the "new normal" on the Lakes

The algae bloom that slimed miles of area beaches on Father's Day was a harbinger of bad things to come along the Lake Michigan coast -- all of which can be traced back to a foreign mussel species.

Forget about zebra mussels, they were so 1990s.

The culprit behind the June 17 algae bloom was the quagga mussel (pronounced KWA-guh) -- the bigger, stronger, more prolific cousin of the zebra mussel, experts said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/chronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1184771752247940.xml&coll=8

So this is what we've come to after 40 years of Great Lakes protection work -- renewed green slime, but from new sources that could have been prevented, but weren't. Meanwhile, Washington keeps hedging on whether to control ballast water pollution and the shipping industry pleads for more research time. How much do people really care about the Lakes? If political actions speak louder than words, not much.