Great Lakes Blogger

phone book recycling

Legislation is faltering in Minnesota to establish an 'opt-in' system for people who really want to get phone books delivered to them. Instead, the phone book publishing business says that the collapse of phone book recycling systems is not its fault, and it should be allowed to pursue voluntary measures...which is what every other waste generator has said since the dawn of environmental laws.

The result: 85 percent of the telephone directories are dumped into the regular trash, even though it has been illegal to do so since 1992. State pollution officials call it one of Minnesota's biggest solid-waste problems.

Great Lakes photographic urban legend debunked

Darn! It was so fun to believe in.

Forwarded email texts tend to accrue inaccuracies as they circulate over time -- rather like a whispered phrase passed from person to person in the children's game of "Telephone" -- and in this case a set of authentic photographs of Antarctic icebergs has come to be identified as depicting a "frozen wave" observed in Lake Huron or Lake Michigan, in North America.

The photographer, astrophysicist Tony Travouillon, confirmed via email that the pictures were actually taken near the Antarctic coastal base of Dumont D'Urville in 2002.

Dow's latest filing

The chairman and chief executive of Dow Chemical Co. received compensation in 2007 that the company valued at $14.9 million, a 25 percent increase from the previous year, according to a regulatory document filed Friday.

[snip]

Stockholders will elect directors and vote on proposals calling for the establishment of an independent panel that would report on which Dow products may cause or aggravate asthma and for the directors to issue a report on the pace and effectiveness of an environmental-remediation process being undertaken near and downstream from its headquarters.

More than a century after Dow started dumping dioxins into the Tittabawassee River as it flowed past its mid-Michigan plant, the company and government regulators are still debating how to cleanse a swath of waters and wetlands that now reaches 50 miles to Lake Huron.

Dow acknowledges tainting the Tittabawassee and the adjoining Saginaw River, their floodplains, portions of the city of Midland and Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay with dioxins - chemical byproducts believed to cause cancer and damage reproductive and immune systems.

the Great Lakes border -- bridge or barrier?

Due to new anti-terrorism rules from the Department of Homeland Security, those paying to fish on Lake Erie will have to bring with them either a passport or two other forms of ID if planning to cross the invisible northern U.S. border. The 2008 charter season begins next month, and these new regulations threaten to damage the local charter and tourism industry.

How many values, including one of the world's longest unmilitarized borders, will be compromised in this war on terrorism?

north shore in early spring

A day trip from the Twin Cities to the edge of Superior yields fine photos.

pollution showdown in NW Indiana

Something very important is happening in NW Indiana. BP is working feverishly to get a Clean Air Act permit for its Whiting refinery from Indiana's state environmental agency before deadlines make it much more difficult. After last summer's firestorm of publicity over the same facility's plan to increase its dumping of pollutants into Lake Michigan -- which forced the company to commit to following its corporate environmental PR principles of sustainability -- it's astonishing that Indiana officials appear less like regulators in the public interest than facilitators for pollution. Of course they would put it differently; they are trying to create a win-win for the public and the company, they'd say.

Another thing that's very important is happening in NW Indiana, too. A talented and unflinching journalist is asking hard questions about the state's treatment of and relationship with the company, and getting support from her editorial board. This same reporter unearthed the water pollution permit controversy last year. A little more journalism like this would contribute to saving the Great Lakes -- a public priority, not one belonging to any special interest.

In the end, BP has the resources to do whatever is reasonably required to protect the airshed as well as the watershed of the Great Lakes -- the only question is whether the State of Indiana has the will to require it -- or whether the public will be able to insist upon it.

again, offshore/onshore wind siting guidelines needed

The news that Ontario has apparently lifted a moratorium on Great Lakes offshore wind project siting underscores the need for resource-protective, consistent guidelines on whether and where turbines should and shouldn't go.

Suggested guidelines were posted on this blog earlier in the month; here's a revised draft.
Download draft_wind_statement_3.25.08.doc

Most taste testers agree

Tap water is at least as good as bottled -- in Chicago in this case. (Thanks to Chicagoan Gary Wilson, moderator of Great Lakes Town Hall.)

The tasting was done as part of a kick off for the "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign in which green-minded restaurateurs are joining the likes of Alice Waters and Mario Batali in banning bottled water from their restaurants in favor of tap. The rationale is that bottled water creates garbage and produces carbon emissions in transport. The campaign is asking local restaurants to sign a pledge not to serve bottled water.

if you're going to change the compact, everyone has an idea to offer

Wisconsin and Ohio right wingers seem to be bent on derailing the Great Lakes Compact. Jim Rowen breaks it all down in his blog today. As Jim says:

Lazich and Grendell cannot control exactly which portions of this lengthy agreement get modified once the Compact is back on the table.

Right, so here are a few I want "fixed:"

* Get rid of the ludicrous loophole that permits draining of the Great Lakes in containers under 5.7 gallons in size without any say-so from other states.

* Ban the commercial sale of Great Lakes Basin water unless a greater public benefit is somehow served.

* Define 'short-term humanitarian crisis' in the exemptions to the diversion ban.

* Make it impossible for communities like Waukesha, WI to divert Great Lakes water to support their bad planning and suburban sprawl.

locking barn door after VHS got out?

Let's hope not; at least Minnesota is trying.

VHS has caused large fish kills in the eastern Great Lakes -- including Michigan and Wisconsin -- and Minnesota officials fear if it shows up here in Lake Superior or the Mississippi River, it could spread to inland lakes with devastating consequences.

To reduce chances of that nightmare, legislation pushed by the [Minnesota] Department of Natural Resources is moving forward at the state Capitol to tighten laws restricting the transportation and stocking of fish. Under legislation, some bait fish and game fish used to stock lakes would have to be tested for the fatal fish virus.