How come Chicago’s Northerly Island is getting $2.8 million in Great Lakes Restoration Initiative money for projects with questionable environmental restorative value just as concert revenue is set to expand?

The Chinese media can’t figure what’s the big deal.

People there love the fish.

One suggestion for U.S. carp control: Allow more Chinese to immigrate here.

What can be said about what should be a linchpin Great Lakes group that hasn’t met for eight years?

They better get their act together fast as their leadership is required on looming hot regional environmental issues.

While playing small ball is necessary, we should reach higher. If the Great Lakes region was a country, it would have the fourth largest economy in the world.
It deserves world-class solutions to its problems.

Study indicates Asian carp may already be in Great Lakes by EmanueleB
A new study released in April finds Asian carp may in fact be reaching the Great Lakes.  The Asian carp is an invasive species with an appetite large enough to potentially decimate the food chain ecosystem of the Great Lakes.  There have been many efforts to contain the spread of the fish in the Chicago Area Waterway System to connects to Lake Michigan.  The study now raises new questions about the effectiveness of that system.
Current State’s Mark Bashore talks …

By Kate Golden
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources and Department of Health Services warn residents to limit their consumption of wild fish to prevent possible health problems from chemical contamination, as do many other states.
Those problems include a range of health effects, but the four groups of chemicals that trigger consumption advisories — PCBs, mercury, dioxins and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfate) — have been associated with endocrine disruption, DNR toxicologist Candy Schrank confirmed.
Most fish contain at least low levels of mercury, while the other three chemicals are of most …

We’ve got a GLEC and now a GLAB.

What’s the next regional group to emerge?

How about a commission charged with whittling the list of Great Lakes agencies, boards, committees, initiatives, councils and collaboratives?

Though low water levels in the Great Lakes make it necessary, dredging can harm the ecosystem by stirring up contaminanted sediment, exposing chemicals such as arsenic and PCBs.

Eating carp and catfish that have been exposed to such toxins puts both humans and predatory fish at risk.

Great Lakes scientists are using DNA methods to investigate invasive species.

It could help us to better understand where and if they’ll strike next.

The ever growing corporate interest in the Great Lakes has been influential in public policy, and may prove dangerous for the Basin’s natural resources.

Examples include companies that bottle and export water, and legislation in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan that benefit industries over the environment.