Month: October 2005

Ten Threats: Closing a Door

  • Coast Guard Marine Science Technician Sheridan McClellan demonstrates some of the equipment used to check the ballast water of foreign ships. Environmentalists believe the Coast Guard should be given the equipment and authority to more thoroughly check the ships for invasive species in ballast water. (Photo by Lester Graham)

In this “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” series, we found experts across the region point to alien invasive species as the number one challenge facing the Lakes. The Great Lakes have changed dramatically because of non-indigenous species that compete for food and space with native fish and organisms. More than 160 foreign aquatic species have been introduced since the Lakes were opened to shipping from overseas. It’s believed that many of the invasive species hitched a ride in the ballast tanks of ocean-going cargo ships.

Transcript

Today we’ll hear more about Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the next report in the series:


In this “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” series, we found experts across the region point to alien invasive species as the number one challenge facing the Lakes. The Great Lakes have changed dramatically because of non-indigenous species that compete for food and space with native fish and organisms. More than 160 foreign aquatic species have been introduced since the Lakes were opened to shipping from overseas. It’s believed that many of the invasive species hitched a ride in the ballast tanks of ocean-going cargo ships.


Foreign ships entering the Great Lakes are boarded and inspected in Montreal, long before the ships enter U.S. Waters. Sheridan McClellan is a marine science technician with the U.S. Coast Guard. He says inspectors take samples of the ballast water and test it onboard ship. He demonstrates the equipment at the Coast Guard lab in Massena, New York.


MCCLELLAN: “And when you look through this refractometer, if you look on the right hand side, you will see the salinity… If you’d like to look through it…”


GRAHAM: “Oh, yeah. I see.”


MCCLELLAN: “You see a line?”


GRAHAM: “Right.”


The inspectors want to see salt in the water. That means the ship exchanged ballast water from a freshwater port with ocean water that kills most freshwater organisms hiding out in the ballasts.


“Once we check all the ballast tanks and they’re all good to go, we tell the captain that he’s allowed to discharge his ballast in the Great Lakes if he so desires.”


And that’s it; if the ship’s ballast contains ocean water and the log shows the water came from deep ocean, it’s good to go. Lieutenant Commander James Bartlett commands the Massena station. He says that’s all the Coast Guard can do.


“We’ve been asked if we are actually checking for the organisms and doing, you know, a species count. Right now, that technology’s not available to us nor, really, do we have that capability in our regulations. It’s essentially, it’s a log check, an administrative, and then also a physical salinity check.”


But a ship can also be allowed into the Great Lakes if its ballast tanks are empty. Ships fill their ballasts tanks to keep the vessel stable in the water. When a ship is fully loaded with cargo, it sits deep enough in the water that it doesn’t need ballast water for stability. It’s declared as “No Ballast on Board,” or NOBOB.


But “No Ballast On Board” does not mean empty; there’s always a little residual water and sediment.


(Sound of footsteps thumping on metal)


Deep inside the S.S. William A Irvin, an out-of-service iron ore ship that’s permanently docked in Duluth, Minnesota, Captain Ray Skelton points out the rusty structure of the ballast tanks.


“You can see by all the webs, scantlings, cross members, frames, just the interior supports for the cargo hold itself, and the complexity of this configuration, that it wouldn’t be possible to completely pump all of the tank.”


And a recent study of NOBOB ships found there’s a lot more than just water and sediment sloshing around in the bottom of the tanks. David Reid headed up the study. He says there are live organisms in both the water and the sediment.


“If you multiply it out, you see that there are millions of organisms even though you have a very small amount of either water or sediment.”


And when ships load or unload they discharge or take on ballast water, that stirs up the water and sediment in the bottom of the ballast tanks along with the organisms they’re carrying from half way around the world, and they end up in the Great Lakes.


The shipping industry says for the past few years, the security regulations since 9/11 have been more important to the industry than dealing with ballast water. Helen Brohl is Executive Director of the U.S. Great Lakes Shipping Association. She says the shipping industry hasn’t forgotten; it is paying close attention to concerns about ballast water.


