Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/catch-of-the-day/page/50/)
For April’s Great Lakes Month in Review Current State focused on the Council of Great Lakes Governors summit, which took place in Chicago this past weekend. Gary Wilson shares more from his one-on-one interview with Gov. Rick Snyder.
Sales from specialized license plates in Ohio are resulting in $60,000 in grants to help clean up the state’s only Great Lake. A pair of Ohio’s plates raised money for the Lake Erie Protection Fund, which was established to finance research and implementation projects to protect and restore Lake Erie and its watershed. One plate featured the Lake Erie “life ring,” while the other showcased Marblehead Lighthouse, a state landmark north of Sandusky across the Sandusky Bay. The plates are sold for an additional $25, with $15 of that going to protecting Lake Erie. According to the Ohio Lake Erie Commission, the $60,000 raised will be spent on four separate projects totaling $15,000 each.
Ongoing concern over a proposed nuclear waste site very near Lake Huron took a new twist recently. A Canadian government review panel is exploring the viability of a new underground storage facility in Kincardine, Ontario. That’s about 111 miles across the water from Port Huron. The facility is almost a half mile underground but little more than a kilometer from the lake. It would hold low to intermediate radioactive waste.
Mr. Great Lakes (Jeff Kart) reports from Bay City, Michigan’s Delta College Q-90.1 FM. This week, Kart discusses International Dark Sky Week and a dam removal project. Text at Mr. Great Lakes
These photos taken by Ken Scott on April 14 show ice skirts formed near the bottom of trees and shrubs in northern Michigan. The images are posted on the Earth Science Picture of the Day feature produced by NASA’s Earth Sciences Division. This phenomenon was caused by heavy springtime rain falling on top of several inches of snow. As the water receded, temperatures in the area plunged — causing top layer of water (also the coldest layer) to freeze while the layers below the surface were more insulated and melted away. Have you ever seen an ice skirt before?
Golf courses in Michigan have reopened after a prolonged winter freeze that caused costly damage and set revenue behind for the season.
A jury trial is scheduled to begin April 29 on asbestos-related criminal charges stemming from the conversion of a former Bay City. Mich., church into a charter school. Roy Bradley Sr. and Gerald Essex are accused of violating the Clean Air Act by failing to properly handle, remove and dispose of material containing asbestos on the Bay City Academy project. The charter school has more than 500 students from kindergarten through 9th grade at the former church and two other buildings. Bradley was in charge of the project and Essex was the foreman supervising demolition and renovation activity at the site between August 2010 and September 2011, according to court documents.
By Kate Golden
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Six leading researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health are warning northeastern Wisconsin rural residents that over-application of manure at intensive livestock operations could cause them a host of health problems and damage the environment. The authors, all at the school’s Center for a Livable Future, cited dozens of studies, including one 2005 article suggesting that 71 percent of Wisconsin dairy farms generate more manure than needed by the cropland where it’s applied. A growing body of evidence has implicated the generation and management of manure from intensive livestock operations in the spread of infectious disease (including antibiotic-resistant strains), the introduction of microbial and chemical contaminants into ground and surface waters, impacts to air quality, and the wide range of adverse health, social, ecological and economic outcomes that result from these events, according to the March 27 letter. The letter was requested by Kewaunee CARES, a Kewaunee County water quality advocacy group that has criticized the intensity and oversight of large dairies in the area. The county is in northeastern Wisconsin, which has some of the densest livestock farming in the state.
Mr. Great Lakes (Jeff Kart) reports from Bay City, Michigan’s Delta College Q-90.1 FM. White-Nose Syndrome in Michigan, Birds in Tawas, and Earth Day in Bay City | Mr Great Lakes by Great Lakes Echo
This week, Kart discusses the white-nose syndrome recently found in Michigan bats, the Tawas Point Birding Festival and Bay City’s plans for Earth Day. Text at Mr. Great Lakes
This close-up photo is of a bullfrog in a marsh on the southwest end of Bois Blanc Island (known as Bo-Lo to locals), located in Lake Huron between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. It was taken by Terry Heatlie, a habitat restoration specialist working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. We’re always open to viewer submissions for our Photo Friday series, so feel free to message us on Facebook or Twitter, or send an email to greatlakesecho@gmail.com.