Echo

8 groups request crackdown on invasive species in Lake Superior

By |

(MN) Pioneer Press – Eight Minnesota environmental and conservation organizations are urging the U.S. Coast Guard to adopt tougher ballast-water standards for ships on the Great Lakes to stop the introduction and spread of harmful invasive aquatic species. In a letter to the Coast Guard this week, the groups said the first step of a proposed rule is too weak and takes too long to put into place. They said that it must be effective in killing even small organisms in the ships’ ballast water and that the deadlines should be moved up. More

Echo

Milfoil is foiled by herbicide on Minnetonka bays

By |

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Two years into a five-year test of herbicides to control Eurasian water milfoil on Lake Minnetonka, results are so encouraging that more shoreline property owners are asking for the chemical treatment in their bays. After seeing the weed fade away this year on Grays Bay and Phelps Bay, residents of Gideons Bay and St. Albans Bay are trying to raise money for milfoil treatments next summer. More

Echo

Asian carp worries fishermen

By |

(IL) Chicago Tribune – The fishermen along the Illinois and Indiana shore don’t mind the cold when yellow perch flirt with a line like they did Monday. They don’t mind much of anything if the fish are biting. And that’s why they’re worried about the Asian carp. “We’d sure hate for some of those fish to get in Lake Michigan,” said Eddie Hudson, 60, fishing near where the Cal-Sag Channel meets Lake Michigan. “They would kill off practically everything.”

Echo

Quiz: Which Great Lakes invasive species is your former significant other?

By |

By Great Lakes Echo
Nov. 18, 2009

With help from readers, the Great Lakes Echo staff has developed another environmental Facebook quiz. Take this one to find out which Great Lakes invasive species is most like your former significant other. As a bonus you may learn a bit about those plants and animals upsetting the ecology of the largest body of fresh surface water in the world. On the other hand, you may just gain a new nickname for your ex.

Echo

Poison to be used against Asian carp

By |

(IL) UPI – An Illinois Department of Natural Resources official said poison will be added to a Chicago canal to stop Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan. John Rogner, the department’s assistant director, said by adding poison to nearly 6 miles of canal on the outskirts of Chicago, biologists hope to keep the invasive species at bay long enough to repair a new electric fish barrier, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Friday. More

Echo

Film on invasive species premieres in Grand Rapids

By |

(MI) The Detroit News – The film, titled “Lake Invaders: The Fight for Lake Huron,” was produced by faculty and students at Grand Valley State University in Allendale. A screening is scheduled tonight at the DeVos Center. The film was two years in the making and explores the threat invasive species have posed to the lake. It features state Department of Natural Resourcesnstaff from Alpena and the DNR’s Chinook research vessel. More

Echo

Maintenance on carp barrier at standstill

By |

(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – At the same time nearly a half billion dollars is headed toward the Great Lakes as part of President Barack Obama’s ambitious ecosystem restoration program, nobody at the moment appears to have the dollars to allow the U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers to do regular maintenance on the new $9 million Asian carp barrier. That maintenance is needed about every six months and it requires shutting down the barrier for a day or two. The barrier, which is about 20 miles downstream from Lake Michigan on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, was first turned on in April. More

Echo

Three invasive species spread through Great Lakes region

By |

By Emily Lawler
Oct. 28, 2009

LANSING– Asian longhorned beetles and sirex woodwasps and hemlock woolly adelgids – Oh my! Those three invasive species spotted in northeastern Ohio could soon ravage Michigan, and that could prove disastrous, horticulture experts warn. “There’s not a wall between the borders,” said Amy Frankmann, executive director of the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association in Okemos. Michael Philip, pest survey program manager for the state Department of Agriculture (MDA), said that at least one of these species is already here.

Wildlife

New insight on old pesticide spells trouble for the Great Lakes’ invasive sea lamprey

By |

By Jeff Gillies
Oct. 20, 2009

While Great Lakes officials beat back the voracious Asian carp at the gates of Lake Michigan, they still wrangle with another nasty fish that snuck in at least 90 years ago. Sea lampreys, eel-like parasitic fish native to the Atlantic Ocean, use a mouthful of teeth and a bony tongue to latch onto and scrape through fish flesh. Scientists debate whether the lamprey is native to Lake Ontario, where it was discovered in 1835. But it invaded Lake Erie by 1921 and the rest of the Great Lakes by 1946.

Echo

VIDEO: Five questions for author and invasive species gumshoe Jeff Alexander

By |

By Andrew Norman
Oct. 16, 2009

Covering the Great Lakes and its environment for two decades made Jeff Alexander the obvious environmental sleuth to write a comprehensive history and investigative exposé of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway. The award-winning reporter and author’s most recent book, Pandora’s Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, does just that.