“From my perspective, in ten years, ballast water is not an issue, because in ten years there’ll be treatment technology on most ships. We’re moving right along. Ballast, in some respects, is kind of beating a dead horse.”


But environmentalists and others say ten years to get most of the ships fitted with ballast water treatment equipment is too long. New non-indigenous species are being introduced to the Lakes every few months.


The invasive species that are already in the Great Lakes are costing the economy and taxpayers about five billion dollars a year. The environmentalists insist Congress needs to implement new ballast regulations for the Coast Guard soon.


They also say the Environmental Protection Agency should start treating ballast water like pollution before more invasive species catch a ride in the ballast tanks of the foreign freighters and further damage the Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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Ten Threats: The Beloved Invader

  • Because alewives are the main source of food for some sport fish, some people forget that they're an invasive species. (Photo courtesy of NOAA Fishery Service)

As we look at the “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes,” we’re spending some time examining the effects of the alien invasive species that have changed the Lakes. One of the first invasive species to arrive in the Great Lakes was the alewife; it’s native to the Atlantic Ocean. It has become the most beloved of all the invasives. That’s because it’s food for the most popular sport fish in the Great Lakes. But in the beginning, the sport fish was introduced to get rid of the alewives. Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

Today we’re continuing our series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our series guide:


As we look at the “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes,” we’re spending some time examining the effects of the alien invasive species that have changed the Lakes. One of the first invasive species to arrive in the Great Lakes was the alewife; it’s native to the Atlantic Ocean. It has become the most beloved of all the invasives. That’s because it’s food for the most popular sport fish in the Great Lakes. But in the beginning, the sport fish was introduced to get rid of the alewives. Peter Payette reports:


When autumn arrives in Northern Michigan, salmon fishermen line the rivers. The fish, native to the Pacific Ocean, swim upstream to spawn and then die. That’s why Tim Gloshen says they’re not interested in his bait.


“But if you irritate ’em enough and keep putting it in front of them, they’ll snap at it sometimes and you got to be ready when they hit it and set your hook.”


Anglers caught eight million pounds of salmon in Lake Michigan last year. Most of the fish are caught out in the lake.


“I got buddies that are catching couple hundred a year out there. They’re out there twice a week at least, all summer long, you know.”


Tim and his buddies and everyone else who fishes for salmon in the Great Lakes are at the top of the food chain. The money they spend on food, lodging, tackle, and boats figures heavily into decisions about how to manage the Lakes.


But it wasn’t always so.


Pacific salmon were stocked here about forty years ago to control the invading alewives. The native lake trout had just about been wiped out by overfishing and the sea lamprey. With no big predators left, the alewife population exploded.


At one point, it was estimated that for every ten pounds of fish in Lake Michigan, eight were alewives. Occasional die-offs would cause large numbers of alewives to wash up on beaches all over the Great Lakes. Historian Michael Chiarappa says all this was happening as America was feeling the urge to get back in touch with nature.


“And that’s when you get this rise in greater interest in sport fishing, recreational fishing, hunting. Teddy Roosevelt sort of epitomized the spirit of the strenuous life; get back out there and engage nature. It’s good for the soul, it’s good for the body, it’s good for the mind.”


So the salmon was brought in to control the alewife population and transform the Great Lakes into a sport fishing paradise. And it worked. But alewives remained the best food source for the ravenous salmon.


So now a healthy alewife population is seen as a good thing by the states that benefit economically from the recreational fishing. Mark Holey, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says this has caused people to forget alewives are an invasive species.


“If alewives were knocking on the door today, there may be a much different discussion about it. It may be more like the Asian carp.”


How the alewife would compare to Asian carp is unknown, because the Asian carp has been found in the Mississippi River, but not yet in the Great Lakes. What is known is that when alewives are abundant, native fish don’t do well. For example, Holey says biologists used to think PCBs caused many young lake trout to die. Now they know early mortality is mostly due to thiamin deficiency.
Thiamine is a vitamin lacking in lake trout that eat too many alewives.


