Echo

Dry summer helps Great Lakes beach cleanup

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This year’s drought may make an annual effort to clean up Great Lakes beaches and shorelines a little easier, according to the Associated Press. The Alliance for the Great Lakes, an organization that works to preserve the Great Lakes, is holding the cleanups Saturday at beaches in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. This year’s cleanups will be easier because the dry weather meant fewer sewer overflows that dump trash into the water, the news agency reported. The environmental group is asking volunteers to show up at Great Lakes beaches to pick up trash. Individuals, families, schools, community, scouting and religious groups can register online to take part in the cleanups.

Echo

Live Stream from Great Lakes Week Conference in Cleveland

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Activists, scientists and government representatives have converged in Cleveland this week for the second annual Great Lakes Week. For those who cannot make it to Ohio, a live stream and commentaries on the event are available online from Detroit Public Television and WVIZ/PBS ideastream®. One of the commentators is Great Lakes Echo’s own Gary Wilson. You can hear Gary talk about key issues such as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and algae blooms.

Gary also was interviewed here by WBEZ in Chicago. Agencies including the International Joint Commission, the Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Coalition and the U.S Environmental Protection Agency worked together to put on the conference.

Echo

Current forecasting tool can help St. Lawrence boaters

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An online tool for charting water currents and depths can help St. Lawrence Seaway boaters plan safe recreational trips. The tool pools wind and water data from several U.S. and Canadian research agencies and incorporates them into a forecasting model every three hours, said Riley Young Morse program manager at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and developer of the tool’s user interface. Boaters can click a point on a computer-generated map of the seaway closest to where they need information. This produces the current water current conditions and forecasts for that area.

Echo

Drought extends risk of West Nile virus

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The dry summer has increased the mosquito that spreads the West Nile virus.

The species easily reproduces in a warm, dry climate.

Michigan health officials say more than 115 cases and six deaths have been confirmed this year, up from 34 cases last year.

Land

Lookin’ At It crew talks carnivorous plants

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In the latest episode of “Lookin’ at It: A Nature Show”, the nature-loving crew from Buffalo joins a carnivorous plant club. While Lookin’ At It creators Matt Candeias, Steve Fleck and Jason Mazurowski may have failed at differentiating the western New York carnivorous plant club from a sandwich shop, they succeeded in dishing out some awesome facts about bug-eating plants. For example, did you know that carnivorous plants don’t need to eat insects to survive? Well it’s true, according to the club out of Buffalo. Still, eating them makes them grow faster, stronger, and reproduce quicker, they said.