March 27, 2026
In 2025, EGLE developed 16 new interactive web maps and dashboards, five new story maps, and 65 new open data items, for a grand total of 86 new features shared on the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE)'s Maps and Data Portal, the central location for maps and data. The department published more than twice as many content items as in 2024.
EGLE’s commitment to transparency and accessibility means that in addition to publishing new content, like the Lake Water Clarity open data, it has also modernized multiple web applications and their related open data, like its GeoWebFace web app. The agency continues to work to make information and data available quickly on the EGLE website.
These items include some of EGLE’s most popular public content of the year. Here are some of the department’s favorite items in each category.
Published: June 6, 2025. The Water Well Viewer (WWV) is an easy-to-use application that allows users to view water wells (from Wellogic) on a map. The WWV allows users to retrieve a well record or a series of records by clicking on an individual well or selecting a group of wells. Roads, bodies of water, aerial photos, wellhead protection areas, and sites of environmental contamination are some of the other useful features that can be viewed along with the water wells.
2. GeoWebFace
Published: June 6, 2025. This second iteration of the well-known GeoWebFace is an online application sponsored by EGLE’s Geologic Resources Management Division, which allows users to view information related to Michigan’s non-renewable geological resources including hydrocarbon development wells, gas storage wells, mineral wells, and sites associated with permitted and historic mining.
3. Michigan's E. coli Pollution and Solution Mapper
Published: September 8, 2025. When a water quality standard is exceeded, the Federal Clean Water Act requires Michigan to address pollution issues with either a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) or by fixing the problem through other means. For some issues, a remedy is already in progress to reduce pollution. This is not the case for E. coli across the state. This TMDL will provide a framework for restoration of water quality. To support the statewide TMDL, E. coli Pollution and Solution Mapper is available to assist in identifying impacted areas as well as to provide resources for getting involved in efforts to reduce the E. coli levels. The purpose is to encourage and empower local communities to protect Michigan’s waters. This application replaces a retired version built on an outdated platform.
4. Michigan Lake Water Clarity Dashboard
Published: October 7, 2025. The Michigan Lake Water Clarity dashboard (MiLakeClarity) contains satellite-derived data for lake clarity, lake algal biomass, and lake color as indicators of water quality. This dashboard features a searchable statewide map of lake clarity (in meters), algal biomass as chlorophyll concentrations (in µg/L), and lake color as colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM, in absorbance at 440 nanometers). Lake-level maps of these three parameters can be displayed for the late summer seasonal average (July through October) for 2023, with options to focus the search area on the map by county, ecoregion, and hydrologic unit code (HUC).
1. EGLE’s Air Quality Division Releases 2024 Year in Review
Published: March 5, 2024. Metrics are an important part of Air Quality Division (AQD)'s story, but the numbers alone don't tell the whole story. Read this story to deep dive into more details about the information found in the AQD 2024 Year in Review.
2. Contaminants of Emerging Concern: What are they? Where are they? What is being done?
Published: September 18, 2025. Contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) refers to various chemicals and substances such as PFAS, pharmaceuticals, and metals like lithium and manganese that may be detected in Michigan's drinking water resources. These contaminants are often unregulated and therefore not commonly tested for, but they may represent impacts to both the environment and consumers of water, including animals and people. Discover what contaminants of emerging concern are, why they matter, and how EGLE is responding - all in this visual and interactive story map.
Published: November 25, 2025. Learn about actions taken since 2017 to address the threat of PFAS contamination, protect public health, and ensure the safety of Michigan’s land, air and water.
Published: May 9, 2025. The data in this layer is updated weekly from Wellogic, EGLE’s statewide groundwater database. This layer contains information on over 575,000 spatially verified water well records across Michigan. This layer contains those water wells in Wellogic with latitude and longitude coordinates.
2. Michigan Radiation Environmental Monitoring Program
Published: August 27, 2025. The Michigan Radiation Environmental Monitoring Program (MREMP) has been collecting and analyzing environmental samples around facilities that emit or could emit significant quantities of radioactive material effluents since 1958. MREMP is operated pursuant to MCL 333.13518. Facilities that have been determined to fit the criteria for this program are commercial nuclear power plants. There are four properties that have operation or have operated commercial nuclear power plants and are commonly known as Cook, Fermi (1 and 2), Palisades, and Big Rock Point. Environmental monitoring is conducted via the collection and analysis of air, water, milk, and direct gamma measurements. These samples are analyzed for different types of radiation depending on the media type. The radiological results are provided in this GIS layer and contain results from 2017-Present. Historical data dating back to 1958 can be found on the MREMP website.
3. Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity (2018-2023)
Published: October 7. 2025. The Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity Dataset includes three different estimates of water clarity: Secchi depth, chlorophyll, and colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) for inland lakes larger than 10 acres from 2018 to 2023. The dataset was generated using an automated image processing system developed by the University of Minnesota, which leverages remote sensing data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite.
Published: May 16, 2025. Multiple layers were created for use in the second version of the GeoWebface application, including:
This year, EGLE was recognized during the Esri User Conference Plenary Session. The Indoor Radon app and Air Quality Dashboard were highlighted as successes in Environmental Assessment and Monitoring GIS.
EGLE was also represented at the 2025 State of Michigan GIS Day that opened to the public for the first time. Presentations spanned everything from Survey123 workflows to risk assessment with GIS, and featured organizations across Michigan. Be sure to mark your calendars for the 2026 State of Michigan GIS Day – October 26, 2026, at the Michigan Library and Historical Center in Lansing.
Lastly, EGLE was happy to have welcomed Kiran Kumar Chakkapally to the team as a GIS Analyst in March, and two new student assistants: Jared Pietras, who is currently studying Marine Technology at Northern Michigan College, and Ashton Gibson, studying Geospatial Data Science at University of Michigan SEAS. Kiran, Jared, and Ashton have been huge helps to EGLE’s small GIS unit.
For more from EGLE’s GIS program, visit EGLE's centralized location for maps and data to see all of the public GIS content. You can also subscribe to the EGLE Maps and Data Updates GovDelivery list to get an email straight to your inbox when EGLE publishes new datasets or mapping applications.