“From the studies that we’ve been involved with, anywhere, right now, anywhere between thirty to fifty percent of the females that we take eggs from show some… their eggs show some signs of thiamine deficiency. Which means survival of those eggs are impaired.”


In some cases, none of the eggs will survive. So a worse case estimate would be half of the wild lake trout in the Great Lakes can’t reproduce because of alewives. This is why advocates for native fish species have been happy to see the alewife populations decline in recent years. They almost disappeared from Lake Huron.


Mark Ebener is a fisheries biologist for the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority. He says the government agencies that stock salmon and lake trout should stock more than ever to keep pressure on the alewife. Ebener thinks with alewife numbers down, there’s an opportunity to reestablish the native herring as the main prey fish in the Lakes, especially in Lake Huron.


“Saginaw Bay used to have a huge population of lake herring that’s essentially gone. They used to have a tremendous commercial fishery for it, and people used to come from miles around to buy herring there, and everybody in the lower end of the state used to have herring come fall and the springtime when the fishers were fishing, but they’re gone.”


This opportunity to bring herring back might not last much longer. The warm weather this past summer will probably help alewives rebound next year.


For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

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Ten Threats: The Earliest Invader

  • A bridge for a river... this portion of the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River via an aqueduct in Rochester, NY. This photo was taken around 1914. (From the collection of the Rochester Public Library Local History Division)

The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:

Transcript

We’re bringing you an extensive series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the reports:


“The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:


If the history of invasive species were a movie, it would open like this:


(Sound of banjo)


It’s 1825. Politicians have just ridden the first ship across the newly dug Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York.


(Sound of “The Erie Canal”)


“I’ve got an old mule, and her name is Sal. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal…”


Chuck O’Neill is an invasive species expert with New York Sea Grant.


“At the canal’s formal opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton dumped a cask of Lake Erie water; he dumped that water into New York Harbor.”


Meanwhile, in Buffalo, a cask of Hudson River water was triumphantly poured into Lake Erie.


“In a movie, that would be the flashback with the impending doom-type music in the background.”


(Sound of ominous music)


It was an engineering and economic milestone, but a danger lurked. For the first time since glaciers carved the landscape twelve thousand years ago, water from the Hudson and water from the Great Lakes mixed.


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


Enter the villain: the sea lamprey. It’s a slimy, snake-like parasite in the Atlantic Ocean. It sucks the blood of host fish.


Within a decade after the Erie Canal and its network of feeders opened, the sea lamprey uses the waterways to swim into Lake Ontario. By the 1920’s and 30’s, it squirms into the upper Lakes, bypassing Niagara Falls through the Welland Canal.


What happens next is among the most notorious examples of damage done by an invasive species in the Great Lakes. By the 1950’s, the sea lamprey devastates Lake trout populations in Lake Superior. Mark Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.


“They changed a way of life in the Great Lakes basin, the lampreys. They preyed directly on fish, they drove commercial fisheries out of business, the communities in the areas that were built around the fisheries were impacted severely.”


The sea lamprey wasn’t the only invader that used the canals. Canal barges carried stowaway plants and animals in their hulls and ballast. In the mid-1800’s, the European faucet snail clogged water intakes across the region. The European pea clam, purple loosestrife, marsh foxtail, flowering rush – all used the canal system to enter the Great Lakes.


Chuck O’Neill says the spread of invasive species also tells the tale of human transportation.


“If you look at a map, you can pretty much say there was some kind of a right-of-way – railroad, canal, stageline – that was in those areas just by the vegetation patterns.”


Almost one hundred invasive species came to the Great Lakes this way before 1960. O’Neill says every new arrival had a cascading effect.


“Each time you add in to an ecosystem another organism that can out-compete the native organisms that evolved there, you’re gradually making that ecosystem more and more artificial, less and less stable, much more likely to be invaded by the next invader that comes along.”


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


The next one in the Great Lakes just might be the Asian Carp. It’s swimming up the Illinois River, headed toward Lake Michigan. Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes.


“If this thing gets in, it can cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, ‘cause it eats thirty, forty percent of its body weight in plankton every day, and plankton are the base of the food chain in the Great Lakes.”


