Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/keweir/page/14/)
(MI) Mlive – A wetlands restoration project at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge has been completed. Democratic U.S. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan and Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano plan to celebrate the project on Wednesday at the gateway to the refuge in the Detroit suburb of Trenton. More
(NY) New York Times – Not everyone was happy when the gray wolf population in the Northern Rockies, near extinction in the mid-1970’s, staged a remarkable comeback under the protections of the Endangered Species Act. By the end of last year there were about 1,650 in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Ranchers complained that the wolves were killing their sheep and cattle; hunters complained that they were devastating big game, mainly elk. So when protections were lifted earlier this year in Idaho and Montana the states immediately approved wolf hunting seasons. But what seemed to be an ordinary big-game hunt, with licenses and duly apportioned quotas (75 in Montana, 220 in Idaho), now looks like the opening of a new front in the age-old war on wolves.
(MI) The Mudpuppy – Remedial dredging of the Saginaw River in 2000 and 2001 has apparently resulted in lower levels of polychlorinated biphenyls in walleye. A study on an 80 percent drop in fish sampled in 1996 and 2007 has been published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. More
(MI) Metro Times – When it comes to curbside recycling in Detroit, city officials and activists looking to boost participation in a pilot program are hoping children can help lead the way to a greener future. It’s help that is definitely needed. In place since July 1, Detroit’s pilot program offers curbside recycling to about 30,000 households in select neighborhoods on the city’s east and west sides. The $3.8 million yearlong effort will be used to help determine curbside recycling’s future. More
(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Brian A. Wolf boasted about the shimmering water and the trophy bass he used to catch from Long Lake in central Wisconsin. But since 2005, the lake has undergone a remarkable transformation: It’s essentially gone. “It’s as if someone pulled the plug in a bathtub,” said Wolf, a property owner on the lake. “This lake is dead.” Wolf and his neighbors blame irrigation on nearby fields as part of the reason for the disappearance of their lake.
(MI) Detroit Free Press – When people act oddly, they’re sometimes described as having bats in their belfry. Yet if you live in Michigan, one of America’s bat havens, there’s a good chance you really have bats in the belfry, or at least in the attic. Joe Willis, a partner in Bat Removal Specialists of Michigan, works in the metro area getting bats and other unwanted critters out of homes and commercial buildings and keeping them out. More
(MI) The Detroit News – It started in February when Debra Miller, who works as a caregiver, noticed dozens of red welts on the body of a man she cares for in the Griswold Senior Apartments complex. “We didn’t understand what was going on,” Miller said. “At first we thought it was the soap. Then we thought it was the fabric softener. Finally, I held up a magnifying glass and saw that something was digging into his skin.”
(MI) Detroit Free Press – One of Michigan’s most successful commercial fishermen is suing the state to try to overcome a decades-old ban on catching walleye in the Great Lakes. Dana Serafin of Pinconning is forced to release thousands of walleye from his nets while catching other fish in Lake Huron. In 2008, he proposed a three-year study of the walleye population that included a provision for him to keep and sell some of his haul. More
(IL) Chicago Tribune – Lake Michigan can be an angry beast in late autumn, when icy winds whip across its surface and thrashing waves lay siege to the receding shoreline. The same Chicago-area beaches that buzz with activity each summer become like a barren moonscape — inhospitable to all but the most peculiar of aquatic life: The Great Lakes surfer. More
(MN) Minnesota Public Radio – A new study of rusting steel supports in the Duluth-Superior harbor points to dissolved copper in the water as a contributing factor. Duluth shipping officials raised the alarm a few years ago about accelerating corrosion eating away an estimated 50,000 of tons of steel a year. Steel supports several miles of harbor walls and shipping docks. The study cites a combination of factors including bacteria, dissolved copper and scouring by ice. Jim Sharrow, with the Duluth Port Authority, said the damage has been evident where ice forms. More