Great Lakes For All

Has the shipping industry done a tremendous job?

CBS recently produced a video on the quagga mussel problem in the Great Lakes, and the introduction of invasive species in the ballast water of ocean going ships. It's always good to see main stream media taking notice of Great Lakes ecological issues, even if they tend to be pretty superficial in their coverage.

In the video John Jamian, the President of the Seaway Great Lakes Trade Association, says ""I think the shipping industry has done a tremendous job, given the fact that they were not set up for this kind of business, in terms of solving these problems."

Hmm. I guess I'd be forced to agree if you could convince me that decades of inaction followed by active resistance to any laws forcing them to deal with the problem is "tremendous." And perhaps, while you're at it, you could explain exactly why they are not "set up" to solve "these problems." I guess being responsible corporate citizens just isn't in the business plan.

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Save the chubsucker, save the Great Lakes!

The chubsucker is a modest member of the sucker family native to the Great Lakes region. It's rare and getting rarer. In fact it's listed as threatened in New York and a species at risk in Canada. With a name that sounds vaguely like an obscenity, it's an unlikely candidate for a rallying cry to save it. But in saving the chubsucker, we will have to take actions that will help to save the Great Lakes themselves.

According to the Recovery Strategy for the Lake Chubsucker (PDF) published by Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO),

Across its range, the lake chubsucker tends to inhabit clear,well-vegetated, slow-moving or still waters with substrates of gravel, sand, silt and organic debris. Ontario specimens have typically been captured in heavily vegetated, stagnant bays,channels, ponds and swamps. Suitable habitats are thought to be decreasing in size and quality,predominantly due to agriculture-induced siltation and wetland drainage.

So, in order to save the chubsucker, we'll need to reduce agricultural run-off and preserve wetlands--just what the doctor ordered for the Great Lakes as a whole. The Tillonsburg News recently ran a story on the recovery plan for the lake chubsucker and this quote sums it up well:

"Species at risk tend to be the more sensitive species," says Shawn Staton, a recovery planner for DFO’s species at risk program. "They’re like the canaries in the coal mine. If you take care of them, you tend to take care of all the species in an ecosystem."

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Hands off our water!

New Mexico Governor and Presidential contender Bill Richardson's suggestion last month that water rich states should share the wealth continues to echo in the chambers of government. Recently the eight Great Lakes Governors issued a joint statement calling on all Presidential hopefuls to outline their plans to preserve and protect the Great Lakes.

Specifically, the candidates were asked for their support of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact that would ban the diversion of Great Lakes water...

The governors also called on the candidates to support restoration efforts underway throughout the Great Lakes by endorsing and supporting the funding necessary to implement the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration's Restoration and Protection Strategy that was developed in 2005.

Meanwhile, back on capital hill, it's clear that Governor Richardson's comments have made Great Lakes lawmakers extremely suspicious of any call for a national water policy. Tempers flared when the House subcommittee on water resources and environment began discussing a seemingly innocuous proposal to study US water use and availability. As reported in the Detroit Free Press, Michigan Representatives Candice Miller and Vern Ehlers vigorously opposed the legislation.

Miller said: "Forgive me if I, as a representative of the Great Lakes State, become concerned when I hear people promoting a national water policy or strategy. But the only logical conclusion I can come to is that such a commission is subversive attempt to divert water from the Great Lakes to other parts of the United States.

"And I do not intend to let that happen."

Not to be outdone, Representative Ehlers made it clear what would happen if there was any attempt by other states to grab our water:

"I would suspect we'd call up the militia and take up arms," Ehlers said. "We feel that serious about it."

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Is the Water Resources Development Act good for the Great Lakes?

Many environmentalists and Great Lakes legislators are celebrating the recent override of President Bush's veto of the $26 billion Water Resources Development Act. The tone of the report on the website All American Patriots is typical:

Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) today hailed the 79-14 Senate vote to override President Bush’s veto of the Water Resources Development Act, which includes numerous provisions for Michigan and the Great Lakes. The House voted to override the veto earlier this week, so the bill now becomes law.

“In overriding President Bush’s veto today, the Senate stood up for America’s waterways and water infrastructure,” said Levin. “The strong bipartisan vote shows that we’ll fight to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species, and we’ll fight to help make our waters safe and clean. We’ll fight to address the serious dredging backlog in our harbors and channels, which hurts many Michigan businesses that rely on these waterways every day. The Senate showed that we’ll protect our residents from sewer overflows and we’ll enhance the security of our dams to keep our communities safe.”

