History of the Great Lakes Timeline

In the early 19th century, the government of Upper Canada introduced legislation prohibiting the use of weirs and nets at the mouths of Lake Ontario's tributaries to protect fish populations.

By 1801, the New York Legislature found it necessary to pass regulations curtailing obstructions to the natural migrations of Atlantic salmon from Lake Erie into their spawning channels.

McCullough wrote that the fishing industry of the Great Lakes got its start on the American side of Lake Ontario in Chaumont Bay, near the Maumee River on Lake Erie, and on the Detroit River at about the time of the War of 1812.

In 1831, Alexander MacGregor from Goderich, Ontario found whitefish and herring in abundant supply around the Fishing Islands.

Concerns by the mid-19th century included obstructions in the rivers which prevented salmon and lake sturgeon from reaching their spawning grounds.

The Wisconsin Fisheries Commission noted a reduction of roughly 25% in general fish harvests by 1875, an early sign of overfishing pressure on the lakes.

Between 1879 and 1899, reported whitefish harvests declined from some 24.3 million pounds (11 million kg) to just over 9 million pounds (4 million kg).

By 1900, commercial fishermen on Lake Michigan were hauling in an average of 41 million pounds of fish annually.

By 1938, Wisconsin's commercial fishing operations were motorized and mechanized, generating jobs for more than 2,000 workers, and hauling 14 million pounds per year.

The Great Lakes: An Environmental Atlas and Resource Book (1972) noted: 'Only pockets remain of the once large commercial fishery.' Later improvements in the 1970s and 1980s enabled growth of a large recreational fishery.

The last commercial fisherman left Milwaukee in 2011 because of overfishing and anthropogenic changes to the biosphere.

Signed after the War of 1812, the Rush–Bagot Treaty, along with the later Treaty of Washington, eventually led to a complete disarmament of naval vessels in the Great Lakes.

Image source: Rush–Bagot Treaty

In 1872, a treaty gave access to the St. Lawrence River, further opening the Great Lakes to international shipping traffic.

The International Joint Commission was established in 1909 to help prevent and resolve disputes relating to the use and quality of boundary waters, and to advise Canada and the United States on water resource questions.

Image source: International Joint Commission

Under the Water Resources Development Act of 1986, diversion of water from the Great Lakes Basin requires the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors through the Great Lakes Commission, which rarely occurs.

Image source: Great Lakes Compact

In 1998, the Canadian company Nova Group won approval from the Province of Ontario to withdraw 158,000,000 U.S. gallons of lake water, sparking concern over diversions from the basin.

On December 13, 2005, the Governors and Premiers signed two agreements to protect the Great Lakes Basin, the first of which is between all ten jurisdictions.

President George W. Bush signed Great Lakes restoration funding legislation on October 3, 2008, laying groundwork for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which received $300 million in the Fiscal Year 2012 budget.

Image source: Cameron Davis (lawyer)

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Act of 2019 passed as Pub. L. 116–294 on January 5, 2021, reauthorizing the program through Fiscal Year 2026.

In 1884, the New York Fish Commission determined that the dumping of sawmill waste (chips and sawdust) had impacted fish populations.

Legislation signed under President Richard Nixon in 1972, along with the bi-national Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement signed by Canada and the U.S., marked a key turning point in protecting the lakes' water quality.

Image source: Great Lakes Areas of Concern

The first of 43 'Great Lakes Areas of Concern' to be formally de-listed through successful cleanup was Ontario's Collingwood Harbour in 1994; Severn Sound followed in 2003.

Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria blooms, have been problematic on Lake Erie since 2011, with a severity index of 10 that year and a record 10.5 in 2015.

Image source: Lake Erie

In early August 2019, satellite images depicted a bloom stretching up to 1,300 square kilometers on Lake Erie, with the heaviest concentration near Toledo, Ohio; water quality testing was underway that month.

A cleanup project captured 74,000 pieces of trash using new technology between 2020 and 2021; however, it does not claim to catch up with 22 million pounds (10.0 kt) of plastic that ends up in the Great Lakes every year.

The Great Lakes have been observed to help intensify storms, such as Hurricane Hazel in 1954, demonstrating the lakes' influence on regional weather systems.

Image source: Hurricane Hazel

In 1996, a rare tropical or subtropical storm was observed forming in Lake Huron, dubbed the 1996 Lake Huron cyclone — an unusual meteorological event for the region.

Image source: 1996 Lake Huron cyclone

The 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado moved onshore as a tornadic waterspout, another example of the Great Lakes helping intensify storms.

Recent lake levels include record low levels in 2013 in Lakes Superior, Erie, and Michigan-Huron, followed by record high levels in 2020 in the same lakes.

The ruffe, a small percid fish from Eurasia, became the most abundant fish species in Lake Superior's Saint Louis River within five years of its detection in 1986.

Image source: Ruffe

Since the 19th century, an estimated 160 new species have entered the Great Lakes ecosystem; the zebra mussel was first discovered in 1988, followed by the quagga mussel in 1989, causing severe economic and ecological impacts.

Image source: Zebra mussel

Since 2000, the invasive quagga mussel has smothered the bottom of Lake Michigan almost from shore to shore, with numbers estimated at 900 trillion.

Image source: Quagga mussel

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated in 2007 that the economic impact of the zebra mussel could be about $5 billion over the next decade.

Although a drop of lake water may contain 1 million bacteria cells and 10 million viruses, only since 2012 has there been a long-term study of the lakes' micro-organisms; more than 160 new species were discovered between 2012 and 2019.