Great Lakes

Lake Huron

Physical and environmental features of the Lake Huron Basin

Lake Huron is the third largest of the lakes by volume with 3,540 km3 (850 cubic miles) of water. Its average depth is 59 meters (195 feet) and its maximum depth is 229 meters (750 feet).  The Saginaw River basin is intensively farmed and contains the Flint and Saginaw-Bay City metropolitan areas. Saginaw Bay, like Green Bay, contains a very productive fishery.

• Map of Lake Huron drainage basin

The Lake Huron Binational Partnership

The Lake Huron Binational Partnership effort  focuses on pollution reduction activities in areas of obvious importance, such as Areas of Concern (AOCs), and directly pursues on-the-ground activities to protect areas of high-quality habitat within the Lake Huron basin.  Existing stakeholder and agency forums are used as much as possible to support the goals of the Partnership. The Partnership maintains a close association with the Remedial Action Plan efforts in AOCs, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission’s Lake Huron and Lake Huron Technical Committees, the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC), and domestic efforts that support the Partnership.

This 2008-2010 Action Plan provides updated information on environmental trends, identifies priority issues, and promotes management activities to be pursued over the next two-year cycle. Consistent with an adaptive management approach, the Action Plan tracks progress on issues identified in the previous cycle, including contaminants in fish, changes in food web structure and protection of critical habitat, and has been expanded to address emerging issues, such as observed increases in nearshore algae and diseases such as botulism and viral hemorrhaghic septicemia (VHS)

• 2008-2010 Action Plan
• 2006-2008 Action Plan (PDF 74 pp. 1.8Mb)

In 2004, the new Lake Huron Binational Partnership released the Lake Huron Binational Partnership Action Plan – 2004 to address basinwide concerns in Lake Huron. The 2004 Action Plan provides information on priority issues, trends, goals, research, monitoring, on-the-ground activities and future needs.

• 2004 Action Plan (PDF 45 pp. 3.6Mb)

The Lake Huron Initiative

A precursor to the Lake Huron Binational Partnership, the Lake Huron Initiative (the “Initiative”) was a U.S.-led effort to compile existing data to assess the state of the Lake Huron basin and identify priorities for future efforts. Led by the Michigan Office of the Great Lakes and partially funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Initiative released the original Lake Huron Initiative Action Plan in March 2000 and an update in 2002. The Lake Huron Initiative Action Plan – 2002 was developed with extensive agency involvement and began discussions of issues of importance to Lake Huron, actions that need to be taken to protect and restore the Lake Huron ecosystem, and development of partnerships to begin undertaking efforts that could not be accomplished by individual agencies alone.

Lake Huron Initiative link:
http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3313_3677-30070--,00.html

Map of Lake Huron drainage basin

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