Editor's note: The video report above aired July 14, 2025, as a local group marked cleanup progress on Muskegon Lake.

MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — After decades of cleanup, Muskegon Lake is no longer one of the Great Lakes’ most polluted sites, officials announced Wednesday.

Muskegon Lake had been listed as an Area of Concern, or AOC, since 1985. AOCs are designated sites within the Great Lakes Basin with high levels of historical pollution requiring extensive cleanup that are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership, or MLWP, was established in 1991 to begin cleaning up more than 100 years of industrial and municipal pollution in the lake. Since then, local, state and federal agencies as well as nonprofit organizations have spent more than $

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