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed an electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that might stop the carp. But as long as the canals around the region remain open for shipping and recreation, it’s likely more invaders may hitch a ride or simply swim into the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Re-Using Power Plant Pollutant

Coal fired power plants use chemical scrubbers in their
smokestacks to reduce pollution. Now researchers are working on
ways to re-use what’s scrubbed out of the stacks. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight has more:

Transcript

Coal fired power plants use chemical scrubbers in their smokestacks to
reduce pollution. Now researchers are working on ways to re-use what’s
scrubbed out of the stacks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight
has more:


Warren Dick is a soil scientist at Ohio State University. He’s been
studying synthetic gypsum, which comes from coal-fired power plants that
use scrubbers to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions. While nobody wants sulfur
in the air we breathe, Dick says it is often needed by farmers for some of
their crops.


“Sulfur is one of five or six major plant nutrients that are required for good
plant growth, and our soils are becoming deficient in sulfur. We’re not
getting it out of the atmosphere as much anymore.”


Dick’s research shows crops do better using synthetic gypsum as a sulfur
fertilizer. Coal is burned to generate more than half of the electricity in
the U.S., but it results in approximately 120 million tons of waste
each year, and Dick says the tonnage is likely to increase as
additional clean air measures are imposed.


For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.

Related Links

Pheromone to Help Control Lamprey?

  • The sea lamprey drastically changed the Great Lakes ecosystem. (Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission)

Researchers say they’ve discovered a migration pheromone
in sea lamprey. It’s a natural attractant that could boost efforts to
control the invasive parasite. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Researchers say they’ve discovered a migration pheromone in sea lamprey. It’s a natural attractant that could boost efforts to control the invasive parasite. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Each lamprey can kill forty pounds of fish in its lifetime. Managers use a pesticide to keep the lamprey numbers down, but it’s expensive, and sometimes it kills other fish.


University of Minnesota biologist Peter Sorensen says he’s isolated a chemical signal put out by lamprey larvae. The larvae live in streams, and the signal apparently tells adult lamprey that the stream is a good place to lay eggs.


“We’ve got a cue that’s very powerful, very safe, we don’t need very much of it, and it can control the distribution of the lamprey in a way that other things can’t.”


Sorensen says the pheromone can be used to corral lamprey into areas where they can be trapped or treated with pesticide. The pheromone is being tested in a river in Michigan.


For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Giant Grass a Future Biofuel?

  • Giant Miscanthus, a hybrid grass that can grow 13 feet high, drops its leaves in the winter, leaving behind tall bamboo-like stems that can be harvested and burned for fuel. (Photo by Kwame Ross)

Scientists have tested dozens of crops for their potential
as alternative fuels for cars or power plants. Now, researchers
hope a new plant might boost the biofuel industry. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has the story:

Transcript

Scientists have tested dozens of crops for their potential as alternative fuels for cars or power plants. Now, researchers hope a new plant might boost the biofuel industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has the story:


Stems of the grassy giant Miscanthus plant can grow up to thirteen feet tall and have lots of energy. So, researchers at the University of Illinois were delighted to find that miscanthus thrives in the Midwest. They’re hoping to turn miscanthus into an efficient biofuel.


But analysts say the biofuel industry needs more than just high-energy plants. Jim Kleinschmit is with the Institute For Agriculture and Trade Policy, a green think tank.


“A lot of these crops would require specific equipment that would have to be created, or have to be a market for it. And it’s not just for the harvesting; it’s for the baling, the transporting, the collecting, the storing.”