“I am so pleased that working together, we were able to override this President’s veto and pass this bipartisan legislation,” said Stabenow. “From protecting the Great Lakes from invasive species, to providing crucial maintenance for harbors across our state, this bill serves as a critical framework for protecting and maintaining the lakes, rivers, harbors and other waterways that are such a crucial part of Michigan’s identity and economy.”

The article continues with a rather long list of projects authorized by the bill that would benefit the Great Lakes. There are in fact many environmental projects on the list, including a long overdue upgrade to the Asian carp barrier on the Chicago river, sewer system upgrades, and aquatic ecosystem restoration.

But by far the majority of projects listed are of questionable value to the Great Lakes themselves. Is building a $341,714,000 lock in Sault Ste. Marie and spending millions more on harbor dredging really good for the Great Lakes? Certainly for the economy, but what about the ecology?

Environmental writer Michael Grunwald expressed a strong dissenting opinion on the value of the veto override. He has a special concern for the impact of the bill on the Everglades and Gulf Coast. But his insights have application to the Great Lakes as well. Here's his basic point:

This bloated bill will be terrible for the environment -- and it won't save the Everglades or coastal Louisiana. It will preserve America's dysfunctional approach to water resources, the same approach that endangered the Everglades and coastal Louisiana in the first place.

The enviros who bashed Bush for blocking it will now return to their usual bashing of the Army Corps, but they just blew their best chance to reform this destructive and counterproductive agency -- which just happens to oversee the restoration of the Everglades and the protection of coastal Louisiana.

His central concern is that while this bill authorizes a lot of projects, it will take separate acts of Congress to appropriate the funds. And when it comes to appropriations, "the greens are deluded if they think their restoration projects will take precedence over the usual dredge-and-drain work favored by Congress and the Corps."

Lets hope the Congressional delegates from the Great Lakes prove him wrong.

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Are we the worst invasive species?

I was following with interest news reports on the "Making a Great Lake Superior" conference in Duluth last week. An article in the Star Tribune, Lake Superior struggles to remain free of pollutants, seemed to sum things up pretty well:

Superior "is still the cleanest of the Great Lakes," said Deborah Swackhamer interim director of the U of M's Institute on the Environment. However, she added that near-shore development has increased threats from chemicals that cause endocrine system disruption in fish.

Similarly, logging, mining and development concentrated around rivers that feed the lake have hurt native populations of walleye, sturgeon and coaster brook trout, said Mark Ebener, a biologist with the Chippewa–Ottawa Resource Authority in Sault Ste. Marie.

The good news, Ebener said, is that the deep-water areas of the lake support vibrant populations of lake trout and other species, making Superior a "very healthy" environment for fish overall.

But this quote from Mr. Ebener really got me thinking:

Asked to identify the biggest threat to the lake, Ebener said, "That's easy: Invasive species, and one in particular. The original invasive species -- 'us' -- we are still the worst enemy of the (lake's) aquatic environment."

Well, what do you think? Are we the worst invasive species in the Great Lakes?

BusinessNorth.com gave a more complete report of Ebener's comment:

Ebener says the impact of foreign organisms to the lake is nothing compared to the effects people have on the lake. “We are the invasive species. I mean, our activities—we’re going to continue to reproduce. We’re going to continue to have children. As our populations expand, we expect better and better lifestyles for ourselves and our children. We describe that as progress. Progress to fish communities and ecosystems is usually a bad thing. We have to balance sustainability with our needs and the ecosystems’ needs. Ultimately, the ecosystem always loses.”

Well, maybe not always. Just a week before Mr. Ebener made his controversial comments, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the formation of the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area that will protect 10,000 square kilometers of Lake Superior. According to the CBC,

It will protect the area from things like mining and oil and gas development — anything that could damage the water or delicate landscape.

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IJC update on Upper Great Lakes water levels

Just weeks after announcing it would put its study of upper Great Lakes water levels on a fast track (fast by bureaucrat standards means reporting in 2009 instead of 2010), the International Joint Commission (IJC) has released a progress report that challenges the idea that continued erosion of the Saint Clair River is causing lower lake levels. As reported in Dredging News Online,

Included in the report were initial results from work currently underway in the St Clair River that has already captured more than 50km (30 miles) of the river bed on videotape. While the analysis is still preliminary, Dr Bommanna Krishnappan, Research Scientist with the National Water Research Institute (Environment Canada) noted that: "All these video images show that the river bed in the upper reach of the river is fully armoured and that the armour layer is made up of coarse gravels, pebbles and cobbles, with size of the sediment ranging from about 4 mm to 250 mm (1/6 inch to nearly 10 inches). An armour layer in a river forms when the flow erodes the finer fractions of the sediment and leaves behind the coarse material. Based on the capacity of the flow to transport sediment, the armour layer in the upper part of the St Clair River is considered to be stable. Therefore, the bed cannot be eroding."

