Echo

Environmental literacy: What should every Great Lakes citizen know?

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What’s the minimum every responsible citizen of the Great Lakes region should know about their environment? It’s a question we’ve been noodling recently in the Echo newsroom. The idea is to develop a list and use it as the basis for questions we’ll ask random people – sort of like the Jaywalking feature on the Tonight Show. We’ll video their answers – right, wrong, funny, creative – and conclude with a look at the answer. We’re consulting some environmental educators and advocates on the kinds of things we might ask.

Echo

Flash Point: Scott Thomas’s favorite Great Lakes shot

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We asked Great Lakes photographers to send us their favorite and toughest Great Lakes shot. Scott Thomas of Scott Thomas photography sent us this photo. Star Burst Sunset

A favorite daily ritual of people who live or vacation along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario is coming down to the beach each evening to watch the sunset from spring to fall. Most nights the show is spectacular with deep colors that paint any clouds in the sky the lower the Sun gets on the horizon. I have witnessed many nights Nature was given a standing ovation for her efforts.

Wildlife

Sex, water and rock and roll: Sturgeon spawn while singing on the rocks

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How does a scientist use sound to save a 150-million-year-old fish? In Wisconsin, Ron Bruch and Chris Bocast are trying to help restore sturgeon stock by listening for the sound they make when spawning that some call “thunder.” The sound can be heard here. “It’s a real low frequency, you can almost feel it instead of hear it,” said Bruch, fish supervisor with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “One of the important measures of success is knowing your stock is spawning.”

Bocast, a University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student in acoustic ecology, discovered the sound while working on an audio book about sturgeons.

Echo

EPA releases new online pollutant tool

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The U.S. EPA recently built a tool to help people find the chemicals polluting nearby waterways. It uses information from annual EPA monitoring reports and presents top 10 lists to determine which pollutants or polluters cause the greatest harm. People can search by city, state, watershed, industry or pollutant. “It was pretty easy to figure out,” Rita Chapman, the clean water program director for the Sierra Club’s Michigan Chapter, said after recently giving it a try. “Everything had hotlinks on it, so if you didn’t know what chlorine was used for, you could click on it and it would probably tell you why it’s on there.”

But while the tool may be user-friendly, Chapman said most people outside the scientific community would overlook it.

Echo

Flash Point: Tim Trombley’s toughest Great Lakes photos

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We asked Great Lakes photographers to send us their favorite and toughest Great Lakes shot. Tim Trombley of Great Lakes Photography sent us these pictures of his toughest shots. North Windows

This cave was only accessible by kayak. I had to land way down the shoreline and got wet feet making my way inside. Once there, the shot required me to crouch and back into the sandstone recesses allowing sand to drop down my collar.

Echo

Creek that dumps into Lake Ontario designated a Superfund site

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The feds added a Lake Ontario tributary to the dubious federal Superfund List because of toxic chemicals flowing through it. The EPA added Eighteen Mile Creek in Niagara County, N.Y., to the Superfund National Priorities List on Tuesday because it has polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), heavy metals and dioxins, which are all dangerous chemicals that hurt people and wildlife. Sites on the list are the country’s most hazardous, according to the federal agency. A portion of the creek was already designated a Great Lakes Area of Concern. The creek has a history of contamination, but specific sources haven’t been identified.

Echo

Can you make trees dance? Create wonder from water?

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Love water? Sitting in a basin containing 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface supply of the stuff will do that to you. That’s why we think someone from the Echo news community should win this year’s EPA Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder contest. This is a photo, essay, poetry and dance contest. Teams consist of two or more people – at least one younger, one older.  The idea is not only cross generational, but multi-organism.

Echo

Monday Memes: Angry wolf and a loquacious loon

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Thanks to Echo correspondents Carolyn Sundquist and Sam Inglot.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Internet memes are ideas, lingo or pictures sent through the Internet. You’ve probably seen them passed around Facebook and Twitter. Check out our Monday Memes gallery.