Kleinschmit says the infrastructure to support Miscanthus or similar biofuels is years away. In the meantime, the most widespread biofuel is corn-based ethanol. Corn yields less energy, but has established markets and proven farm equipment.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Architecture Students Go Solar

  • The University of Maryland's solar powered house, designed to resemble the path of the sun across the sky, contrasts with the older architecture of the Smithsonian Museum. (Photo by Stefano Paltera/Solar Decathlon)

18 teams from around the world are competing this week
in a solar home competition in Washington, D.C. Each team competes
to see who can build the most aesthetic and livable solar home.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jennifer Guerra reports:

Transcript

Eighteen teams from around the world are competing this week in a solar home
competition in Washington, D.C. Each team competes to see who can build the
most aesthetic and livable solar home. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jennifer Guerra reports:


Richard King is the director of the Solar Decathlon
Competition in the nation’s capital. We called him on his cell phone as he
was wandering around the National Mall checking out the different houses.
We asked him why he thought solar homes have a future in the housing market.


“You see gas prices are going up, natural gas prices are going up. We call
that volatility in the supply market. Solar energy doesn’t have that. Yes,
you have to buy a collector that you put on your house, but from then, on for the
next twenty years, you don’t have to worry about the price of energy going up
because the sunlight is free.”


Free and limitless, as King points out, and the houses being put up on
the mall try to show how they take advantage of that energy and still look
like something you’d want to live in. As King wandered around the solar
village, he stopped at the University of Michigan’s house.


“Michigan just got their end caps on, and now we finally see what it looks
like. We were all wondering what they had up their sleeve, so it’s pretty
neat.”


Before the University of Michigan team shipped their house to D.C., we
dropped by the School of Architecture. They were just putting the finishing
touches on their entry.


(Sound of talking)


That’s John Beeson, the project manager of the Michigan Solar House
project. It’s called Mi-So for short. They had to be creative to make sure
their entry was dependent on the sun for energy.


“This is a solar contest, so we are very limited in terms of what we can do for energy production. We can’t even convert kinetic energy, somebody bouncing on something, into electrical energy. We’re very limited.”


The house has to be totally off the grid, which means lots of large
batteries and thin, photovoltaic panels, neither of which make for an
aesthetically pleasing house. And in the world of architecture, if it doesn’t look good from the outside, no one’s going to care if its energy efficient.


“Most consumers today aren’t gonna buy something just because it’s sustainable.”


Lee Devore is the Michigan team’s operations manager.


“But if you have two apples, and they’re identical, and their cost is
roughly the same, if one is more sustainable than the other, it’s that extra
thing, but the thing they’re really concerned about is that it’s still a beautiful
thing to possess.”


Back on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Solar Decathlon
Competition director Richard King says in this contest, beauty’s as
important as sustainability.


“In the 70’s, we just stuck solar collectors on the roofs in all kinds of
directions and one of the barriers are a lot of people didn’t like that up there on
their roof. So we’ve employed these schools of architecture to design very
beautiful-looking buildings with solar integrated in to actually
prove that solar energy works.”


So to make Michigan’s solar house stand out as the belle at the D.C.
National Mall, John Beeson says the team turned to Michgan’s most noted
industry, the automakers, for tips.


BEESON: “People like taking their cars and tricking them out, and the house is the same thing, you
just don’t know you’re doing it, every time you move into it. So why not make the architecture built that way, so that people can change it and affect it the way they want. So for us, there would just be panelized construction. We would just put these panels up, I’m done with this sink, this mirror combination. I’m gonna take it down and sell it on Ebay.”


GUERRA: “Are people ready for this?”


BEESON: “We hope. If not, it’ll be a good exploratory example of it on the
National Mall for people to go see.”


Even after a winning team’s been picked, the challenges aren’t over. It’s one thing to build a solar prototype for the competition, it’s another to
take that prototype and turn it into homebuilding that can be mass-produced
for less waste and lower costs. Once that happens, we might just see solar
homes popping up in new neighborhoods.


For the GLRC, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Predicting New Invaders

  • Some say it's only a matter of time before the Asian Carp enters the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of the USFWS)

More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:

Transcript

There are new problems for the Great Lakes on the horizon. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide in a series that explains that new invasive species are one of the Ten
Threats to the Great Lakes:


More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:


(Sound of boat motor)


Jim Barta is a charter boat captain just above Lake Erie on the Detroit River. He says over the last decade, zebra mussels and other foreign species have altered the habitat of the walleye he fishes for.


