Great Lakes Blogger

Water As a Human Right

This plea applies in the U.S, too.

All levels of government should act now to protect Canada's water resources as they continue to come under threat by privatization and the bottled-water industry, public advocacy groups said Sunday.

A declaration backed by the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Public Employees stressed the need for a national water policy that, among other things, "recognizes water as a human right and a public trust." It also called for investments to be made in watershed planning and management and guidelines for the protection of water quantity and quality in the country.

It's so wise and natural an idea that it will undoubtedly elicit a backlash from water privateers and theorists who believe a market in fresh water would please Adam Smith. If these folks were broke and down to the last drop of water available to them, they might reconsider.

The Great Carp Kill

Is it a matter of locking the barn door after the carp got out?

Ballast Water Control -- Now

Eight Minnesota environmental and conservation organizations are urging the U.S. Coast Guard to adopt tougher ballast-water standards for ships on the Great Lakes to stop the introduction and spread of harmful invasive aquatic species.

Given that this problem first became serious more than 20 years ago, further delay is incomprehensible -- except as yet another sop to the industry that cried "wolf" -- the shipping industry.

Great Lakes Threat Mapping

An advisory group meeting in Ann Arbor yesterday offered insights on this new project. It's ingenious in theory and could be a valuable tool in deciding where to invest money and time in protecting and restoring the Lakes. The chief lament yesterday was that it will take two years to complete; it would be useful to have in hand now.

Oxymoron Du Jour

Asian Carp Rapid Response Task Force.

It's a little for a rapid response when the threat was identified nearly a decade ago.

Minnesotan/Great Lakes Guru in Outdoor Life 25 For 2010

Congratulations, Gary Glass.

Great Lakes Water: Asset, Not Product

Milwaukee is getting a little close to the line with its promotion of water as a competitive advantage through discounted rates for job creators. The abundance, not the cheapness of Great Lakes water is the advantage. And does luring beverage "makers" mean bottled water exporters? (Yes, some bottled water is tap water.)

Wisconsin's Mistake on the Waukesha Diversion

Jim Rowen puts it well:  "This is the frankly-ridiculous and wholly-self-created corner" into which Wisconsin has painted itself.  A proposed diversion unsupported by the rules needed to make it lawful.

Good News in the Great Lakes Tonight

It's about the comeback of the lake sturgeon.

A Look at Asian Carp

The commotion over the now likely invasion of Asian carp makes it timely to look at who these fish are and why they're a concern.

As the U.S. EPA notes, two species of Asian carp are of concern, bighead and silver. The EPA notes the fish "are a significant threat to the Great Lakes because they are large, extremely prolific, and consume vast amounts of food. They can weigh up to 100 pounds, and can grow to a length of more than four feet. They are well-suited to the climate of the Great Lakes region, which is similar to their native Asian habitats"

Might they disrupt the already troubled food web of the Great Lakes fishery? Perhaps. One fear is that they will gobble up the forage fish on which desirable Great Lakes sport fish, including salmon and lake trout, depend. There will probably be other effects.

The EPA page is generally excellent, but its discussion of how the carp came to the U.S. is clouded. There is no mention that EPA itself may have encouraged the introduction of the carp, as Eric Sharp suggests.

One commenter on a post I did elsewhere also raised an issue.

Bighead and silver carp did NOT originally escape during flooding of the early 90s. The first silver carp was captured from the wild in 1972! Bigheads were abundant in the late 1980s. There may have been some ponds that flooded in the '93 flood, but the only reason there “is agreement” that this happened is because it sounds logical to the uninformed and that it has been so often repeated in the media that it is common (although probably incorrect) knowledge. There was a farm that flooded later, on the Osage River, but that was after the fish were already well established. The most logical reason for the escape of bighead and silver carp is carelessness, not the capriciousness of mother nature.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife info page is here.