Tag: seaway

Looking Back on the “Slick of ’76”

  • Officials placed containment booms around the barge. Most of them failed to prevent the oil from floating downriver, contaminating dozens of miles of pristine shoreline. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)

30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New York state. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:

Transcript

30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds
of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New
York State. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the
United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic
liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:


It was really foggy that morning. Bob Smith awoke to two sounds:


“You could hear the anchor chains going down, and next thing we know
there was a young Coast Guard guy knocking on the front door.”


The Coast Guard guy had driven up, asking around for a missing barge.
Smith remembered the anchor chains echoing across the water that woke
him up. He went outside to look.


(Sound of walking outside)


Thirty years later, Smith lives amidst cozy cottages on manicured lawns in
the heart of the touristy Thousand Islands.


“Just right about straight out there. See where that boat’s coming up there
now?”


That’s where a barge carrying oil from Venezuela had dropped anchor after
running aground. That morning Smith watched crude as thick as mud drift
out of sight downriver:


“If you’re born and raised here on the river, you don’t like to see anything go
in the river that doesn’t belong there.”


The Coast Guard placed booms in the water, but the oil quickly spilled over.
It carried 50 miles downstream. It oozed as far as 15 feet into the river’s
marshes. Tom Brown was the point man for New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. He says the spill couldn’t have come at a
worse time for wildlife:


“All the young fish, waterfowl, shorebirds, furbearers, were coming off the
nests and were being born.”


Thousands of birds and fish suffocated in black goo. As images of
devastation flashed on national TV, the spill killed the tourism season, too.
It was a summer with no swimming, no fishing, no dipping your feet in the
water at sunset. Really, it was a summer with no river.


(Sound of river at Chalk’s dock)


30 years later, everyone still remembers the acrid smell:


“When I woke up in the middle of the night and I could smell oil, I was
afraid I had an oil leak in my house.”


Dwayne Chalk’s family has owned a marina on the St. Lawrence for
generations. Chalk points to a black stripe of oil on his docks, still there
three decades later, and he’s still bitter:


“The Seaway has done this area, well, I shouldn’t say that, it hasn’t done any
good. To me it hasn’t.”


The St. Lawrence Seaway opened the ports of the Great Lakes to Atlantic
Ocean freighters carrying cargoes of steel, ore, and liquid chemicals. It
generates billions of dollars a year in commerce, but it’s also brought
pollution and invasive species.


Anthropologist John Omohundro studied the social effects of the 1976 oil
spill. He says it helped awaken environmentalism in the Great Lakes:


“The spill actually raised people’s consciousness that the river could be a
problem in a number of areas, not just oil.”


Groups like Save the River and Great Lakes United began lobbying for
cleaner water and safer navigation in the years after the spill:


“If a vessel carrying oil or oil products were in that same type of ship today,
it would not be allowed in.”


Albert Jacquez is the outgoing administrator for the US side of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. The 1976 barge had one hull and gushed oil when it hit the rocks.
Today’s barges are mostly double-hulled and use computerized navigation.
Jacquez says a lot has changed to prevent spills:


“The ships themselves are different, the regulations that they have to follow are
different, and the inspections are different. Now does that guarantee? Well,
there are no guarantees, period.”


So if there is a spill, the government requires response plans for every part of
the Great Lakes. Ralph Kring leads training simulations of those plans for
the Coast Guard in Buffalo. Still, he says the real thing is different:


“You really can’t control the weather and the currents and all that. It’s definitely going to be a
challenge, especially when you’re dealing with a real live incident where
everyone’s trying to move as fast as they can and also as efficient as they
can.”


Critics question the ability to get responders to remote areas in time. They
also worry about spills in icy conditions and chemical spills that oil booms
wouldn’t contain.


(Sound of river water)


Back on the St. Lawrence River, Dwayne Chalk says the oil spill of 1976
has taught him it’s not if, it’s when, the next big spill occurs:


“You think about it all the time. Everytime a ship comes up through here,
you think what’s going to happen if that ship hits something.”


Chalk and everyone else who relies on the Great Lakes hope they’ll never
have to find out.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Ten Threats: Canals Past and Present

  • This is an ocean vessel in the Soo Locks, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The Soo Locks connect Lake Superior and Lake Huron, allowing for ships to travel back and forth. (Photo courtesy of EPA)

One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is the possible
expansion of canals to allow larger ocean-going ships into the lakes. Some see the expansion of
shipping channels as a threat to the environment; others see it as great economic opportunity.
Just like in the early days of settlement, they see the shipping channels on the Great Lakes as
a way to make trade opportunities better.

