Updates from Around the Basin, November 2026

Plastic Contaminants Legislation in Illinois: According to The Alliance for the Great Lakes, around 22 million pounds of plastic pollute the Great Lakes every year. In August, Illinois HB 4418, which was introduced in the House by GLLC member Rep. Joyce Mason and co-sponsored in the Senate by the GLLC’s chair, Sen. Laura Fine, was signed into law. The new law classifies plastic pellets, often called “nurdels,” as a pollutant. HB 4418 requires the State Environmental Protection Agency to enact stormwater pollution controls to ensure that producers are responsible for keeping these plastics out of the Great Lakes. This legislation will help cut down on plastic pollution in the Great Lakes and the Illinois waterways that flow into them— 100 percent of these waterways have been polluted by microplastics.

Flint Lead Water Line Replacement: In August, the State of Michigan and the City of Flint announced that all the known lead water lines in Flint have been replaced. Around 11,600 lead water lines have been replaced over the course of the $140 million project. In addition, the city has been below federal and state actionable levels for copper and lead for over 10 years, with 90% of the water tested in the city at or less than 3 parts per billion.

Nipigon Bay Delisted as Area of Concern by Canadian Government: In August, the Government of Canada announced that Nipigon Bay had been delisted as an Area of Concern (AOC). Nipigon Bay, located on the northern shores of Lake Superior, was classified as an AOC in 1987 due to contamination from paper mills and logging operations.

Areas of Concern on the Great Lakes are designated by Canada and the United State under the binational Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. They are areas where “significant impairment of beneficial uses has occurred as a result of human activities.” The Great Lakes had 43 AOCs at the start of the agreement in 1987: 12 in Canada and 26 in the United States, along with five shared binational AOCs. To date, 12 AOCs have been delisted. The delisting of the Nipigon Bay signals that the water quality has improved, the fish population has begun to recover, and habitats for fish have improved. Working jointly, the federal and provincial governments, along with Indigenous and local communities, have spent almost 40 years working toward this milestone.