminants.

The new report lays out a framework for making widespread monitoring possible, like a standardized definition of microplastics and standardized methods for sampling and reporting microplastic pollution.

Right now, most data comes from piecemeal research across different academic institutions.

“If we’re all sampling in the same way and doing the analysis in the same way … we can compare apples to apples, as opposed to trying to compare apples to oranges,” Rochman said. “If we’re monitoring in such a way that’s not standardized, it’s possible the data won’t have the same trust … as we make decisions that may change how businesses operate, how people operate, et cetera.”

The report provides the tools to run long-term, consistent microplastics monitoring programs as opposed to the disparate data that come from academia.

Officials from the U.S. and Canada first began considering adding microplastics to the list of “chemicals of mutual concern” in 2023. There’s no timeline for when they’ll make a decision.

Funding for much of the work of monitoring pollutants on the U.S. side of the border comes from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That money is approved through 2026. An extension of that funding through 2031 has passed the U.S. Senate but still needs House approval.

On Feb. 12, the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Science Advisory Board will hold a public webinar to discuss their report on the state of science on microplastics. Register here.

One scientist thinks lake whitefish could disappear from certain parts of the Great Lakes within the next five years.

That’s the assessment as fisheries managers start to wrap up their yearly look at how the iconic species is doing in portions of lakes Michigan and Huron and in eastern Lake Superior.

The stock assessment, which has historically been each year but will now go to an every-three-year cycle, is part of the Great Lakes Fishing Decree, which dictates how partners from tribal, federal and state governments manage fisheries in northern Michigan’s waters.

Biologists have used computer models to track whitefish in Lake Michigan and Huron for several years. And the numbers have consistently been trending down.

But this year, after biologists tweaked the formula for a more accurate count of just how many whitefish there are, in almost every case in the lower lakes, the model spit out much lower abundance than in past years.

“We’re gonna need … 60 or so million people that live near the shores of the Great Lakes to care that these fish are headed towards extirpation.”

–Jason Smith, fisheries biologist

“None of us were surprised,” said Jason Smith, a fisheries biologist with Bay Mills Indian Community in the Upper Peninsula. “It’s possible that as biologists, we didn’t do a good enough job of raising the alarm widely to the public, but amongst ourselves … we have known that we were in the middle of a crisis.”

The most recent assessment took into account something different, giving scientists a more accurate picture of how many whitefish are in the lakes.

That something different? Green Bay, Wisconsin.

“During all this decline in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, the whitefish in Green Bay were doing really well,” Smith said. “They were doing so well, in fact, that many of those fish swam out of Green Bay and got captured in places like Muskegon in Lake Michigan, like De Tour in Lake Huron.”

But until recently, the models couldn’t really tell the difference between a whitefish from Green Bay and a whitefish from somewhere else.

That changed this time around. And scientists found that those Green Bay fish were artificially inflating whitefish abundance in other places throughout Lakes Michigan and Huron.

This year, models gave a more accurate, more dire picture.

“Even if we bring [commercial fishing] harvest to zero, the lakes are still headed toward extirpation,” Smith said.

In other words, Smith says, lake whitefish could disappear from certain parts of the Great Lakes within the next five years.

They’re struggling because invasive quagga and zebra mussels are making it extremely difficult for whitefish to reach adulthood in Lake Michigan and Huron.

“These non-local beings basically have disrupted the food chain in a way that adikameg — lake whitefish — can no longer really make a living in the main basin of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan,” Smith said.

These mussels suck tons of nutrients out of the water, leaving very little left for young whitefish.

“If we go back, say, to the peaks of whitefish, in each liter of [lake] water, there’d be somewhere between 100 and 700 zooplankton. So 100 to 700 nice little bite sized meals for a baby whitefish,” Smith said.

A few years back, Smith and other biologists sampled for zooplankton in northern Lake Michigan.

“We actually had a 30-meter tow in which we did not capture a single zooplankton,” he said. “It’s really unheard of. When I tell people we had a zooplankton tow that didn’t have a zooplankton in it, limnologists actually don’t believe me.”

So, the solution? Smith says there are a couple. First, more funding for figuring out how to control quagga and zebra mussels in the lakes.

And second, more time for figuring out how to give whitefish a boost with rearing and stocking programs.

Scientists from federal, tribal and state governments are working on these.

“But we’re gonna need … 60-or-so-million people that live near the shores of the Great Lakes to care that these fish are headed towards extirpation,” Smith said.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will pause work on Segment 9, the final extension of a paved, multi-use trail through the park.

The decision comes after growing opposition to the four-and-a-half mile trail extension, including from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

Sleeping Bear Superintendent Scott Tucker said conversations with the tribe ultimately influenced the park’s decision to pause the project.

“The Grand Traverse Band, through all of our consultation conversations, were opposed to the route through this section of the National Lakeshore,” Tucker said at a news conference on Wednesday.

In August, Grand Traverse Band tribal Chairwoman Sandra Witherspoon penned a letter of opposition to the proposed route.

“Our opposition is grounded in serious concerns regarding the potential impacts on wetlands, tree removal, and the treaty gathering rights of our Tribal members,” she wrote in the letter addressed to U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), U.S. Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Scott Tucker.

Tucker said the tribe’s concerns are the reason the park is putting the brakes on Segment 9.

“Out of respect to the [tribe’s] ancestral homelands, we are pausing that project,” Tucker said.

Tucker said the pause is indefinite and the park will prioritize other projects.

“We look forward to continuing the consultation process with the National Park Service and appreciate their willingness to work with us,” the Grand Traverse Band’s Witherspoon told IPR in an email.

TART Trails, a Traverse City nonprofit focused on non-motorized transit, was leading fundraising for Segment 9.

TART CEO Julie Clark said roughly $2.6 million has been raised and that those donations are restricted for use on the project. Clark said the nonprofit will talk with donors on what “possibilities may be” for the money.

Clark said TART respects the decision to pause the project but is disappointed that the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail might remain uncompleted.

“We lose safe access, right?” Clark said. “It is not a safe place to bike or run along M-22 and that section of the park, it is not comfortable. We know that the community wanted [a] separated trail, so we lose this opportunity to build a facility that provided safe, responsible, managed access to the Lakeshore.”

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore had contracted with a construction firm through the Michigan Department of Transportation for an initial design.

Tucker said that the design draft is still expected this winter but the park won’t act on it.

He said it will serve as a foundation for future conversations with the tribe if the park chooses to revisit the project one day.