Transcript

In our next report from the series, “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes,”
Lester Graham brings us a look at shipping on the lakes. Some people think
bigger ships could bring more trade to the region:


One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is the possible
expansion of canals to allow larger ocean-going ships into the lakes. Some see the expansion of
shipping channels as a threat to the environment; others see it as great economic opportunity.
Just like in the early days of settlement, they see the shipping channels on the Great Lakes as
a way to make trade opportunities better.


Native Americans had canoe trade routes on the Great Lakes long before the Europeans appeared
on the scene. When French fur traders arrived, they copied what they saw. They built birch-bark
canoes to travel the lakes and to haul back fur pelts.


(Sound of Saginaw Voyageurs paddling and singing “Alouette, gentile Alouette…”)


Chuck Hoover is with the Saginaw Voyageurs, a group of re-enactors who re-trace the French
Voyageurs routes. Hoover says the large canoes were great until you ran into rapids on the rivers
connecting the lakes.


“What you had to do was pick up everything, including the boat, and carry it across the dry land to
the next place that you could put in water that was navigable.”


Those portages could be as long as seven miles. Carrying a canoe big enough to haul more than a
dozen men and the heavy bundles of fur pelts was a tough job and it slowed trade. So, some small
canals were dug to make passage easier. As the region developed even more valuable natural
resources were discovered. Bigger canals were needed.


Stanley Jacek is an Area Engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the canal and locks
at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He says by the middle of the 1800s mining around Lake Superior
had become big business.


“Back in those days they discovered iron ore and copper in the upper end of the lakes here. So,
they had to get all that commerce down to the heartland of the country, so locks had to be
built.”


With a canal and locks to help ships negotiate the drop from one lake level to the next, the ore
could be transported to the big steel mills in industrial cities such as Cleveland and Gary, Indiana.


Christopher Gilchrist is with the Great Lakes Historical Society. He says you can’t underestimate
the value of those canals.


“The water-borne transportation was critical for the creation of the industrial age in U.S. history.
There’s a reason why the steel mills are located right on the banks of these Great Lakes. All the major
steel mills were located right by the water so that they could get their raw materials cost
effectively.”


At the other end of the Great Lakes the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in the 1950s to make it
possible for ships on the Atlantic Ocean to enter the lakes, and another big canal and set of
several locks overcame another obstacle to shipping on the Great Lakes – The Niagara Falls.


The Welland canal allows ships to go around Niagara. Since it first opened in the 19th century the
Welland canal and its locks have been enlarged four times. Each time the Welland canal locks
and the St. Lawrence Seaway have been made wider and deeper, the shipping industry builds
bigger and bigger ships to the point that they literally just squeak through…


(Sound of ship squeaking against timbers)


…Often rubbing up against the timbers that act as bumpers on the locks’ concrete walls.


Throughout the history of the canals, there’s been pressure to make them bigger and bigger.
Many feel the amount of shipping through the canals is tied directly to the economic well being
of the nation. The more the canals can handle the better the economy.


(Sound of buzzing, roar of compressor)


Back at Sault Ste. Marie, the locks open to allow another big ship through.


Stanley Jacek, the engineer at the Soo Locks connecting Lakes Superior and Huron says the
economic impact is pretty easy to track.


“What we do here in the way of passing of commerce mimics what’s happening in the country. You
can actually see spikes in the economy by looking at our traffic here.”


But some say the canals could do more than just reflect the health of the economy. They could
spur the economy if even bigger ships could come into the lakes. The ships, the kind carrying
containers ready to be pulled by trucks or loaded on rail cars, could go directly to Great Lakes
ports instead of ports on the East or West coasts. More direct shipping might improve the
region’s economy.


But environmentalists are worried. They say bigger ships from all over the world might mean
more alien invasive species damaging the Great Lakes. The wider, deeper channels might
damage the environment along scenic rivers connecting the lakes, and some believe expanding
the channels will let too much water flow out of the lakes that could worsen the problem of lower
lake levels seen in recent years.