Water that once had a brownish hue is now clear. That’s because Zebra mussels have eaten the algae and plankton that used to cloud the water, and that means Barta’s boat is no longer invisible to the fish he aims to hook.


“You could catch the fish a little closer to the boat because they weren’t as spooked by the boat. They weren’t as afraid of what was taking place.”


So Barta had to rethink his tactics. He now casts his lines out further, and he’s changed lures to continue catching walleye.


But there are other problems the zebra mussel is causing. Eating all the plankton means it’s stealing food at the bottom of the food chain. And, that affects how many fish survive and how much the surviving fish are able to grow.


Anthony Ricciardi is trying to help Barta, and other people who rely on a stable Great Lakes ecosystem. He’s an “invasion biologist” at McGill University in Montreal.


Ricciardi looks for evidence that can predict the next non-native species that might make it’s way into the Great Lakes. He says species that have spread throughout waterways in Europe and Asia are prime candidates to become Great Lakes invaders.


“If the organism has shown itself to be invasive elsewhere, it has the ability to adapt to new habitats, to rapidly increase in small numbers, to dominate ecosystems, or to change them in certain ways that change the rules of exsistence for everything else, and thus can cause a disruption.”


Ricciardi says most aquatic invasive species are transported to North America in the ballast tanks of ocean freighters. Freighters use ballast water to help balance their loads. Some of the foreign species hitchhike in the ballast water or in the sediment in the bottom of the ballasts.


Ships coming from overseas release those foreign species unintentionally when they pump out ballast water in Great Lakes ports. Ricciardi says one of the potential invaders that might pose the next big threat to the Great Lakes is the “killer shrimp.” Like the Zebra Mussel, it’s a native of the Black Sea.


“And it’s earned the name killer shrimp because it attacks invertebrates, all kinds of invertebrates, including some that are bigger than it is. And it takes bites out of them and kills them, but doesn’t necessarily eat them. So, it’s not immediately satiated. It actually feeds in a buffet style: it’ll sample invertebrates, and so it can leave a lot of carcasses around it.”


Ballasts on cargo ships aren’t the only way foreign species can get into the Lakes. Right now, scientists are watching as a giant Asian Carp makes its way toward Lake Michigan. It’s a voracious eater and it grows to a hundred pounds or more.


This non-native fish was introduced into the Mississippi River, when flooding allowed the carp to escape from fish farms in the South. A manmade canal near Chicago connects the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes.


If it gets past an electric barrier in the canal, it could invade. Many scientists believe it’s just a matter of time. Another invasive, the sea lamprey, also got into the Great Lakes through a manmade canal.


But, researchers don’t usually know when or where an invader will show up. David Reid is a researcher for the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. He says they can’t predict the effect an invader will have when it arrives in its new ecosystem.


“That’s the problem. We don’t know when the next zebra mussel’s going to come in. We don’t know when the next sea lamprey type of organism is going to come in. Generally, if you look at the invasion history of the Great Lakes, you’re seeing about one new organism being reported probably about once every eight months.”


Knowing what the next invader might be could help biologists, fisheries experts, and fishermen know what to do to limit its spread. Invasional biologists hope that their work will help develop the most effective measures to limit harm to the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m Zach Peterson.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Natives Bite Back

  • A big female Lake Erie water snake and a territorial male goby. Snake researcher Dr. Rich King caught the snake out of the lake with the goby in its mouth... the snake was swimming toward shore to enjoy its meal. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

These ten threats to the Great Lakes are complicated. Researchers are finding new ways that nature reacts to them. For example, alien invasive species often compete for food and crowd out the native species. Once a foreign species takes control in an area, there’s not much anyone can do to get rid of them. But occasionally, a native species will bite back. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has that story:

Transcript

Invasive species have been a real problem for native species in the Great Lakes, but some native species are turning tails on the invaders. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide in exploring the series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes:


These ten threats to the Great Lakes are complicated. Researchers are finding new ways that nature reacts to them. For example, alien invasive species often compete for food and crowd out the native species. Once a foreign species takes control in an area, there’s not much anyone can do to get rid of them. But occasionally, a native species will bite back. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has that story:


(waves)


These islands in Lake Erie seem like floating Gardens of Eden. They’re
popular with tourists. These islands also really appeal to a rare
snake.


