Results tagged “nationaloceanic”

This week's warm temperatures aren't without a downside. A downside of tornado variety. More than 30 tornadoes hit the Midwest yesterday (map), killing at leas two people and destroying homes across Missouri, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Illinois. Winds were powerful enough to derail a freight train, which was conveniently carrying toxic materials through McHenry County, so about 500 people had to be evacuated. Yesterday's heavy rain flooded parts of the region, and we remain under a flood warning today.

It's not just your friends from college: Lake Michigan is getting shallower, too. It's approaching record lows, and its water levels have been dropping since 1997.

Yesterday US Congressman Mark Kirk held a hearing at the Shedd Aquarium to discuss the results of a study done by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, which determined Lake Michigan has more mercury pollution than all of the other Great Lakes.

The battle over who really creates the dirty water in Lake Michigan is getting down to who put the doo-doo in the lake. Environmental Protection Agency scientists announced today that they think the cause of high E. Coli levels in Chicago's lake water is a result of animal and bird feces. But North Shore Congressman Mark Kirk isn't taking EPA's, uh, poop. Swinging into action, and using a well-worn Congressional method, on Tuesday Kirk directed the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to produce a special report on "Cheesehead" sewage problems, a.k.a., Milwaukee dumping their doo-doo into Lake Michigan.