A scientist collects samples of ballast sediment. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
A new study finds that ocean-going ships that enter the Great Lakes often carry biological pollution in their ballasts, even when they declare their ballasts are empty. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A new study finds that ocean-going ships that enter the Great Lakes often carry biological pollution in their ballasts, even when they declare their ballasts are empty. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The study by the University of Michigan and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at ships coming into the Great Lakes from the ocean. Nearly 80-percent of them declared “no ballast on board” and avoided inspections by the Coast Guard.
But several of those ships were tested by the researchers. They found that although the ballast water was pumped out, there were thousands of organisms left behind in the sediment in the bottom of the ships’ ballast. Then, when the ships unloaded at their first stop, they took on Great Lakes ballast water which stirred up the sediment.
And that made it possible for the biological contaminants to be pumped out at the next Great Lakes port.
The authors of the study warn that more restrictions must be placed on how the ships handle ballast water, or the Great Lakes will continue to be invaded by more invasive species such as the zebra mussel, round goby, and 180 other foreign aquatic species that have harmed the Lakes’ ecosystems.
Motor oil dripping from cars can add up and end up contaminating waterways and sediments. (Photo by Brandon Blinkenberg)
Industries and companies get labeled as
“polluters.” But what do you do when you find out you’re a pretty big polluter yourself… and you find out it’s going to cost you a lot of money to fix the
problem? As part of the series, “Your Choice; Your
Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca
Williams finds herself in that dilemma:
Transcript
Industries and companies get labeled as “polluters.” But what do you do when you find out you’re a pretty big polluter yourself… and you find out it’s going to cost you a lot of money to fix the problem? As part of the series, “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams finds herself in that dilemma:
(sound of car starting)
This is my ‘89 Toyota Camry. It has 188,000 miles on it. Pieces of
plastic trim fly off on the highway, and I have to climb in from the
backseat when my door gets frozen in the winter. But I got it for free, I get good gas mileage, and my insurance is cheap. But now, it’s leaking oil – lots of oil. I knew it was bad when I started
pouring in a quart of oil every other week.
I thought I’d better take it in to the shop.
(sound of car shop)
My mechanic, Walt Hayes, didn’t exactly have good news for me.
“You know, you’re probably leaking about 80% of that, just from experience, I’d say
you’re burning 20% and leaking 80%.”
Walt says the rear main seal is leaking, and the oil’s just dripping
straight to the ground. Walt tells me the seal costs 25 dollars, but he’d
have to take the transmission out to get to the seal. That means I’d be
paying him 650 dollars.
650 bucks to fix an oil leak, when no one would steal my car’s radio. There’s no way. Obviously, it’s cheaper to spend two dollars on each quart of oil, than to fix the seal.
“Right – what else is going to break, you know? You might fix the rear main
seal, and your transmission might go out next week or something. Your car,
because of its age, is on the edge all the time. So to invest in a 25 dollar seal, spending a lot of money for labor, almost doesn’t make sense on an
older car.”
That’s my mechanic telling me not to fix my car. In fact, he says he’s seen
plenty of people driving even older Toyotas, and he says my engine will
probably hold out a while longer. But now I can’t stop thinking about the
quarts of oil I’m slowly dripping all over town.
I need someone to tell me: is my one leaky car really all that bad? Ralph
Reznick works with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. He
spends his time trying to get polluters to change their behavior.
“That’s a lot for an old car. If you were the only car in the parking lot,
that wouldn’t be very much. But the fact is, there’s a lot of cars just
like yours that are doing the same thing.”
Reznick says the oil and antifreeze and other things that leak from and fall
off cars like mine add up.
“The accumulative impact of your car and other cars, by hitting the
pavement, and washing off the pavement into the waterways, is a very large
impact. It’s one of the largest sources of pollution we’re dealing with
today.”
Reznick says even just a quart of oil can pollute thousands of gallons of
water. And he says toxins in oil can build up in sediment at the bottom of
rivers and lakes. That can be bad news for aquatic animals and plants.
There’s no question – he wants me to fix the leak.
But I am NOT pouring 650 bucks into this car when the only thing it has going
for it is that it’s saving me money. So I can either keep driving it, and
feel pretty guilty, or I can scrap it and get a new car.
But it does take a lot of steel and plastic and aluminum to make a new car.
Maybe I’m doing something right for the environment by driving a car that’s
already got that stuff invested in it.
I went to the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan
and talked to Greg Keoleian. He’s done studies on how many years it makes
sense to keep a car. He says if you look at personal costs, and the energy
that goes into a making a midsize car, it makes sense to hang onto it for a
long time… like 16 years.
No problem there – I finally did something right!
Well, sort of.
