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A U.S. and Canadian study released this spring was supposed to be the final word on whether a 1960s Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in the St. Clair River helped unleash an uncontrollable erosion problem that has led to a permanent - and ongoing - water loss from Lakes Michigan and Huron.

On an unseasonably warm day in March, two Wauwatosa aldermen strapped on their life jackets and launched kayaks in the Menomonee River.

As they made their way from north of Capitol Drive to Hart Park, people waved and shouted that they too wish they had a boat on the waterway.

"We saw deer and ducks and all kinds of wildlife. It was great," Alderman Brian Ewerdt said.

Human sewage is flowing out of municipal storm sewers and into local waterways and Lake Michigan on rainy days without sanitary sewer overflows to blame for the load, and even during periods of dry weather, a three-year study has concluded.

And the contamination cannot be pinned on raccoons or other animals living in the storm sewers. Genetic testing ruled them out.

The UK’s Guardian reports that US high-speed rail is back on track after 50 years of neglect. The August 5 article notes that while the $8 billion that the economic stimulus invests in high-speed rail won’t create a US network equal to those in Europe, Japan or China, it will begin a transformation for US passenger rail.

After years of neglected maintenance, state officials have ordered Milwaukee County to repair or abandon the ailing Estabrook Dam.

The Department of Natural Resources ordered the county on Tuesday to fix or tear down the aging structure on the Milwaukee River.