The plans for bigger ships are on hold for right now. But, given the history of the canals, many
believe expansion is only a matter of time.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Expanding the Seaway

  • A freighter leaving the Duluth harbor in Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of EPA)

One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes with a look at the idea of
letting bigger ships into the lakes. Lester Graham is our guide through the series.


One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:


(Sound of rumbling noise of front-loaders)


The port of Ogdensburg sits on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York State.
When the Seaway was built, local residents were promised an economic boom. Today
what Ogdensburg mostly gets is road salt.


(Sound of crashing cargo)


Road salt and a white mineral called Wallastonite – the Dutch use it to make ceramic tile.
Front-loaders push around mountains of the stuff. In all, the port of Ogdensburg
welcomes six freighters a year and employs just six people.


Other Great Lakes ports are much bigger, but the story is similar. They handle low-value
bulk goods – grain, ore, coal – plus higher value steel. But few sexy electronic goods
from Japan come through the Seaway, or the gijillion of knick-knacks from China or
South Korea.


James Oberstar is a Congressman from Duluth. He says there’s a reason why. A
dastardly coincidence doomed the Seaway.


“Just as the Seaway was under construction, Malcolm McLean, a shipping genius, hit on
the idea of moving goods in containers.”


Containers that fit right on trains and trucks. The problem was the ships that carry those
containers were already too big for the Seaway’s locks and channels.


“That idea of container shipping gave a huge boost of energy to the East Coast, Gulf
Coast, and West Coast ports, and to the railroads.”


Leaving Great Lakes ports behind ever since the regional shipping industry has wanted to
make the Seaway bigger.


The latest effort came in 2002, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the
economic benefits of expansion. The study said squeezing container ships through the
Seaway would bring a billion and a half dollars a year to ports like Chicago, Toledo, and
Duluth. But if you build it, would they come?


“Highly doubtful that container ships would come in. Highly doubtful.”


John Taylor is a transportation expert at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
He’s studied Seaway traffic patterns extensively. He says there would have to be “a sea
change” in global commerce.


“Rail is too competitive, too strong moving containers from the coast in and out say from
Montreal and Halifax and into Chicago and Detroit and so on, too cost-effective for it to
make sense for a ship to bring those same containers all the way to Chicago.”


The expansion study sparked a flurry of opposition across the Great Lakes. It failed to
mention the cost of replumbing the Seaway — an estimated 10 to 15 billion dollars. It
didn’t factor in invasive species that show up in foreign ships’ ballasts. Invasives already
cost the economy 5 billion dollars a year, and environmentalists said it glossed over the
ecological devastation of dredging and blasting a deeper channel.


Even the shipping industry has begun to distance itself from expansion. Steve Fisher
directs the American Great Lakes Ports Association.


“There was quite a bit of opposition expressed through the region, and in light of that
opposition we took stock of just how much and how strongly we felt on the issue and
quite frankly there just wasn’t a strong enough interest.”


Most experts now believe expansion won’t happen for at least another generation.
Environmentalists and other critics hope it won’t happen at all.


So instead, the Seaway is changing its tactics. Richard Corfe runs Canada’s side of the
waterway. He says the vast majority of Seaway traffic is actually between Great Lakes
ports, not overseas. So, the Seaway’s focus now is to lure more North American shippers
to use the locks and channels.


“Our efforts have to be towards maximizing the use of what we have now for the benefit
of both countries, the economic, environmental, and social benefit.”


Today, trucks and trains haul most goods from coastal ports to Great Lakes cities.
Shippers want to steal some of that cargo, take it off the roads and rails, and put it on
seaway ships headed for Great Lakes ports.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2005’s GREAT LAKES ISSUES

  • The Great Lakes is the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world. Preservation and usage of the Lakes is a hot issue for 2005. (Photo courtesy of michigan.gov)

This coming year will likely see some major policy decisions regarding the Great Lakes. Because the lakes stretch out along eight states in the U.S. and two provinces in Canada, getting all the governments to agree on issues is a long and sometimes trying process. But… those involved think 2005 will be the year that some real progress on Great Lakes issues will be made. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham recently talked with the Chair of the U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission, Dennis Schornack. The IJC deals with disputes and advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on issues regarding the Great Lakes:

