Wildlife

Great Lakes bats threatened by mysterious disease

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 1, 2009

A mysterious ailment that’s already wiped out more than a million North American bats is headed to critical Great Lakes hibernation sites. White-nose Syndrome, named for the tufts of fungus growing on the faces and wings of afflicted bats, was first spotted in New York in February 2006. The disease has since spread through New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Conservationists worry it could spread as far as Mexico. “As quick as it has spread, it’s most likely going to hit the Great Lakes region within one to two years, potentially wiping out 90 percent of bats that hibernate in the region,” said Rob Mies, director of the Michigan-based Organization for Bat Conservation.

Recreation

Injury suspends Minnesota kayaker’s trip around the Great Lakes

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 29, 2009

Bryan Hansel, who began an attempt in early May to paddle a kayak around all five Great Lakes, has suspended his trip to deal with tendon problems in his forearms. He made the announcement on his Web site, Around the Great Lakes. In the meantime, those still hungry for Great Lakes circumnavigations can fill up on Loreen Niewenhuis’s walk around Lake Michigan and Hannah Williams and Matt Abbotts’ kayak trip around Lake Superior.

Echo

EPA dioxin push could be a boon to Great Lakes cleanup

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 28, 2008

Great Lakes advocates hope that this week’s push by the federal government to clean up of one of the nation’s worst sites of dioxin contamination is a sign that the new administration will make good on its promise to jump start restoration of the region. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson on Tuesday pledged a strong agency presence in the effort to clean up the Tittabawassee River and Saginaw Bay watershed in Michigan’s Thumb area. A century of chemical production at Dow Chemical Co. in Midland left sediment in the river system contaminated with dioxin, a likely carcinogen that has been linked to liver damage. Plans for cleaning the area have sparked longtime controversy involving state, local and federal agencies, environmental groups and area residents.

Echo

Canadian researchers shine new light on old Great Lakes contaminant

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 19, 2009

In the alphabet soup of Great Lakes contaminants, PCBs, PCDDs and PBDEs usually rule the broth. But in a recent study, Canadian scientists took a closer look at another noodle. They examined a group of seldom-studied, dioxin-like contaminants called polychlorinated naphthalenes, or PCNs. These chemicals can have toxic effects including chloracne and liver damage. And although industry abandoned their use 30 years ago, the researchers still found the chemicals in lake trout collected from Lake Ontario from 1979 and 2004.

Echo

EPA plans to cap cement plant mercury emissions; Industry says limit will push production, pollution abroad

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Some of the Great Lakes’ worst mercury emitters may have to put a lid on it as federal regulators recently moved for the first time to cap emissions of the toxic metal from the nation’s cement plants.

Airborne mercury falls into lakes and contaminates fish. Eating too much mercury-laced fish can cause brain and kidney damage, especially in young children.

Echo

Mid-Michigan sewage plant one of seven in Great Lakes states recognized by EPA for innovation

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A mid-Michigan wastewater treatment plant worker once discovered what happens when a sewage digester gets an upset stomach. “He sat down to have a cup of coffee and he looked at the window and it was black,” said Jeff Ranes, manager of the Delhi Township plant near Lansing. “That thing actually blew its seal around the lid.”

Sludge ran through the plant’s parking lot, but a quick cleanup prevented any contamination, he said. But that shouldn’t happen anymore. The township recently wrapped up construction on a set of new digesters, part of $10 million project that will increase the plant’s capacity while generating electricity and producing clean “biosolids.”

Waste

Michigan may join most Great Lakes states in banning mercury in toys, landfills

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Even though only 1 percent of toys contain mercury, Mike Shriberg says that’s too much of the dangerous element in the hands of vulnerable children. “You’re still talking about millions of products out there,” said Shribert, a children’s health advocate. The Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health, where Shriberg directs policy, is pushing a package of bills in the Michigan Legislature to tighten restrictions on mercury-containing products, including toys. The bills passed the house last week and were sent to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs. Michigan and Pennsylvania are the only two Great Lakes states that haven’t banned the sale of mercury-added “novelties,” a term lawmakers use to cover products as diverse as  toys, games, shoes and yard statues.

Water

Lakes Erie and St. Clair get spring dose of dirt

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Some Great Lakes watersheds sweating off the winter freeze are sending huge brown plumes of sediment into Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair. But are these smudges, visible in satellite photographs, a sign of spring or a sign that something is wrong? “It’s both,” said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ John Matthews on the Lake Erie plume. “It’s normal, but it’s also a function of how we’ve affected stream channels in that watershed.”

Echo

Federal stimulus money to flow through Great Lakes faucets, sewers

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Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo

While many Michigan communities struggle with water problems, the state’s poorest city may still be sitting on 100-year-old wood water mains. “If they’ve got the flu, you can imagine that we’ve got pneumonia,” said Marcus Robinson, president of Benton Harbor’s Consortium for Community Development. Benton Harbor is one of hundreds of Great Lakes communities that could benefit from a $1.88 billion federal boost to the region’s state-run water project loan programs.

The federal economic stimulus package will funnel $6 billion through the Environmental Protection Agency into water projects nationwide. The Great Lakes states are in line for $1.4 billion for wastewater projects and another $450 million to improve municipal drinking water systems.

The EPA sent $432 million — the agency’s biggest grant ever — to New York’s sewer program on April 3.  The state should see another $87 million for drinking water projects.