Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/dave/page/34/)
Almost three-and-a-half years ago Echo reported the discovery of a stable population of mudpuppies in Ontario’s Sydenham River. Mudpuppies are one of the more bizarre-looking creatures that inhabit the Great Lakes region. Their fans are as diverse as adult scientists and young kids. And Echo journalists. Here’s why: When people come across these giant salamanders they inevitably Google around to find something out about them.
The remnants of Hurricane Sandy put Great Lakes freighters in port and surfers on the waves. And it caused Lake Erie to cough up Cleveland Stadium rubble. Tremont Electric reports that winds last week spit bricks “out onto the shore in Bratenahl.” When the stadium was demolished 15 years ago, the bricks were dumped into nearby Lake Erie to create an artificial reef. Now apparently they are souvenirs, according to the New England Sports Network.
I have a colleague who will teach survey methods in the pursuit of journalism next semester. He’s asked for ideas for an environmental story that might be based on a survey of scientists or government officials. That sounds good to me. Give it enough of a Great Lakes focus and such a story could well end up on Echo. But for now, I think I’ll punt the question to Echo readers.
Canadian officials Tuesday announced a $16 million investment to understand and control algae in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Nutrient Initiative will focus on Lake Erie which is particularly vulnerable to toxic and nuisance algae. That’s a lot of money to address excessive phosphorus discharges from farming and sewers. Is it enough? To get a sense of the challenge, last week the Columbus Dispatch reported if 80 percent of the phosphorus that drains into Ohio’s Grand Lake were cut, it still would take 20 to 40 years to clear the water.
This map of the nation’s groundwater uses data from gravity-sensing satellites.
The unique characteristics of the Great Lakes region may throw it a bit off.
That makes it harder to explain – and even more fascinating.
Does all this water makes us talk the same? The communities of the Great Lakes region have long shared an environmental, industrial, commercial, recreational, cultural heritage. Echo claims the region has a shared news community. But a shared accent? That’s what Slate recently indicated in an article cleverly titled Vowel Movement: How Americans near the Great Lakes are radically changing the sound of English.
University-based news organizations can hit the trifecta of higher education.
They teach. They report news that otherwise is unreported. They experiment with how news is gathered, disseminated, conceived.
Sounds like education, outreach and research to me.
Michigan’s Lake Charlevoix is America’s second best lake, according to a USAToday poll. And it’s not even a Great one. Actually, the five Great Lakes were exempt from the contest that was meant to “spotlight some of the USA’s smaller, less famous summer getaways.”
Hmmm…then how did a hotspot like Lake Tahoe garner first? Editors of five regional travel magazines were each asked to nominate three lakes for readers to vote on. Here’s what Midwest Living’s Kendra Williams said in her nomination of Lake Charlevoix: “Just east of Lake Michigan, inland Lake Charlevoix offers an idyllic getaway with Boyne City as its artsy, laid-back anchor.
Sun glints off the surface of Lake Ontario in the lower right corner of this image taken recently by astronauts on board the International Space Station. The mirror-like effect is known appropriately as sunglint. NASA’s Earth Observatory reports the picture was taken when the station was over southeast Nova Scotia and about 740 miles from the centerpoint of the image. From this perspective you can see Lake Huron’s Saginaw and Georgian bays above and to the right of Lake Ontario, and the Finger Lakes of New York to its left. Sunglint also highlights Lake Erie to the west, but the angle makes it appear duller than Lake Ontario.
The coldest of the Great Lakes may be headed toward record warmth. Lake Superior is already the warmest it’s been at this time of year in at least a century, according to Climate Central,a group that researches and reports on climate. The group recently reported that Lake Superior began warming earlier than normal because of scant lake ice cover and an unusual March heat wave. Warm temperatures since have kept the heat on. The analysis is based on data from researchers at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.