Great Lakes (IL IN MI MN OH WI)

"Michigan may be known as the Great Lakes state, but most of its residents have a river to thank for their hometown’s existence."

"Illinois lawmakers last week passed a new law establishing more robust requirements for monitoring per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — better known as PFAS “forever chemicals” — in wastewater discharges at major facilities across the state. The deciding 64-34 House vote came just days after the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rescinding limits for select toxic PFAS compounds in drinking water — a decision that environmental advocates, and the Illinois EPA, immediately rebuffed."

"The Ohio Supreme Court overturned a permit that state officials previously granted to a massive, 6,000-acre industrial-scale solar farm and battery operation in Madison County."

"The state of Minnesota has filed a new lawsuit against Maplewood-based 3M, alleging that PFAS from the company’s manufacturing plant in Cottage Grove continue to contaminate groundwater and the Mississippi River."

"Michigan’s Department of Attorney General and several environmental justice groups presented oral arguments on Friday before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, arguing that emergency orders that kept the J.H. Campbell coal plant from retiring were illegal applications of federal law."

"In rural Jasper County, two defining energy trends of the Trump era — reviving coal and building gas-powered data centers — are converging."

"Flooding across northern Michigan last month pushed rivers to record levels, testing the limits of the state’s aging dams so severely that officials in one city nearly ordered evacuations as water threatened to spill over the top of a key barrier — a close call that highlights the growing risk that intensifying storms pose to similar infrastructure around the country."

"Thousands of Milwaukee children are growing up with poison in their blood. It courses through their veins, cements in their bones and threatens to rob them of impulse control, learning ability and physical health."