“In your case, from an emissions point of view, you should definitely
replace your vehicle. It turns out that a small fraction of vehicles are
really contributing to a lot of the local air pollution. Older vehicles
tend to be more polluting, and you would definitely benefit the environment
by retiring your vehicle.”
Keoleian says if I get a newer car, it won’t be leaking oil, and it won’t
putting out nearly as much nitrogen oxide and other chemicals that lead to
smog. Oh yeah, he also says I really need to start looking today.
And so doing the right thing for the environment is going to cost me money.
There’s no way around that. The more I think about my rusty old car, the
more I notice all the OTHER old heaps on the road. Maybe all of you are a
bit like me, hoping to make it through just one more winter without car
payments.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.
Small wetlands such as the one pictured above often dry up during the summer. These 'ephemeral wetlands' are home to all kinds of frogs, salamanders, reptiles and aquatic life that depend on this specific kind of habitat for their survival. Photo by Lester Graham.
Biologists are becoming concerned about the disappearance of a habitat for wildlife that can be found in rural areas, in sprawling suburbs, and even in big cities. The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to get city planners, farmers, and developers to stop draining small marshy areas that biologists call ephemeral wetlands. The EPA says in the rush to save big areas of wetlands these small temporary wet spots have been overlooked at the expense of some unique wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
Transcript
Biologists are becoming concerned about the disappearance of a habitat for wildlife that can be found in rural areas, in sprawling suburbs, and even in big cities. The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to get city planners, farmers, and developers to stop draining small marshy areas that biologists call ephemeral wetlands. The EPA says in the rush to save big areas of wetlands these small temporary wet spots have been overlooked at the expense of some unique wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
(Frogs sound)
There’s still just a bit of ice along the edges of this little pool, but it’s a warm day, the ice will soon melt, and the frogs sound as if they’re rejoicing. In the coming weeks, this shallow little pond will become a chorus of different kinds of frogs and host a dance of mating salamanders. Many kinds of amphibians and reptiles are drawn to wet spots like this one to mate and reproduce. And. there’s a bit of a rush to their reproductive activities. More than likely by middle or late summer, this little pool will be all dried up. Actually, that’s good because it means fish can’t survive here, fish that would eat the young of many of these species. So a lot of these frogs and salamanders and other creepy-crawly things do really well here while its wet.
Ed Hammer is a biologist with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says these temporary, or ephemeral, wetlands are usually pretty small… most under two acres in size…some so small you could jump across them. But they’re really important to aquatic life such as fairy shrimp and clam shrimp, which can survive, and even need dry periods. And certain species of frogs and other amphibians who use the wetlands for breeding.
(Frogs fade out)
“They’re extremely productive. We have some of these smaller wetlands in our area in the Chicago region that in a quarter acre of size can produce hundreds and hundreds of salamanders and leopard frogs in a good year when the water holds out. They really depend on those habitats being there every few years at the very least.”
And Hammer says the productivity of the ephemeral wetlands helps other species.
“Salamanders and frogs are fed upon by a multitude of other organisms like turtles and snakes and on up the food chain and then, you know, owls will feed on them. Raccoons and skunks and fox and all up the food chain they’ll be fed on. So they’re an extremely important food source.”
The temporary wetlands are also important to many migrating birds such as pintail ducks and little green herons. Paul Zedler is a professor of environmental studies and scientist at the University of Wisconsin arboretum.
“Imagine you’re a bird, a shore bird, looking for habitat in which to forage. Then ephemeral wetlands, while they’re there, can be an excellent place for resting and feeding.”
Zedler says the ephemeral wetlands are amazing to him because of the wet then dry cycle to which so many animals have adapted.
“It’s like instant ecosystem. Like, add water and you get an ecosystem. People who, once it’s pointed out to them, invariably think it’s pretty darn neat.”
But a lot of times, the people who own the ephemeral wetlands don’t realize that area that gets swampy in wet years is a thriving habitat. Ephemeral wetlands are often drained to plant crops, or bulldozed deeper to build storm water retention basins for housing developments, or the surrounding woodlands are cut down eliminating the habitat where many of the frogs and salamanders live the rest of the year.
They’ve disappeared so quickly that some species that depend on ephemeral wetlands are in danger of disappearing too. Gary Casper is with the Milwaukee Public Museum. He’s been studying a certain turtle called Blanding’s turtle to see why its numbers have dwindled so much.
“Blandings turtles look kind of like those old German helmets from World War II and they have a really bright yellow chin and throat with a real long neck. They’re a threatened species in Wisconsin and threatened or endangered in several other states.”
Casper has been watching Blanding’s turtles to see what makes them tick, where they like to live and eat.
“And after looking at the data from seven years of radio tracking, it’s quite clear that they strongly prefer these seasonal, isolated wetlands probably because they provide much more food for them.”