Of course no one can deny that the upper Great Lakes are all flirting with historic lows, and according to the Toronto Star, things could get worse: 

The Army Corps of Engineers predicts Lake Huron will drop another 20 centimetres by next spring. And Environment Canada hydrologists predict that given another dry winter, the lake will break its all-time low since scientists began to record water levels almost 150 years ago.

The article, which goes on to discuss the controversy over the IJC report, also includes the most comprehensive list of possible causes for low water levels that I've run across. Many of my readers will be happy to know the list BEGINS with the possibility that this is all just part of a natural cycle. But quite an interesting list of other possibilities follows.

I've often read that dredging the Saint Clair River in the 1960s led to a permanent lowering of the Lake Huron/Michigan system. This article includes a interesting historical perspective on that and one of the best recommendations for its fix that I've come across.

The last dredging, which deepened the originally 6-metre-deep river to 8.1 metres, was approved in conjunction with plans for a series of underwater weirs, or speed bumps, which would slow the river's flow and result in a smaller loss of water. But, they were never built, as Roger Gauthier, program manager for the Great Lakes Commission, explains, because the dredging was soon followed by record-high levels of water on Lake Huron.

The result of that last dredging was a permanent loss of around 13 centimetres of water. Putting that water back by finally building those weirs would only cost around $3 million U.S. – $1 million U.S. less than the present study on the St. Clair River by the commission's study group, Gauthier says.

Yep, you read that right, according to Gauthier it would cost less to fix the problem than is currently budgeted to study it! I guess that's good enough for government work.

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Book Review: COLD, CLEAR, AND DEADLY

I read Mel Visser’s intriguing book, Cold, Clear, and Deadly, twice before writing this review. The main reason for the extra diligence was that I really wasn’t quite sure what to make of the book. If I was puzzled by the first reading, I’d have to say I was fascinated on the second. This book really is the closest thing you can get to an environmental page-turner.

In fact, in his introduction Mel describes the book as a “mystery novel, with chemicals as the characters.” That’s a pretty good description but I’d also add that Mel casts himself as the sleuth, a loveable rogue who fits well in the tradition of dime store detective novels.

By his own admission, Mel is a man obsessed with this mystery: how have toxic levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) continued in the waters of the Great Lakes decades after they were banned? His obsession springs from an intense personal identification with Lake Superior and is fueled by his long career as a chemical engineer and environmental compliance officer for Upjohn Corporation.

That Upjohn association might lead activists to suspect that Mel comes from the “enemy” camp. Well, the truth is Mel doesn’t have much regard for environmentalists, regulators, or researchers either. At best he considers them misguided in their efforts to clean the Great Lakes by scouring contaminated sediments from their shores. But he also accuses them of more nefarious motivations, at one point referring to them as the “regulatory-research complex” interested only in perpetuating their own funding.

So be prepared, Mel is a curmudgeon on a mission. And if at times he offends, you have to appreciate his motivation and applaud his goal: a global ban on POPs like PCBs, DDT, chlordane, and toxaphene.

COLD, CLEAR AND DEADLY is a personal account, a memoir really, of Mel’s dawning awareness of the effects of POPs on the environment and his dogged determination to find their source. His awareness develops in the first half of the book as he attends a series of environmental meetings, symposia, colloquia--you get the picture. Potentially dry stuff this, but here’s where Mel’s personality really shines giving a unique insider, behind-the-scenes view that I found quite engaging.

The second half of the book documents Mel’s post-retirement investigations and growing commitment to a ban on POPs. He becomes convinced that the primary source of POPs in the environment is their continued use in the developing world and their global transport in the atmosphere. His research takes him on two trips to the Arctic. At times his accounts have a travelogue quality, but his description of the horrific exposure of the Inuit to POPs in their traditional diet is riveting--and sure to make you share his outrage.

Fittingly, Mel finishes the book with a call to action. I, for one, wish him every success.

For more about Mel and his mission, see his website, http://coldclearanddeadly.com/, and a series of interviews with Mel on Dave Dempseys excellent blog: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

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