Great Lakes Echo (http://greatlakesecho.org/page/3/?s=phragmites&x=0&y=0)
The Great Lakes region gained 13,000 acres of coastal wetlands from 2004-09, due to low lake levels – and experts warn that this gain may obscure much larger, longer-term losses that are likely to continue.
In this series, Echo samples successful and ongoing restoration projects in each Great Lakes state.
Once common in Michigan’s rivers and lakes, sizable beds of wild rice have dwindled to less than a dozen, the result of invasive species, higher water levels from dams and lakefront property owners seeking to clear the way for water recreation.
Ecologists encourage property owners to plant their beaches to reduce erosion and provide wildlife habitat. Upshore gardens can prevent pollution and runoff. And maintaining native plants impedes invasive species.
Mr. Great Lakes (Jeff Kart) reports from Bay City, Michigan’s Delta College Q-90.1 FM.
This week Kart discusses phragmites in the Saginaw Bay watershed, efforts at Central Michigan University to reduce water bottle sales and an environmental priority list for the Au Sable River. Text at Mr Great Lakes
Dam removal in the Great Lakes region exposes nutrient-rich bottomlands.
That creates prime real estate for invasive plants.
Restoration solutions include poisoning the invaders with pesticides and spreading native plant seeds to revegetate the bottomlands.
Clearing an invasive plant choking Lake St. Clair Metropark yielded impressive dividends: Rare birds and plants have returned. Next up: Diversion and treatment of stormwater that has closed a nearby beach.
Great Lakes Echo looked at the toxic brew that Indiana’s Grand Calumet River carries to Lake Michigan yesterday.
Today: A look at the multi-million dollar investment in its recovery.
It’s an investment not only in the river but in the near shore ecosystem of Lake Michigan.
Settler’s Ghost Golf Course in Barrie, Ontario is one of the first Canadian courses to use goats as groundskeepers. It is more eco-friendly and cost-efficient, reports the Toronto Star. The practice is common in parts of the U.S. but remains relatively unknown, said Brian Knox, supervising forester and founder of Eco-Goats, a Maryland-based company that works with industries, landowners and environmental groups to implement eco-friendly vegetation control. “I’ve noticed that goats are suddenly becoming cool throughout the U.S.,” Knox said. “People are rediscovering how sustainable they are as livestock.”
Echo recently reported how authorities on New York’s Staten Island are using 20 goats to control invasive phragmites plants that are choking out the native vegetation in two-acres of wetlands.
Turnover is frustrating at university-based news organizations. Just as a reporter hits her or his stride, they graduate and move on to another venue. Of course fostering the growth that allows that to happen is fulfilling for an educator. But I’d also argue that in the long-run, it’s also good for the longterm quality of Echo’s journalism. For with every reporter we train here at Echo, we expand our network of journalists who keep us abreast of creative newsgathering elsewhere, provide Great Lakes news tips and become potential freelancers for when we secure funding for that kind of thing.