Transcript

This coming year likely will see some major policy decisions regarding the Great Lakes. Because the Lakes stretch out along eight states in the U.S. and two provinces in Canada, getting all the governments to agree on issues is a long and sometimes trying process. But those involved think 2005 will be the year that some real progress on Great Lakes issues will be made. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham recently talked with the chair of the U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission, Dennis Schornack. The IJC deals with disputes and advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on issues regarding the Great Lakes:


The International Joint Commission and the Government Accountability Office both have been critical of the U.S. government for not finding clear leadership on Great Lakes issues. Different agencies sometimes find their efforts overlap or conflict with others. At times, it seems there’s no organized effort to restore the health of the Great Lakes. Dennis Schornack says he thinks things were starting to get better because recently appointed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt took a real interest in the Great Lakes. But now Leavitt is leaving to become the new Health and Human Services chief.


“It’s going to be hard to beat the enthusiasm of Mike Leavitt. He spent literally about fifty percent of his time as EPA Administrator in the Great Lakes throughout. He was everywhere this past summer. But it does fall to the new administrator, whomever he or she may be; but in the meantime, the governors and mayors are proceeding forward on the priorities that they set over a year ago, and fleshing those out into very tight kinds of recommendations.”


Countless studies and reports on the Great Lakes point out one of the biggest threats to the lakes is invasive species. Those are foreign critters such as zebra mussels and round gobies that hitchhike in the ballast water of cargo ships, or are introduced unintentionally. Often the invasives damage the native fish, plants, and ecosystems of the Great Lakes. Nothing has been done to effectively stop importing the invasives, and some have gone so far as to suggest that the St. Lawrence Seaway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean should be closed. The IJC’s Dennis Schornack says he’s hopeful that we’ll soon see laws that will do more to help prevent invasive species from getting into the Lakes.


“In the United States, at least, there is pending legislation that has been pending for over two years now called the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act. This legislation is overdue. It’s time for Congress to act on it. And in the ’05 legislative Congressional year, it’s time for them to act. And that’s the place where the standards get set, the authority gets established and where all of the rubber really hits the road. Now, that’s just in the United States. Bi-nationally, because the Great Lakes are a shared resource, the IJC, that I’m the chair of the U.S. section, has continued to advocate cooperation and collaboration between the two countries in terms of at least setting a common standard, a common rule, common regulation on the Great Lakes. Because, obviously, setting it on one side of the boundary line doesn’t do any good if the other side doesn’t follow.”


Another issue that’s recieved a lot of attention in the Great Lakes region recently is water diversion. A document called Annex 2001 tackles the issue of how much water can be used or withdrawn from the Lakes. The various state governors and province premiers put together draft agreements for public comment. Schornack says there’s been a huge response, and a lot of it hasn’t been positive.


“They recieved, I think, over ten-thousand public comments. And there is differing viewpoint, a growing difference between the view taken in Canada and the view taken in the United States on this effort. Canada, the province of Ontario, has come out and point-blank opposed the existing documents. There are concerns in Canada that this is just some kind of a ruse to somehow allow diversions of the Great Lakes waters to occur. I’m not part of that viewpoint, to tell you the truth. What’s being done right now and what will happen in 2005 is that the comments are being digested, we’ll see new draft documents come out from the governors and premiers and hopefully begin the process making those agreements stick.”


Schornack says 2005 will also see some important reports on the economic costs of invasive species. Studies on the logistics of shipping, cargo ship traffic and alternative freight haulers and design plans that look at the total cost of shipping – including the infrastructure costs and the environmental damage caused by invasive species. It should be an interesting year for the Great Lake if Congress moves on key issues, and then finds money to make the Great Lakes more sound.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Major Dock Corrosion Stumps Officials

  • The Duluth Seaway Port Authority's bulk cargo dock is typical of many in the port. Officials are troubled by corrosion appearing on the docks in the harbor - the steel is corroding much faster than normal. (Photo by Bob Kelleher)

Corrosion is eating away at the steel walls that hold one of the Great Lakes’ busiest harbors together. The corrosion is unlike anything known to be happening in any other Great Lakes port. But other port officials are being encouraged to take a closer look at their own underwater steel. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Kelleher reports:

Transcript

Corrosion is eating away at the steel walls that hold
one of the Great Lakes’ busy harbors together. The
corrosion is unlike anything known to be happening in
any other Great Lakes port. But other port officials
are being encouraged to take a closer look at their own
underwater steel. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Bob Kelleher reports:


Some kind of corrosion is eating away at the Duluth
Seaway port’s docks. The docks are those long
earth-filled metal rectangles where ships from around
the world tie up to load and unload. Those docks are
lined with sheets of steel, and the steel is rusting
away. Jim Sharrow is the Duluth
Seaway Port Authorities Facilities Manager.


