Echo

Newest pest can cut you

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(ON) The Toronto Star – An aquatic invader is camping out on the banks of the Trent-Severn Waterway, and from the sounds of it, is getting very comfortable. “We have been doing surveillance of this plant; it is the first known sighting in Canada,” said Francine MacDonald, an aquatics biologist at the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters who is an expert in invasive species. The new undesirable in her sights is called the water soldier, Stratiotes aloides. It resembles an aloe vera or spider plant, but with one significant difference: “It is very sharp — just to pull it out of the water you have to put gloves on,” said MacDonald.  More

Wildlife

Boaters beware: State checking for zebra mussels

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Boaters beware: Beginning this weekend, officials will be out in force trying to prevent the spread of invasive zebra mussels from Lake Mille Lacs, Prior Lake in Scott County and Rice Lake near Brainerd. The Department of Natural Resources is teaming up with other law enforcement agencies, including sheriffs’ departments, the State Patrol and tribal authorities, starting Memorial Day Weekend to check boats at those heavily used lakes. DNR conservation officers, watercraft inspectors and creel census clerks will be checking boats and informing boaters to inspect, remove and drain water from bait buckets, live wells and boats before leaving water accesses. Violators face up to $500 fines. More

Echo

Lampreys are sucking the life out of Michigan’s waterways

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – It’s spawning season for the sea lamprey, a prehistoric creature that invaded the Great Lakes 80 years ago, and researcher Nick Johnson is injecting a love potion into the river to lure female sea lampreys into traps. The eel-like lampreys are one of the Great Lakes’ most destructive invasive species, devouring native fish by sucking out their innards. They invaded the lakes in the 1920s, wiping out lake trout in some lakes by the 1950s. A chemical developed to kill lampreys has helped lower their numbers to about half a million in the lakes, but it is expensive and there still are too many lampreys. More
 
 
 

Echo

Critics argue new ballast water permits are inadequate

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(MN) Minnesota Public Radio – Critics of Minnesota’s new ballast water permit system will argue in court today that the system doesn’t do enough to protect Lake Superior from invasive species. They say with a deadly fish virus infesting every Great Lake except Lake Superior, the state needs to act more quickly and more effectively. As a result, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency now requires ships to install equipment to kill organisms in the ballast, but the equipment doesn’t have to be in place and working until 2016. The MPCA’s Jeff Stollenwerk said Minnesota’s system is a good one. He said Minnesota is the only state that has rules for all ships on its Great Lake — Wisconsin’s permit only covers ocean-going ships.  More

Echo

Michigan gets nearly $2.7M to combat invasive species

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(MI) Booth Newspapers – Michigan has been awarded nearly $2.7 million to combat invasive species. The award was announced Thursday by U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, both Democrats from Michigan. They say invasive species pose a signifcant threat to Michigan’s environment and the funding will help eradicate them. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding has been designated for the Wildland Fire Management program.

Echo

Great Lakes groups urge passage of Obama cleanup plan; cite jobs, environment benefits

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By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
May 14, 2009

Regional environmental and economic groups on Thursday urged Congress to quickly approve President Barack Obama’s proposed allocation of $475 million to restore and protect the Great Lakes. “This initiative, from our perspective, is the exact priorities the Great Lakes need, and the right amount,” said Andy Buchsbaum, co-chair of Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. The proposal allocates the most money – $146 million – to cleaning toxic substances from contaminated sediments. Other funding would go to keeping out and removing invasive species, preventing pollution, improving near-shore health and protecting habitat and wildlife. The president has not identified specific geographic regions that would receive the funding.

Wildlife

Pheromones in river traps attract sea lampreys

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Scientists have found another promising weapon in the battle against sea lampreys, strong evidence that they may win the war against one of the Great Lakes’ most infamous invaders.

Researchers at Michigan State University have begun field tests on a chemical compound that tricks the lampreys and lures them into traps.

Echo

Researchers find promising prospects to battle beech bark disease

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By Jack Johnston

LANSING — In the dead cold of the Upper Peninsula winter, Robert Heyd leaves his snowmobile and approaches an enormous American beech armed with a slingshot, rope and a saw. Supported by his snowshoes on four feet of snow, Heyd slings a quarter-pound weight attached to parachute cord 80 feet up into the highest branches of the behemoth and uses the rope to haul the 4-foot saw to the top. A branch falls harmlessly to the ground next to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) forest health management program director. It’s a first step in saving the state’s majestic beeches. After eight years of research, the DNR and the U.S. Forest Service are ready to implement a strategy to fight the destructive beech bark disease, said Jennifer Koch, a research biologist with the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in Delaware, Ohio.

Echo

EPA chief open to crackdown on Great Lakes invasive species

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The Obama administration’s top environmental official indicated Tuesday that she will consider tougher rules to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species that hitch rides into the region aboard oceangoing vessels. Newly appointed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said she will take a fresh look at her agency’s new policy that requires oceangoing vessels to flush their ship-steadying ballast tanks in mid-ocean to expel any unwanted organisms.

The EPA ordered the flushing late last year after losing a lawsuit over its long-standing policy to exempt ballast discharges from provisions in the Clean Water Act. But the conservationists who sued the EPA say that merely flushing ballast tanks does not go far enough to protect the Great Lakes from the next zebra mussel. They want the agency to force ship owners to install ballast treatment systems that will go much further toward killing unwanted organisms.

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Echo

Volunteers remove invasive weeds from Saginaw Bay

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An army of invaders is marching north from Bay City. Tim Engelhardt wants to stop them in their tracks. The invader is phragmites, a giant, invasive reed that already rings most of Saginaw Bay, growing more than 10 feet tall and crowding out native plants, animals and views of the water. Engelhardt, an AmeriCorps volunteer, is the invasive species coordinator for Huron Pines, a Northeast Michigan conservation group headquartered in Grayling. Read more