Echo

Great Lakes region dominates best lake vacations list

By |

Beautiful beaches, quality fishing, and windiness helped five places in the Great Lakes region earn spots on CNN’s list of 10 of America’s best lake vacations. CNN said  that Lake Superior is a prime spot for vacationing anglers, and Lake Michigan’s long shoreline provides “beaches for nearly every taste.”
Lake Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes was already recognized last year by  Stephen Leatherman, also known as Dr. Beach, as the Great Lakes best beach. Lake Kabetogama in Minnesota  “offers more than two dozen wilderness campsites that can be reached only by boat,” the review said, making it the best for kayak or canoe camping. The publication also recognized Wisconsin’s Lake Winnebago for it’s prime windsurfing conditions and the Finger Lakes of New York for best “wine tasting.”

Other lakes on the list included Oregon’s Crater Lake, Lake Clark in Alaska and Florida’s Chain of Lakes. Lake Powell, which bridges Utah and Arizona, and Lake Tahoe, which straddles California and Nevada, also made the list.

Echo

What does the voice of the Great Lakes sound like?

By |

Does all this water makes us talk the same? The communities of the Great Lakes region have long shared an environmental, industrial, commercial, recreational, cultural heritage. Echo claims the region has a shared news community. But a shared accent? That’s what Slate recently indicated in an article cleverly titled Vowel Movement: How Americans near the Great Lakes are radically changing the sound of English.

Echo

Environment reporter receives honor

By |

Here at Echo we admire quality reporting on the environment, especially in the Great Lakes region. It looks like the Sierra Club does too. Journalist Jeff Alexander was recently honored for his in-depth environmental reporting by the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club. The group cited his investigation into changes in Michigan’s forestry management as an exemplar of the quality journalism he’s doing.  He’s also covered such issues as beach pollution and mining in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for Bridge Magazine. We’re a little partial to Alexander’s  Asian Carp Doomsday Clock, a feature he created on his blog, All Things Great Lakes, to track how close carp are to entering the Great Lakes.

Echo

Grazing goats: the eco-friendly way to control weed growth

By |

Settler’s Ghost Golf Course in Barrie, Ontario is one of the first Canadian courses to use goats as groundskeepers. It is more eco-friendly and cost-efficient, reports the Toronto Star. The practice is common in parts of the U.S. but remains relatively unknown, said Brian Knox, supervising forester and founder of Eco-Goats, a Maryland-based company that works with industries, landowners and environmental groups to implement eco-friendly vegetation control. “I’ve noticed that goats are suddenly becoming cool throughout the U.S.,” Knox said. “People are rediscovering how sustainable they are as livestock.”

Echo recently reported how authorities on New York’s Staten Island are using 20 goats to control invasive phragmites plants that are choking out the native vegetation in two-acres of wetlands.

Echo

Compost dog poop with a D.I.Y. “dog waste digester”

By |

 

It may be a dirty job, but cleaning up pet waste is important. Some dog owners assume that because waste is natural, it can be left anywhere to decompose without risking health, said “dog waste digester” demonstrator Cathy Dueck. But dog waste carries more bacteria than human waste, posing a greater risk to human and environmental health, according to RAIN, a Green Communities Canada program that aims to end non-point source pollution. But dog owners, have no fear! This video from a Canadian environmental group illustrates how to take care of pet waste in a creative way.

Echo

Egg color gives clue to contaminant levels; may be environmental indicator

By |

The color of Great Lakes herring gull eggs indicate how contaminated they are,  according to a study in the Journal of Applied Ecology. And that may provide clues about the level of contamination in the surrounding environment. Researchers examined subtle differences in egg color. They found that the more contaminated eggs were less blue-green in color. Contaminants are eaten by birds and passed to their eggs.  The mother also passes on the blue-green and brown pigments found naturally in her body to her eggs, Daniel Hanley, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph and an author on the study, told the Toronto Star.

Echo

Farmers have tough time adjusting to unpredictable extreme weather

By |

The increasing unpredictability of extreme weather makes it hard to adapt U.S. crops to climate change. So says, Phil Robertson, a crop and soil scientist from Michigan State University, in a recent video released by the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media. Adjusting planting strategies and adapting new crop genetics are straightforward approaches farmers and crop scientists can take to respond to new climate conditions, he said. The variability of extreme weather complicates these tactics, though. “Extreme events, with the longer heat waves, with seasonal droughts, which are much more difficult to predict, and much more important in their effects on crops will be, I think, probably the hardest aspect of climate change to anticipate and adapt to,” Robertson said in the video.