“It’s corroding quickly – much faster than people expect
in fresh water. And our main concern is that we’ll lose
the integrity and the strength of the dock long before
expected, and have to do steel replacement at $1,500 or
more per lineal foot, much earlier than ever would have
been expected.”


Corrosion should be a slow process in Duluth’s cold
fresh water. But, Sharrow says, there’s evidence it’s
been happening remarkably quickly for about thirty years.


“What we seem to see here is corrosion that started in
the mid 1970s. We have steel that’s 100 years olds
that’s about as similarly corroded to steel that is 25
to 30 years old.”


It’s a big problem. There’s about thirteen miles of
steel walls lining docks in the harbor that serves
Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. There’s half
again as many feet of wooden docks, held together with
steel pins. There’s corrosion on the legs of highway
bridges and the giant
steel ore docks that ship millions of tons of taconite
– a type of iron shipped to steel mills in Gary,
Indiana and Cleveland, Ohio.


“We characterize this as a 100-million dollar problem in
the harbor. It’s a huge problem, and what is so odd
about this is that we only see it happening in the
navigational area of the Duluth-Superior Harbor.”


The harbor links the St Louis River with Lake Superior.
Go a few miles up the river and there’s little corrosion
. So it doesn’t seem like the problem’s there. But, back
in the harbor, at the current rate of corrosion, Sharrow
says, the steel will fail quickly.


“I figure that in about 10 years at the current rate,
we will have to start replacing steel.”


“Particularly marginal operators could decide rather
than repair their docks it would be better for them to
go out of business, and we’re hoping that that isn’t
the case here.”


While the cause is a mystery, there’s no shortage of
theories. It could have something to do with stray
electrical voltage; water acidity; or the kinds of
steel manufactured in recent years. Chad Scott
discovered the corrosion in the late 1990’s. He’s an
engineer and a diver. Scott suspects
a micro-biological connection. He says there might be
something growing in small round pits that form on the
steel.


“We cleaned up the water. That’s the main thing –
that’s one of the main changes that’s happened since
the 70s, is we’ve cleaned up our water. We’ve cleaned
up our harbor, which is a good thing. But, when we
cleaned things up we also induced more dissolved oxygen
and more sunlight can penetrate the water, which tends
to usually promote more growth – more marine
microbiology growth.”


A team of experts met in Duluth in September to share
ideas. They came from the U.S. Navy, The Army Corp of
Engineers, and Ohio State University. And they agreed
there’s something odd going on – possibly related to
microbes or water chemistry. They also recommend that
other Great Lakes ports take a closer look at their
underwater steel. Scott says they at least helped
narrow the focus.


“We have a large laundry list right now. We want to
narrow that down and try to decide what is the real
cause of this corrosion. And these experts, hopefully,
will be able to get us going on the right direction,
so we can start doing testing that will identify the
problem.”


With the experts recommendations in hand, port
officials are now planning a formal study. If they
do figure out the cause, then they’ve got to figure
out how to prevent it. They’re in a race with
something, and right now they don’t even know with
what.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bob Kelleher.

Related Links

A Good Turn for Terns

  • Researcher Lee Harper bands a common tern. Photo by David Sommerstein.

The common tern is a bird best known for its graceful flight and dramatic dives. Over the past 50 years, its best nesting habitat in the Great Lakes has been taken over by more aggressive birds, like gulls, cormorants, and osprey. Today, common terns are a threatened species in New York and Minnesota, and monitored carefully in other states. A couple years ago, a biologist and some volunteers used gravel and navigational buoys on the St. Lawrence River to create artificial nesting habitats for the terns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the experiment’s progress:

Transcript

The Common Tern is a bird best known for its graceful flight and dramatic dives. Over the
past 50 years, its best nesting habitat in the Great Lakes has been taken over by more
aggressive birds, like gulls, cormorants, and osprey. Today, common terns are a
threatened species in New York and Minnesota, and monitored carefully in other states. A
couple years ago, a biologist and some volunteers used gravel and navigational buoys on
the St. Lawrence River to create artificial nesting habitats for the terns. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the experiment’s progress:


The St. Lawrence isn’t just a river – it’s a seaway – an aquatic interstate for ocean freighters rumbling into the Great Lakes. So it’s not strange.