And so they join a host of other critters such as gray tree frogs, marbled salamanders, fishing spiders, wood ducks and others who heavily depend on the ephemeral wetlands.
The EPA is publishing pamphlets and holding seminars to teach state and local officials and those folks interested in preserving wildlife habitat…hoping they’ll spread the word about the value of the seasonal ponds, or mud puddles so that private landowners will keep them around.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Related Links
Download a brochure on ephemeral wetlands by the Conservation Foundation. Acrobat Reader required to open file.
A new way to prevent rust in the ballast of ships might also prevent many alien aquatic animals from being transported from port to port. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has details:
An X-ray study of deformed frogs lends new support to the idea
that there are many different causes for the frog deformities found in
the
Great Lakes region and across the nation. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mary Losure reports:
States in the Mississippi river basin are protesting a decision by the state of Mississippi to allow a foreign fish to be introduced tocontrol a pest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… the other states are concerned the fish will escape into the wild and damage the environment:
Transcript
States in the Mississippi River Basin are protesting a decision by the state of Mississippi to
allow a foreign fish to be introduced to control a pest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports the other states are concerned the fish will escape into the wild and damage the
environment:
If you buy a package of catfish filets at the supermarket or order blackened catfish at your
favorite restaurant, chances are that fish was raised in a farm pond in Mississippi. The state of
Mississippi supplies almost three-fourths of the world’s commercial catfish. It’s a two-billion
dollar a year business, coming in only after cotton and timber as one of Mississippi’s largest
industries.
In recent years, Mississippi farmers have been struggling with a parasite that’s attacking the
catfish. Jimmy Avery is a researcher with the National Warmwater Aquaculture Center at Mississippi
State University. He says the parasite is causing quite a bit of damage.
“It’s either killing these fish outright or it’s stressing them to the point they no longer grow.”
Avery says the parasite makes its home in snails. To get rid of the snails, the Mississippi
Department of Agriculture and commerce has approved introducing an Asian fish called the black
carp. The black carp eats snails and mussels. But, other states are worried that the black carp
will escape the farm ponds and get into the wild. Avery says that’s not likely…
“The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce has decided that through the permit
process, we can minimize this. They’ll know where every black carp is located. They’ll know what
kinds of system they’ve been put in and it felt like that those regulations that had been put in
place are strong enough to prevent that.”
But the State of Missisippi’s assurances don’t convince others. Roger Klosek is the Director of
Conservation at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He studies native mussels.
“If black carp are used to deal with the snail problem, eventually they’ll escape into the main
waterways, and start reproducing. And once they do that, they’ll start feeding on the native
mussel fauna which is one of the last remaining native mussel faunas in the United States and
literally wipe it out.”
Klosek says native mussel populations have already been hurt by another exotic species, the zebra
mussel. He believes the black carp would be the last straw for American freshwater mussels.
“So, somebody’s going to lose and it’s probably better – I know the catfish farmers will hate me
for saying this, but – it’s probably better that they lose a little economically rather than
reduce some of the native fauna to an irretrievable state.”
Some states’ officials agree with Klosek. Bill Bertrand works with the Illinois Department of
Natural Resources fisheries office. He says there’s a history of Asian carp getting loose. The
silver carp, the bighead carp, and the grass carp have already escaped from farm ponds, mostly
from Arkansas where there are few regulations.
“There’s a history of these exotics, imports, escaping into the river system, spreading throughout
the entire river basin system and causing impacts on all the other states in the system. And
Mississippi appears to tend to ignore that fact and go ahead their own merry way, saying ‘Well
we’re doing this because we want to do it and it’s beneficial to us.'”
Bertrand says governors of some of the states along the Mississippi River have sent letters to the
Governor of the State of Mississippi, asking him to stop the use of black carp. Several of the
states intend to ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban the importation of the fish. The
federal agency has not yet received that request… but even if the Fish and Wildlife service
found a ban was appropriate, it would take several months to go through the process. Even then, a
ban would not apply to black carp already in the U.S.
Mike Oetker is a fisheries biologist with the Fish and Wildlife service. He says the agency is
trying to play the role of mediator.
“Right now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to work with states and the industry to
try to prevent the problem of the possible release or accidental release of black carp into the
environment. There are several alternatives to black carp where we can use native fish such as the
red ear sunfish or freshwater drum or even big mouth buffalo to do the same type of biological
control that the black carp are doing. And that would give of the ability to kind of circumvent
this problem.”
The catfish farmers in the State of Mississippi say the native fish don’t eat the snails as
quickly as the black carp. The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce says it will ask
farmers to use chemical treatments first and where native fish will work, they’ll try to use them.
but in the end, the Mississippi agency says it will allow catfish farmers to use black carp when
it appears other methods don’t work.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A scientist collects samples of ballast sediment. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
