Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/shaheen-kanthawala/page/2/)
If you live in Ohio and see a salamander scattering past, don’t scream and swat it. Shoot it, instead. With a camera, that is. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Third Annual Wildlife Legacy Stamp photo contest is underway. Focusing on a different animal each year, this contest hopes to promote the diversity of Ohio’s wildlife.
A system using satellite images and current predictions warns water treatment plant operators when to treat water to avoid four odors and taste. Now the forecasts are available to the public to help make swim decisions.
Imagine ordering a beer at a bar, looking at the coaster your glass was just put on and seeing your artwork – photographic or otherwise. That’s what Great Lakes Forever’s seventh annual photo contest proposes to do with winning photos and artwork. Submit an image or artwork related to the Great Lakes region, showing its unique landscape and the communities living on its shores and you could also win other prizes. The original art category is a new approach this year. While photographers, professional and amateur, have entered their images in the past, this year’s contest is also soliciting drawings, paintings, graphic illustrations or other Great Lakes inspired art.
A popular recreational lake in western Ohio has nearly died, economically and environmentally, because of algae thriving on runoff from farm fields, officials say.
Grand Lake St. Marys is now undergoing a clean up to get rid of toxic algae mostly attributed to manure from nearby fields flowing into the lake during the wet spring.
As a part of the $3.4 million operation, the lake will be treated with nearly 2.6 million gallons of the chemical compound alum.
Can you walk along the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio without owning a piece of it?
Not if the Ohio Supreme Court rules in favor of the property owners who sued the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 2004.
Do you have a favorite waterway? Photograph it, submit the picture, and then vote for it as the best waterway in America. Three of 18 candidates provided by Environment America, a federation of state based citizen funded environmental advocacy organization, are Great Lakes- related. The poll includes Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and the Great lakes as a whole. “People from Chicago would identify with Lake Michigan more than the others, while those from Ohio would identify with Lake Erie,” said Piper Crowell, clean water advocate at Environment America, “ A Texan would identify with the Great Lakes as a whole.”
True.
A long winter and a wet spring are a recipe for manure management headaches and potential water quality threats in the Great Lakes region.
Lake Erie is on Prozac, reports National Geographic. Tiny concentrations of fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, are killing off the E.coli bacteria in the lake, says scientist Steve Mauro, whose team made the discovery. While killing bacteria that could harm people might seem like a good idea, Mauro questions what happens to the other bacteria that are supposed to be a part of the ecosystem, National Geographic reports. The low levels of fluoxetine do not harm people but they damage the reproductive systems of mollusks and could even affect fish brains, says Mauro. He suspects the fluoxetine could combine with other chemicals and have an adverse effect on the lake.