Echo

Kagan and carp: High court nominee argued against locks closure

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Does the name Elena Kagan ring a bell? For those following the legal wranglings of the Asian carp invasion, it should. Kagan, as President Barack Obama’s Solicitor General, argued against closing the Chicago locks to prevent the invasive carp from entering Lake Michigan. She wrote that although allowing the carp to enter the Great Lakes would produce “grave and irreparable harm,” it was only “speculative” that the harm would occur “imminently.” Now that Kagan has been nominated to the high court, environmental journalists across the spectrum are trying to fathom her stances but not finding much.

Echo

Carp bomb: Conspiracy theories

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I know this Asian carp looks shocked, but I heard that he helped Jack Ruby sneak through. Don’t forget to join in on the carp bomb fun. Read all about it here.

Echo

Echo coal pollution report receives national recognition

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When Echo launched a little more than a year ago, our intent was to upend the Great Lakes basin with a journalism that looked at the environment in an innovative manner. At the same time we vowed to remain faithful to fundamental values of fairness, accuracy, credibility. So we’re happy to report that the Society of Professional Journalists has named an Echo report on water pollution from coal plants as a national finalist for an online in-depth journalism award. The four-day Cleaning Coal series by Sarah Coefield, Elisabeth Pernicone, Yang Zhang and Rachael Gleason examined how clean air has come at the cost of dirty water and why coal-fired power plant waste water is poorly regulated. It previously won an SPJ regional award.

Echo

In a stretch, EPA chief compares oil spill size to Great Lakes

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EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson name-dropped the Great Lakes recently while checking out the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a Los Angeles Times blog post, Jackson flew over the spill and later said at a meeting in New Orleans that “it’s like all five of the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes are oil sheen.” It’s good to know that the lakes are still on Jackson’s mind throughout this disaster, but her comparison is a bit of a stretch. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the spill is roughly the size of Puerto Rico, which has a total land area of around 3,500 square miles. That’s only around 4.3 percent of the Great Lakes’ surface area of 80,500 square miles.

Water

VIDEO: Great Lakes Beer Tour

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Remember how we told you that the Great Lakes brews great beers? Echo writers knew we weren’t alone in our fascination with the region’s ales, lagers, malts and stouts. But we weren’t so savvy to propose and film a TV show about them, which is what producer Matt Renner and host Amy Sherman have done. The “Great American Brew Trail” will showcase Great Lakes breweries – about 80 percent of them in Michigan – when it premiers on PBS stations this fall. Beers in other regions will follow.

Echo

Cox kicks carp to Obama

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Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox was rebuffed again by the U.S. Supreme court in his effort to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. On Monday, the court declined to consider Cox’s request to close the Chicago locks to prevent the invasive fish from traveling from the Mississippi River into Lake Michigan. This is the third time they refused the request by Michigan and six other states. Cox is now focusing on Congress and President Obama as potential saviors. “While President Obama has turned a blind eye to the millions of Great Lakes residents who do not happen to live in his home state of Illinois, it is now up to him to save thousands of Michigan jobs and our environment,” Cox told the Associated Press.

Echo

Carp bomb: Rocket-propelled plantation

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In July 2008, Iran launched a provocative test of a few missiles and released an photograph of the occasion. It didn’t take long for folks to figure out that the image had been digitally altered to include more missiles than had actually launched. What’s even more nefarious is that some sleuthing by Echo’s Flickr friend outside perspectives shows that Iran wasn’t really launching missiles at all. You can shut down all the locks you want, but that won’t stop a rogue state’s rocket-propelled plantation of Asian carp (click for all the carp news we could find). Echo is still looking for more carp bomb (literal or otherwise) submissions from readers.

Echo

Michigan native maps a farm future

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A Michigan native recently reconsidered farming after finding a niche in one of the newest technologies, Geographic Information Systems also known as GIS. Tom Czuba was recently featured in Michigan Farm News for finding a path back to his family’s farm heritage after modern technology reignited his interest in agriculture. Czuba’s father was a fruit farmer. After contemplating whether to farm or attend college, Czuba began using GIS, a system that captures, manages and maps data. He used the software to model the best area to grow peaches in Berrien County, Mich.

Echo
They Must be Giants

Scientific controversy, children’s music and shaping a world view

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My kids may not learn everything they need to know from kindergarten but they are learning a lot about science from the ‘90s alt-pop band They Might Be Giants. The duet of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, following up on their kids’ album “Here come the ABCs,” released “Here Comes Science” late last year. The album is amazing. I could listen to “Electric Car” all day long and “Meet the Elements” prompted my six-year-old Elliott to download, print and tape to his bedroom wall a periodic table. But it is a pair of songs about the sun that really gets me thinking.

Echo

Biologists talk carp: Basin separation, Great Lakes deep vs shallow water

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Some Great Lakes biologists forecast a mostly cloudy future for the Asian carp. The open waters of the Great Lakes are too cold for silver carp to digest food and reproduce, said Gerald Smith, professor emeritus with the University of Michigan’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department and author of the Guide to Great Lakes Fishes. That’s good news for the part of the $7 billion Great Lakes sports fishery supported by deep water fishing for salmon and trout. If the carp thrived, they could pull the rug out from under the deep-water food web. But the bad news is that the lakes’ warmer near-shore area and tributary rivers, as well as the western basin of Lake Erie, are more likely to support an Asian carp invasion.