Echo

Officials say natural causes dropped Lake Huron and Michigan levels; homeowners don’t buy it

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 3, 2009

When the Great Lakes are high, shoreline houses risk erosion that could tumble them into the water. When they are low, more structures are exposed to wind damage, boaters can’t pull up to docks and ships can’t transport as much cargo. And lately, both things have happened at the same time, puzzling scientists and frustrating property owners. Since the late 1990s, the average water levels of lakes Michigan and Huron have dropped, said Frank Quinn, a former research hydrologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. At the same time the average water level of Lake Erie has risen.

“The lake levels normally oscillate together,” Quinn said.

Echo

New York ballast decision may help control invasive species throughout the Great Lakes

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 2, 2009

Environmental groups praise a New York Supreme Court justice’s recent decision to uphold that state’s new ballast water treatment requirements, and the shippers say that the standard is just too high. But they both agree on one thing: There should be some federal action taken to regulate ballast water. Ballast water is carried in ships to provide stability. It is taken on when a ship unloads cargo and is discharged when it is loaded up again. It has been blamed for carrying from foreign ports many of the invasive plants and animals altering the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Echo

Regulation of Great Lakes’ water levels possible, experts debate effects

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 9, 2009

Imagine turbines at the bottom of the St. Clair River that can control the height of the water on Lake Huron. What’s more, they can generate electricity. Sound farfetched? They’re not, according to Craig Stow, a physical research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Wildlife

Great Lakes bats threatened by mysterious disease

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 1, 2009

A mysterious ailment that’s already wiped out more than a million North American bats is headed to critical Great Lakes hibernation sites. White-nose Syndrome, named for the tufts of fungus growing on the faces and wings of afflicted bats, was first spotted in New York in February 2006. The disease has since spread through New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Conservationists worry it could spread as far as Mexico. “As quick as it has spread, it’s most likely going to hit the Great Lakes region within one to two years, potentially wiping out 90 percent of bats that hibernate in the region,” said Rob Mies, director of the Michigan-based Organization for Bat Conservation.

Recreation

Injury suspends Minnesota kayaker’s trip around the Great Lakes

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 29, 2009

Bryan Hansel, who began an attempt in early May to paddle a kayak around all five Great Lakes, has suspended his trip to deal with tendon problems in his forearms. He made the announcement on his Web site, Around the Great Lakes. In the meantime, those still hungry for Great Lakes circumnavigations can fill up on Loreen Niewenhuis’s walk around Lake Michigan and Hannah Williams and Matt Abbotts’ kayak trip around Lake Superior.

Echo

EPA dioxin push could be a boon to Great Lakes cleanup

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 28, 2008

Great Lakes advocates hope that this week’s push by the federal government to clean up of one of the nation’s worst sites of dioxin contamination is a sign that the new administration will make good on its promise to jump start restoration of the region. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson on Tuesday pledged a strong agency presence in the effort to clean up the Tittabawassee River and Saginaw Bay watershed in Michigan’s Thumb area. A century of chemical production at Dow Chemical Co. in Midland left sediment in the river system contaminated with dioxin, a likely carcinogen that has been linked to liver damage. Plans for cleaning the area have sparked longtime controversy involving state, local and federal agencies, environmental groups and area residents.

Water

Landmark Wisconsin diversion of Great Lakes water is both praised and blasted

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By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 22, 2009
A Great Lakes water diversion to replace a Wisconsin city’s radium-contaminated wells has been both hailed as a responsible application of new water use regulations and blasted as unwarranted and precipitous. New Berlin is the first city with residents outside of the Great Lakes basin to receive water under the latest version of the Great Lakes Compact, a federal agreement approved by bordering states and ratified by Congress in 2008. The diversion was approved Thursday by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Because New Berlin is both inside and outside of the basin — the land that drains to the Great Lakes – Wisconsin had sole discretion in approving the city’s application.  Cities completely outside the basin must receive approval from all the Great Lakes states. Under Wisconsin’s conservation standards, New Berlin will return all the water it withdraws from Lake Michigan and also contribute local water to the lake.  That net gain for Lake Michigan represents a successful application of the Great Lakes Compact, Andy Buchsbaum, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes region, said Friday.

Echo

Michigan, Illinois, New York consider school alternative energy incentives

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By Theresa Gasinski, gasinsk1@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 21, 2009

The Michigan Legislature may soon create a fund to loan schools money to build windmills, solar panels or other sources of alternative energy. Elsewhere in the Great Lakes region, lawmakers in Illinois and New York have introduced similar legislation. Some ideas within the Michigan bills to integrate wind energy into schools were written by Cory Connolly, an international relations junior at Michigan State University. Connolly is senior fellow for energy and the environment at the MSU Roosevelt Institution, a public policy research group that is part of a larger nonprofit with student chapters nationwide. State Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-Dewitt, used parts of Connolly’s policy memo in a bill introduced in the House, which was duplicated and sent to the Senate.

Echo

Canadian researchers shine new light on old Great Lakes contaminant

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By Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 19, 2009

In the alphabet soup of Great Lakes contaminants, PCBs, PCDDs and PBDEs usually rule the broth. But in a recent study, Canadian scientists took a closer look at another noodle. They examined a group of seldom-studied, dioxin-like contaminants called polychlorinated naphthalenes, or PCNs. These chemicals can have toxic effects including chloracne and liver damage. And although industry abandoned their use 30 years ago, the researchers still found the chemicals in lake trout collected from Lake Ontario from 1979 and 2004.