I’m in a boat floating just upstream from one of the river’s highway signs, a seaway
navigation marker.


We’re not talking about a plastic buoy – it’s a fixed concrete column rising 8 feet above the
water. Its platform is big enough that you can walk around on it. On top, a tall steel tower holds a red light and signs that serve as channel markers for the seaway traffic. But for the conservationists I’m tagging along with, this is bird habitat. We sit in silence and listen to the call of the Common Tern.


(tern squawking in the clear)


Dozens of small white birds with pointy wings and black caps swoop above our heads.
They soar, suspended, then suddenly dive into the water. Their orange beaks snap at
minnows just below the surface, then they shoot back up into the air.


(more squawks)


This particular colony was formerly the largest and most productive Common Tern
colony on the entire lower Great Lakes.


Biologist Lee Harper is known as “the tern guy” in this part of the Great Lakes. He’s
tagged thousands of them and recorded them as far away as Brazil. He documented the
common tern’s dramatic decline over the past twenty years. Gull and osprey populations
exploded, displacing the more sensitive terns from their nesting sites. But today Harper
peers through binoculars and grins.


“The terns we’re seeing here today represent the first nests on this site in almost ten
years.”


Terns don’t need much to nest, just a dry, isolated spot near water. Harper noticed the
refugee terns were retreating to navigation markers like this one. They’d lay eggs on its
concrete platform. The problem was the eggs would roll around and the birds would abandon
them. So Harper enlisted volunteers to lug 5 tons of gravel out here. They spread it on the
platform so the terns would lay their eggs on top of the gravel and the eggs wouldn’t roll.
Suzie Wood was among them.


“The first time I saw it, it was a piece of concrete and I frankly thought that Lee was a
little bit cracked when I heard about it.”


That was two summers ago. Today’s the first day the volunteers have returned. They’re
going to count nests and eggs to see how the gravel is working.


(motor sound, then clanking and action sound as we tie up)


We inch the boat up to the marker and huddle under the canvas top in case the birds dive-
bomb our approach. Then we tie up to an iron ladder that leads up to the concrete
platform. One by one, we climb the ladder and peer over the platform’s rim.


“Wow, this is a beautiful nest right here.”


Lee Harper is right behind and he’s beaming.


“After ten years of no terns here, this is really a wonderful sound!”


Almost invisible amongst the gravel and weeds are clusters of brown spotted eggs. We
walk on tip toe, look before every step, careful not to crush a nest. Harper works quickly
to minimize the disturbance. He calls out the number of eggs he sees. A volunteer takes
notes on a clipboard.


(counting)


Harper was here two weeks ago and counted 18 nests. Today there are 40 common tern
nests. Volunteer David Duff is impressed.


“It was just such a simple thing to do. I mean, a hundred twenty dollars worth of gravel
and a two or three hours and half a dozen people helping with five gallon buckets of gravel
and I think we have a victory, at least a preliminary victory.”


The gravel nests are starting to catch on. The St. Lawrence Seaway Development
Corporation is spreading gravel on navigation markers all along the Seaway. Groups in
Michigan are planning similar restoration efforts, using dredging spoils from the St. Mary’s
River. They’re man-made solutions, but ones that just might restore the Common Tern
population to health in the Great Lakes.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

FAMED EXPLORER SEARCHES FOR LAKES’ SHIPWRECKS

  • The bow of the Grecian, a shipwreck in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Underwater explorer Dr. Robert Ballard became a celebrity for finding the Titanic in mid 1980’s. But that ship is just one of his many underwater discoveries. He and his team of researchers travel from one far flung location to another, exploring and searching for lost shipwrecks, ancient coastlines, and unknown deep sea trenches. However, recently his team was at work in Lake Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:

Transcript

Underwater explorer Dr. Robert Ballard became a celebrity for
finding the Titanic in mid 1980’s. But that ship is just one of his
many underwater discoveries. He and his team of
researchers travel from one far flung location to another,
exploring and searching for lost shipwrecks, ancient
coastlines, and unknown deep sea trenches. However,
recently his team was at work in Lake Huron. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:


On this fall day, the water’s calm, the sky blue, and the air warm. But Lake Huron isn’t always
this way. The Great Lakes’ legendary storms have left the bottom of Lake Huron’s Thunder Bay
littered with shipwrecks.


