Great Lakes Blogger

is it time for a new national park designation?

At least 14 national park designation types exist -- the most familiar being national parks and national monuments.

http://www.nps.gov/legacy/nomenclature.html

Perhaps it's time for a new one applying to the Great Lakes.

National treasure? President Bush has used that in an executive order.

http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/collaboration/taskforce/eo.html

What would a national treasure be? Googling the term, the first thing you get is the 2004 movie with Nicholas Cage with a vague resemblance to The Da Vinci Code and a plot involving the Declaration of Independence.

Course, the National Archives debunks the whole thing:

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/treasure/index.html

No plots or conspiracies are needed in the Great Lakes, anyway.

How about Great Lakes International Peace Park? A shared resource among several nations. A peaceful border and meeting ground.

It's worth thinking about.

MN on brink of letting voters decide conservation funding

The initiative could be authorized early in the 2008 session.

As envisioned by bills awaiting votes on the House and Senate floors, dedicated funding would amount to about $300 million annually. The money would be earmarked for fish and wildlife habitat ($100 million), clean water ($100 milllion) and parks, trails and the arts ($100 million).

The funds would be raised by increasing the state sales tax three-eighths of 1 percent.

Final approval of the measures is expected shortly after the Legislature convenes in February, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller indicated at the end of the last session.

http://www.startribune.com/outdoors/story/1393336.html

Great Lakes from space

A little bit different perspective than usual. But as usual they're magnificent.

lake michigan washup

EMPIRE -- Dead birds and fish again are washing up in waves at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

And park biologist Ken Hyde is concerned that this year's die-off of gulls, loons, ducks and cormorants affects more species, particularly the endangered piping plover.

"One sad thing is we lost four piping plovers," Hyde said. "That is a concern to us because we are trying to increase their populations ... and now we have one more thing that impacts them or can kill them.

http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_242103038.html

great ballast water op-ed, Duluth

This responds to a viewpoint by the shipping industry that blamed environmentalists for stopping ballast water control legislation in Congress this summer...after more than 20 years of foot-dragging by the industry itself.

I was surprised by the Aug. 9 opinion piece in the News Tribune, “Great Lakes View: Lawmakers shouldn’t let opportunity for ballast water legislation go down the drain.” I was one of the people who supposedly “swarmed” Capitol Hill, as the commentary reported, to shut down the passage of ballast-water legislation. Well, I’m not a locust or a hornet, so I didn’t swarm. I traveled to Washington to urge lawmakers to strengthen and pass ballast-water legislation, not to shut it down.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=49096

the great lakes public, from the perspective of an odyssean

Talking with people and hearing their excitement serves as a good reminder of where I started. So far I haven’t had a single negative reaction or disagreement; people really want the lakes to be healthy and strong. Overwhelmingly, they want to understand the problems and do what they can. So the continuing problems with the lakes probably aren’t there because of a lack of public will.

http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/features.asp?id=2684

Minnesota group goes after ballast pollution

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in Ramsey County Court on Monday. The group says the agency isn't doing enough to protect Minnesota waters, from the deadly fish virus Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia, or VHS.

http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S178390.shtml?cat=10349

refinery pollution

Looks like refinery "Whack-A-Mole." Stop a pollution increase here, and it goes somewhere else. Or maybe it happens at both facilities!

But Marathon Petroleum acknowledged the expansion could result in more air pollution. The company said it expects an increase of about 30% in carbon monoxide and particulates emitted into the air. Marathon, the nation's fourth-largest oil company, said it plans to buy credits for particulates from other industrial companies to further offset the impact of the increase.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070828/BUSINESS06/708280366

Indiana regulators have granted BP another exemption from environmental standards, this time relaxing rules requiring a sharp drop in harmful soot pollution from the company's Whiting oil refinery.

The decision by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management would allow BP to keep releasing the same amount of microscopic air pollution as it does today, despite changes in federal rules that would have required the refinery to cut emissions in half.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-bp_28aug28,1,4230773.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout&ctrack=1&cset=true

bottled water on the run, Part II

Thank you, Detroit Free Press.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070826/OPINION01/708260548/1068/OPINION

Water withdrawal regulation, already agreed to by all the Great Lakes heads of governments, passed in Minnesota, Ontario and, just this month, Illinois. Michigan has the legislation teed up for possible discussion this fall.

But the pact exempts from oversight all water exports in containers 3.7 gallons or smaller, meaning water bottled here can travel anywhere on the globe.

This agreement took painfully long to negotiate and it must proceed...

But it's also not hard to imagine that someday 3.7-gallon and smaller containers of Great Lakes water -- or water from the springs and groundwater that feed into them -- might become, in an increasingly drier world, a sought-after supply, nationwide and globally. The Great Lakes State, now and in the future, can't let the issue go dormant.

rare michigan criminal water pollution prosecution

Two Great Lakes and US Tissue executives will face trial in connection with charges of violating water resources protection laws, a judge has ruled. Cheboygan County 89th District Court Judge Harold A. Johnson Jr. notified all parties by mail of his Thursday decision to proceed with a trial, and bound over to 53rd Circuit Court Company President and CEO Clarence Roznowski and Todd Kortman, an electronics engineer. The pair were arraigned June 6 on three counts of water resources protection and a separate conspiracy charge to commit a legal act in an illegal manner.

http://www.cheboygannews.com/articles/2007/08/27/news/news1.txt