“So there’s a dozen or so of them heading out into the water.”


Meet the Lake Erie water snake. It can grow up to four feet long. Snake expert
Rich King and I are watching a bunch of them swimming away, gray heads
peeking up like periscopes.


These snakes like the lake. They like hanging out in huge piles on docks
and boats, and Rich King’s discovered the snakes love to eat round gobies.


Gobies are invasive fish that are thought to have hitched a ride in the
ballast water of ocean-going ships from foreign ports. The gobies eat the
eggs of native fish such as smallmouth bass, and compete with other fish for
food and nest sites. As gobies have taken over the lake bottom, the native
fish the snakes used to eat are getting harder to find.


“What we’re seeing is that the gobies are apparently a very abundant food
source for the water snakes. Compared to the 1980’s and early 90’s when the
snakes were feeding exclusively on native fish or mudpuppies – the snakes
are now consuming over ninety percent of their prey items are round gobies.”


(Sound of walking over rocks and zebra mussels)


Today, Rich King and his students from Northern Illinois University are
prowling the beaches for snakes. They carry their catches in faded
pillowcases tied to their belt loops. This is the annual snake survey,
Nerodio. That’s Nerodia, the snake’s scientific name, and rodeo, as in
cowboy roundup.


The snake biologists don’t just look under rocks. They dive into the lake
for snakes. They sneak up on piles of snakes and then grab the whole
writhing mass.


The snakes bite. The researchers’ arms are covered in snakebites. The bites aren’t life threatening, but they’re really, really bloody. And then it comes to the job at hand. The biologists are going to force the snakes’ stomach contents out. They call it “barfing the snakes.”


“Some snakes are easier to puke versus others. The water snakes, for
example, they sometimes voluntarily just, bleagh, just puke it out when you
pick them up.”


PhD student Kristin Stanford promises me it’ll be a good show, and we’re in
luck: just down the road, Rich King makes his first prize catch of the day.


“I got a snake with a goby in it. See the bulge: that’s the head end of
the goby. I’m virtually sure it’s a goby. (laughs) So you just very gently work it
forward, and drop it into our ziplock bag. That’s a round
goby.”


King says the snakes are growing faster and getting fatter on their goby
diet. Bigger snakes are less vulnerable to predators, and bigger females
can have more babies.


The researchers are pretty happy about that. That’s because the water snakes
are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This is the
only place in the world these snakes are found. For years, people were
shooting snakes and bashing them with rocks. Their numbers were getting
dangerously low.


The snake biologists say they understand that a lot of people hate and fear
snakes, but they say now that the snakes are eating gobies, they’re
starting to get a little more popular, especially with fishermen.


(Sound of fisherman casting a spinning rod)


Mark Green fishes for smallmouth bass. Green says it seems like when he
sees more snakes, he has better luck.


“If they’re eating the gobies, that is a good thing. I mean, I’m sure they have their
place… just not at my place.” (laughs)


Green didn’t realize until today that the snakes like to hang out under the
metal rim of the pier, right by his feet. He cringes, but his curiosity
gets the better of him, and he peeks inside one of the pillowcases bulging
with snakes.


GREEN: “When they get ahold of you, do they let go pretty quick, or do they…”


STANFORD: “Typically, but every now and then you get what
I call a “chewer,” and they’ll just sit there and errr-errr-errrng.”


The people and snakes are starting to arrive at an uneasy truce, and the
snakes seem to be well on their way to recovery from all the feasting on
gobies.


