Echo

At the fish counter you may not get what you pay for

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(ON) Toronto Star – In a cross-Canada investigation, fish sold as wild Pacific salmon turned out to be farmed Atlantic salmon. Sea bass was actually endangered Patagonian toothfish, marketed as Chilean sea bass, which is a different species. Cheaper skipjack was substituted for sushi grade tuna. Tilapia stood in for snapper and even white tuna. “Bluefish” from a Chinatown shop turned out to be a species of herring that’s not even listed in the official database of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Echo

5 ways Ann Arbor’s single-stream recycling will impact residents

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(MI) AnnArbor.com – Do you regularly recycle? If the answer is no, Ann Arbor officials are trying to change that. Late last week, the city council unanimously agreed to move forward with a $4.6 million initiative to overhaul Ann Arbor’s recycling system. Officials say the changes will offer residents more convenience and will provide incentives starting next year. More

Echo

UWM water school at Greenfield Ave. site to cost $50 million

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – The headquarters for University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s new School of Freshwater Sciences would cost an estimated $50 million to develop at the university’s Great Lakes WATER Institute, according to a newly drafted proposal. That estimate is part of a preliminary construction spending proposal that UWM officials will soon submit to the UW-System Board of Regents. The proposal will undergo changes before it’s reviewed by the regents. The proposal to put the freshwater school at the institute, which overlooks the harbor at 600 E. Greenfield Ave., was termed a “place holder” by Tom Luljak, vice chancellor of university relations. More

Echo

Canada Announces Funding for Great Lakes Clean-Up Projects

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(ON) Benzinga – On behalf of Canada’s Environment Minister Jim Prentice, Jeff Watson, Member of Parliament for Essex, today announced $410,000 in funding from the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund for four projects to clean up the Detroit River Area of Concern. Thirty-seven projects throughout the Great Lakes are receiving $2.2 million in funding this year. “The Government of Canada is using the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund to support partnered projects to restore water quality in the Canadian Areas of Concern,” said M.P. Watson. “Locally, the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund is supporting projects like the LaSalle Riverfront Park Habitat Restoration. These types of projects represent real action to ensure that Canada’s communities and families can thrive in a healthy environment.”

Echo

Great Lakes: Protecting Michigan’s Treasure

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(MI) The Michigan News – Michigan is defined by the Great Lakes. Our two peninsulas border four of the five Great Lakes and we are
the only state completely within the Great Lakes watershed. As Attorney General, one of Mike Cox’s
primary environmental priorities has been protecting our Great Lakes. Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes, “great” because they contain approximately 20% of the Earth’s –
and 95% of the United States’ — fresh water. More than 40,000 square miles of Michigan’s surface area is
water.

Echo

Column: Can a kind man kill?

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Cast your vote: Should Andy hunt? By Andy McGlashen
Nov. 10, 2009

Last week I watched the great John Huston film The Misfits, and there’s a scene I can’t get out of my head.  Clark Gable, Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift have taken Marilyn Monroe with them on a “mustanging” trip into some Nevada mountains. Monroe goes into hysterics when she learns that the men aren’t wrangling wild horses so birthday girls can lope around on them — they’re to be slaughtered for dog food.  “Honey, a kind man can kill,” Gable says, as much to convince himself as to calm her.  “No,” she insists.  “He can’t.”

The scene resonates because I want to take part in Michigan’s firearm deer season, which opens on November 15, but I’m not sure if I should.  I can’t decide if a kind man can kill. I used to be a deer hunter, and still am in thought if not in deed.  My driving becomes somewhat serpentine in farm country where the fields want a good looking-over.  If I’m lucky enough to spot a band of whitetails, some old urge still gnaws at me if any of them sports an ivory-hued rack.  I still look for rubs and tracks in the woods.  I sometimes crave venison stew.

Wildlife

PFCs are contaminant of new concern in Indiana Dunes’ great blue herons

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What do cologne and Indiana’s great blue herons have in common? They both contain chemicals that are increasingly worrisome to Great Lakes officials. A list of contaminants of emerging concern includes synthetic musks and perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs. Musks are a key ingredient of perfume. PFCs have had a bevy of industrial uses including fire-fighting foams and stain-resistant Scotchgard.

Echo

$20 million set for river cleanup

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Federal and state regulators are planning to remove more than 4 million pounds of contaminated sediments from the Milwaukee River and Lincoln Creek at an estimated cost of $20.2 million. The sediments in Lincoln Park on the city’s north side represent the largest single source of pollution from polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the river and Milwaukee’s harbor. The project – set to start next year – is the latest effort in Wisconsin to clean industrial chemicals from waterways flowing into Lake Michigan. More

Nearshore

Work under way on Muskegon Lake shoreline restoration

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(MI) Muskegon Chronicle – One of the largest federal “stimulus” grants for the Muskegon area is being targeted at its greatest asset – the waterfront.  
Design and engineering is well under way and construction could begin by the end of the year on a $10 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant to restore the shoreline habitat along the southern Muskegon Lake shoreline. “With the $10 million, we will see an investment in Muskegon County’s strongest economic development asset … the lake,” said Sandeep Dey, executive director of the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission. “This project is progressing much faster than we had anticipated.”  More

Echo

Effort to restore creek flows to halfway point

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(IN) The Post-Tribune – Good weather is speeding up work for crews that are nearing the halfway point in the $2 million project to restore the lower reaches of Dunes Creek to a natural state. Doug Stukey, assistant property manager for the Department of Natural Resources, said the removal of an 80-foot-wide strip of concrete on the east side of the main parking lot at the Pavilion has been removed and hauled away. Milling of the asphalt down to the original pavement has been completed. More