Echo

No pure water, no ‘Pure Michigan’

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(MI) Traverse City Record-Eagle – Who hasn’t been riveted by the spectacular images of Michigan in the award-winning Pure Michigan ads? Many of these spots focus on our state’s most defining feature — water. Each of us has a favorite stream, river, lake or Great Lake — the inland seas that make Michigan one of the world’s most easily identifiable places. As the stewards of the world’s largest fresh water reservoir, we know there is no pure Michigan without pure water. More

Water

Feds cut cheque for Great Lakes clean-up

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(ON) The Standard – Niagara’s portion of the Great Lakes got just a bit greater Saturday. The federal government gave a $326,000 financial boost for seven ‘areas of concern’ in Niagara as part of Environment Canada’s Great Lakes Sustainability Fund. The money will go towards habitat improvement, cleaner water, and other issues identified by biologists, technicians and trained volunteers. “We can’t forget the Great Lakes,” said Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson during the announcement at Table Rock. “They are a crucial eco system that contains 20 percent of the world’s fresh water supply.” More

Echo

Slaughter announces stimulus funds for clean water planning projects

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(NY) MPNnow.com – Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Perinton, today announced that almost $366,000 in federal stimulus funds will go towards the planning of clean water projects for Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes. “The freshwater from the Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes is one of our greatest local resources,” said Slaughter. “I’m pleased that federal stimulus dollars are going towards grants used to help us keep local waters clean.” More

Echo

Michigan waterways enriched with 600,000 pounds of toxic chemicals

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(MI) The Bay City Times – This just in: A report from Environment Michigan says industrial facilities dumped 575,930 pounds of toxic chemicals into Michigan’s waterways in 2007. The “Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act,” also details chemical discharges across the United States. “While nearly half of the rivers and lakes in the U.S. are considered too polluted for safe fishing or swimming, our report shows that polluters continue to use our waterways as dumping grounds for their toxic chemicals,” Shelley Vinyard, environmental associate with Environment Michigan, said a statement.  More

Echo

Environmental report gives NWI another bad mark

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(IN) The Post-Tribune – Northwest Indiana and the Hoosier state received more dubious environmental distinctions Wednesday in a new report about toxic water pollution. Indiana industries led the nation in toxic chemical discharges in 2007 at 27.3 million pounds, according to the report. More

Echo

Low oxygen, mercury pollution interaction may pose even greater threat to Great Lakes

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By Haley Walker
Walkerh4@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Oct. 12, 2009

Researchers are studying whether Great Lakes fish contaminated by mercury are threatened more by low oxygen in the water than healthy fish. The International Joint Commission recently recognized runaway plant growth, a cause of low oxygen, as a major Great Lakes problem. The U.S./Canadian commission advises those governments on Great Lakes issues. Low oxygen is called hypoxia, a condition the U.S. Geological Survey says is caused by an increase in nutrients.

Echo

Studies of fish sharing male and female characteristics raise concerns about Great Lakes contaminants

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By Elisabeth Pernicone
pernico1@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Oct. 9, 2009

Fish with characteristics of both genders are more prevalent than previously thought in U.S. rivers, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey study. While this study did not analyze fish in the Great Lakes, it may raise new concerns as to whether previously noted hermaphrodite fish in this region are becoming more prevalent as well. “Until we take current sampling it is hard to know,” said Chris Metcalf, director of the Institute for Watershed Science at Trent University in Ontario. “However, all studies are symptomatic of more estrogens being discharged into streams.”

Fish with reproductive characteristics of both sexes are known as intersex, a condition linked to exposure to estrogenic compounds.

Echo

Three lakes are targeted for cleanup to reduce pollution

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Storm water carries so much phosphorus into a chain of lakes in Maple Grove and Plymouth that it may take 20 years to get the three lakes off the state’s impaired waters list. That’s the finding of a new report to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency which describes the extent of the pollution in each lake and what can be done to reverse it. The report begins the process of cleaning up the lakes as required by the federal Clean Water Act. More

Echo

International Joint Commission examines Great Lakes water quality

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A binational group of Great Lakes scientists and policy experts advising the U.S. and Canadian governments about the Great Lakes met in Windsor in early October. This special report encompasses some of the issues they discussed

Oct. 8, 2009
The U.S. Coast Guard considers new rules to regulate ballast to slow the spread of invasive species in the Great Lakes. Oct. 7, 2009
Global warming could spur algae growth in Lake Superior.

Echo

Global warming could spur algae growth, oxygen loss in Lake Superior

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By Emma Ogutu
ogutu@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Oct. 7, 2009
Editors note: This is part of a series relevant to the International Joint commission’s biennial meeting in Windsor today and Thursday. One of the reports a U.S. and Canadian advisory commission will consider today in Windsor will look at runaway plant growth in the Great Lakes. Members of the International Joint Commission, which advises the governments on environmental issues, will likely hear that there is no cause for alarm about excessive growth of algae in Lake Superior. But global warming is catching up with the Great Lakes, Superior included, and it may soon undergo changes that could turn it into the perfect host for algal blooms.

The effects of global warming could actually be more complicated than just that.  An important question is how prepared the commission and other government agencies are to handle emerging global environmental issues.