The researchers are hoping to learn just how big a bite the snakes can take
out of the goby population, and if, in the long run, it’s good or bad for
water snakes to depend on a foreign fish.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Ten Threats: Hidden Costs of Invasives

  • Foreign ships like this one from Cypress are known as "Salties" around the Great Lakes. These ships are responsible for bringing aquatic invasive species into the Lakes, and we're all paying a price. (Photo by Mark Brush)

In looking at these threats to the Great Lakes, almost everyone we surveyed agreed the worst threat was alien invasive species. Shipping goods in and out of the Great Lakes has helped build the major cities on the Lakes. But shipping from foreign ports has brought in unwanted pests. Zebra mussels are probably the most infamous, but there are more than 160 aquatic species that have invaded the Lakes and changed them, almost always for the worse. So why can’t we keep them out?

Transcript

Today we begin an extensive series called “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through this series:


In looking at these threats to the Great Lakes, almost everyone we surveyed agreed the worst threat was alien invasive species. Shipping goods in and out of the Great Lakes has helped build the major cities on the Lakes. But shipping from foreign ports has brought in unwanted pests. Zebra mussels are probably the most infamous, but there are more than 160 aquatic species that have invaded the Lakes and changed them, almost always for the worse. So why can’t we keep them out?


Well, let’s say I import widgets.


(Sound of widgets dropping into a cup)


I’ve been getting widgets from somewhere in Asia, but I found out I could get widgets from an eastern European company for a dollar-a-widget cheaper. The factory there can ship them directly to my warehouse in Great Lakes City, USA by ship across the Atlantic and into the Great Lakes.


Pretty good deal. I get good widgets, the shipping costs are cheaper, my profits go up, and it means cheaper widgets at the retail level. Everybody wins, right?


Well, the ship that brought the widgets also brought an alien invasive species that stowed away in the ship’s ballast. A critter that’s native to eastern European waters is now wreaking havoc on the Great Lakes ecosystem.


Aquatic alien invasive species that have invaded the Great Lakes now cost the economy an estimated five billion dollars a year. Five billion dollars of what’s considered biological pollution.


So, who’s paying the price?


Cameron Davis is with the environmental group Alliance for the Great Lakes.


“Unfortunately, in most instances, who pays for those hiddens costs are you and me. We pay for our water agencies to have to clean zebra mussels out of their pipes, we pay our agencies through taxes to have to keep Asian Carp out of the Chicago River, we pay through our taxes in any number of ways to try to fight these invaders.”


So right now, taxpayers and utility ratepayers – even those who never bought a widget and never will – are paying the price. Davis says that’s just not right.


“One of the things we need to do is make sure that those ships are paying full cost for everything that they bring, not just the widgets, but the stowaways like the zebra mussels, things like that that they have on board.”


So, why target the ships?


Dennis Schornack chairs the U.S. Sector of the International Joint Commission. The IJC is a bi-national agency that monitors a water quality agreement between the U.S. and Canada. Schornack says that’s the way it usually works: the polluters pay.


“The cost of the impact of these unwanted creatures is something that’s not baked into the price charged for the widgets. So, somewhere that external cost needs to be captured back into the price. The ship owners themselves are the likely target to pay for this through a permitting fee which, of course, they will pass on to their customers, the people who made the widgets.”


So all of us who buy widgets end up paying a little more, but paying permits and fees could cost shippers more than they can afford. George Kuper is with the Council of Great Lakes Industries. Kuper says he understands the first impulse is to make the shippers pay.


“The problem with that, of course, is the shippers were already close to non-economic as a method of transportation, which puts us right up against an environmental challenge because shipping is by far the most environmentally un-intrusive method of moving large amounts of materials.”


Kuper says using other methods of transportation such as trains or trucks to move that cargo from East Coast ports might burn more fuel and cause more pollution.


But of all the shipping on the Great Lakes, only six percent of the tonnage is carried on ocean-going vessels. The rest is transported on Great Lakes carriers that never leave the lakes and don’t bring in new invasives. So, the question is this: is that six percent of cargo worth the damage that aquatic invasive species cost each year.


Many experts say there is a fairly simple answer to all of this. Technology is available for cargo ships to eliminate invasives from their ballast tanks. Requiring those ships to use that technology would likely add some to the cost of every widget, but supporters of the idea say it would greatly reduce the environmental cost to the Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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