Great Lakes Blogger

another casualty of GL water levels

The Columbus, a luxury ship with room for 423, has been a mainstay in the region since the late 1990s. Built to cruise the Great Lakes, the ship is narrow and shallow enough to maneuver through the region's locks and tight waterways.

But those waterways have gotten too tight in recent years. The water levels in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, for example, are down 3 to 4 feet since the late 1990s, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1187945253199240.xml&coll=2

goodbye, Michigan Environmental Protection Act (for now)

In July, the Michigan Supreme Court repealed the heart of MEPA by decree. In a narrow, 4-3 decision typical of its conservative-progressive ideological split in recent years, the right-wing majority decided the Legislature never had a right to pass such a law. In doing so, the Court sought to take Michigan back to the good old days when polluters and government bureaucrats could settle matters among themselves, without the messy intervention of citizens.

“I thought this was a nation of and by and for the people,” said Joan Wolfe, the founder of the West Michigan Environmental Council who lobbied furiously for MEPA in 1970.  “The Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds.”

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1275&Itemid=29

pollution week in review

BP says it won't increase its Lake Michigan pollution discharge -- but will hold on to the permit that allows it.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/524632,CST-NWS-bp24.article

An often forgotten fact is that Clean Water Act permits are part of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The goal is to end pollution discharges into America's waters.

Asked why he thinks BP switched its position, Daley said: "This issue will not go away. The protection of the Great Lakes and the tributaries will not go away."

A little cyanide in your stream?

Two executives of a Fridley metal finishing company have been indicted in federal court for allegedly dumping wastewater contaminated with cyanide and other metals into the metro sewer system between 2002 and 2005.

http://www.startribune.com/467/story/1381959.html

scary real life movie

Courtesy of the Muskegon Chronicle.

http://blog.mlive.com/muskegon_chronicle_extra/2007/08/feared_fish_approaching_lake_m.html

impacts of Superior's new record August low

A new record low for late summer and early fall wasn’t unexpected. Much of the lake’s watershed is locked in a severe drought. Duluth, for example, is a foot short of normal precipitation since June 1, 2006, and has received less than a quarter-inch of rain in all of August.

The lake now sits nearly 22 inches below its long-term average for August and about 10 inches below the level at this time last year, Woodruff said.

The most significant impact of the low water so far has been on shipping, with some harbors and channels now too shal-low to handle lakes freighters carrying full loads. That has cost industry more for transportation, with boats moving at less-than-full capacity.

The low water also has made for wider beaches and less erosion, but also has left some boat landings high and dry and has caused a major drop in coastal wasteland [sic] water levels — so steep in some areas that wild rice has deteriorated.

[Let's make that coastal wetlands, not wastelands!]

http://www.wctrib.com/articles/rss.cfm?id=23660

interstate warmth lacking at Indiana hearing on BP permit

Chicago got a Hoosier stiff-arm here Wednesday as two top Mayor Daley emissaries were turned back from testifying to an Indiana legislative hearing on the controversial expansion of a Lake Michigan BP oil refinery.

Indiana Rep. Scott Pelath (D-Michigan City), who called the hearing, told reporters that time constraints were the cause of Daley's aides being shut out but added, "We here in Indiana know what the issues are."

Timothy Mitchell, superintendent of the Chicago Park District, said he was "insulted" and told the Sun-Times, "Then they can keep their pollution on their side of the lake. This is ridiculous."

http://www.suntimes.com/business/522595,CST-NWS-bp23.article

the greater meaning of the BP controversy

Over the last month, a perfect storm of negative publicity has engulfed BP and the State of Indiana over permission granted by the latter to the former to increase ammonia and other pollutant discharge to Lake Michigan at Whiting. Calls from local, state and federal politicians for reconsideration of the BP pollution permit have been triggered by considerable citizen anger.

The response to this particular insult to the Great Lakes has come when a multitude of others are gaining little notice. Still, it's an important starting point. Other observers have speculated that the reaction to the BP dumping has been so strong because it's a much clearer attack on the Lakes than most, and that it comes from an industry source, which the public continues to believe is the leading pollution culprit in the region. One observer even said that it's summer, and more people have time on their hands and are thinking about the Great Lakes than they would in the cold months.

But maybe another reason is that the public thought this was all settled long ago -- that the Great Lakes are a national treasure, and that dumping pollutants in them under legal permits is a practice of the past. If that's the case, then once again citizens are out front of their governments. Let's hope this wave of public sentiment is sustained.

if a swimmer can cross all five Great Lakes...

...then why can't the U.S. government and the states get a simple barrier built in the Illinois River system to keep out three species of Asian carp? After four years of trying?

All right, the question is facetious, but it should be clear by now that until citizens demand protection of the Great Lakes, it ain't going to happen.  Maybe this little bit of can-do spirit will serve as an example to the rest of us:

Three days after swimming across Lake Superior, Paula Stephanson reported Tuesday she was still a little stiff.

Reached on a crackling cellphone as she was leaving Sarnia on the drive to her home town of Belleville, she said she'd "pretty well" recovered from Saturday's 33-kilometre swim.

She left Minnesota on Monday after spending Sunday in a hotel room.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=05516695-8977-4478-b95d-453218c7e189&k=4845

what lies beneath -- superior

A lot has been written about the 1,448-plus barrels of toxic and probably radioactive wastes that were dumped into Lake Superior by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army, Honeywell, the EPA and the MPCA must be compelled do their legal duty and see that the Great Lakes are protected from the cancer-causing materials in their barrels. To ensure public safety, the responsible parties should be required:

• To fund an independent scientific confirmation of the presence or absence of radioactive materials in the barrels, to identify and characterize the specific contents and to publicly identify their locations.

• To pay for an investigation into the state of the barrels' decay and the contamination, if any, of surrounding sediment.

• To fund a remediation program that does not threaten to contaminate drinking water sources -- even if this means extending the water-intake point away from the barrels.

It's time for answers.

http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1373380.html

one sure way to stop the New Berlin, WI proposed water diversion

Just do what the State Representative from New Berlin says, and sink the current Great Lakes states compact. The result, for better or worse, of a nine-year process (so far), the compact stands no chance of being amended and resubmitted to all eight states, as she proposes. It's a very good example of unthinking ideology trumping her district's self-interest. Do her constituents realize what she's doing?

If the anti-Compact mentality held by Lazich, and her allies in the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio legislature were to prevail - - and the Compact stalled or died in one or more of the Great Lakes states - - New Berlin and the City of Waukesha could easily lose access to Great Lakes water because current US law makes diversions much harder, if not impossible to obtain.

Maybe we (and the Great Lakes) should hope she prevails; at least New Berlin will never get the water it seeks to facilitate its urban sprawl, abandon-the-central-city economy.

http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2007/08/state-sen-lazich-continues-her-assault.html