Urgent Action: Support GLOS – Sleeping Bear Surf

URGENT: Real-time lake data that thousands rely on for wave height, water temp, wind, and hazard alerts — could disappear.

Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS), a nonprofit organization that provides many public services, is at risk of being shut down.

Several reports, including the articles below, describe major cuts in the President’s proposed budget for 2026, and the proposed NOAA funding levels were reported. These cuts would slash NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS) budget, and eliminate the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) entirely. If IOOS is eliminated, GLOS would also shut down.

GLOS & Seagull provide:

Water quality data and real-time hazard alerts to help keep drinking water safe.

Coastal and beach conditions to help people boat/surf/fish/swim safely and prevent drownings.

Wind, water, and wave conditions to keep lake freighters informed and safe.

But it’s more than safety. GLOS data helps identify and track changes in water levels, temperature & storm frequency — which helps protect water quality, measures the success of restoration efforts, and monitors overall water dynamics. It’s one of the only tools we have to understand how climate change and pollution are impacting the lakes in real time.

This is what we need from you:

1. Contact your congressional representative and let them know how important this public service is to you and your family, and without it, lives could be lost.

Here is a letter template for guidance
You can copy and paste the letter into this form, for easy contact

The lakes give us everything. Let’s show up for them — for our safety & enjoyment, and for their future.

At Sleeping Bear Surf, we’re proud to be stewards of a buoy through GLOS. Check on Loonie (Loonie’s friends), HERE (Loonie heads back into the water mid-May).

Let's Be Buds!