(Ship’s horn blast)


(engine noise, water drips and waves throughout piece)


Dr. Bob Ballard and his team from the Institute for Exploration have a research vessel hovering
above one of the shipwrecks in the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary near Alpena,
Michigan.


“I’ve become convinced and what brings me here to Thunder Bay is that the deep sea is probably
the largest museum in the world. There is more history in the deep sea than in all the museums of
the world combined.”


Ballard says the Great Lakes are home to thousands of shipwrecks that trace the evolution of
maritime trade in America, from Native American canoes to modern barges.


“What is really nice about the Great Lakes is because it is fresh water we don’t have wood borers
like we have in salt water. The ships I’ve found, the Titanic, for example, its deck was eaten and
the grand staircase was eaten but here in Great Lakes, because it’s fresh water, you have the best
preserved ships on the planet.”


This is the second year that Ballard and his team have come to the Thunder Bay National Marine
Sanctuary. The sanctuary was created two years ago to preserve the bay’s shipwrecks. According
to historical records, an estimated 116 ships sank here, but only about 40 have been found. And
that’s why Dr. Ballard and his team are here, searching for undiscovered shipwrecks and taking an
up-close look at the ones we already know about.


(ambient sound of man yelling, “Watch the A-Frame.”)


They’re exploring the sanctuary, using underwater robots that are equipped with high definition
video cameras and sonar systems. Dwight Coleman is the Chief Scientist on the expedition.
Earlier in the day they sent two of these robots, Argus and Little Hercules, down into the water
below the research boat.


“So all the data that’s coming up from the vehicles while it’s working on the shipwreck, all the
video data and other information, such as the altitude and the heading and the depth, is all coming
in through these cables and into this control room, and from here we can sit and operate the
vehicles.”


At the moment, Little Hercules’ cameras are focused on a wreck called the E.B. Allen. It’s a
schooner that hauled grain. It sank to the bottom of Thunder Bay after a collision with a ship
called “Newsboy” in 1871. Patrick Labadie is a Maritime Historian who is on board taking a look
at the images of the E.B. Allen.


“It’s a really good glimpse of the accident that took the ship down. The masts are down, the
rigging is all confused and laying on the deck. There is a neat circular hole in the side of the ship
where the other vessel struck it. You can see the evidence of a whole sequence of events:
a collision, the ship’s rigging coming down, sinking, striking the bottom and damaging its bow as
it struck. It’s really fascinating.”


In addition to gathering information, pictures, and video from known wrecks like the E.B. Allen,
Ballard’s team is making some new discoveries here. And Dwight Coleman says they’ve found
two new wrecks in Thunder Bay, including a three-masted schooner from the 1800’s.


“I think the best thing for me is really the exploration, is finding the unknown, and to look into
places that have never been looked at before. And we did that yesterday with this new schooner
ship.”


It’s this excitement of discovery that inspired Dr. Bob Ballard to become an underwater explorer.
Now he’s hoping to give the general public a little taste of what he does and let them explore
underwater sanctuaries without getting cold or wet.


“Well, Thunder Bay is one of 13 marine sanctuaries and if you look around right now, we are the
only people out here. Isn’t that odd? If you go to Yellowstone you’d see thousands of people. So
what we want to do is bring thousands of people here but most people won’t be sophisticated
divers, and go down 100, 200, 300 feet. So a very, very small club of people can actually reach the
shipwrecks, the cultural resources here. And what we’re trying to do is to change that, and we’ve
been in here for two years, surveying the sanctuary, finding all of the ships that are here and then
trying to pick one or two of them and wire them up.”


The idea is to allow people in the sanctuary’s visitor center to go on their own remote controlled
underwater exploration using a system of underwater cameras and robots like Little Hercules. But
even before such a system is in place, the videos and pictures they’re taking will open up the
sanctuary for the general public. For the first time, the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary
visitor’s center will have high quality pictures and videos to show people what the wrecks in
Thunder Bay actually look like.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

Coast Guard Steps Up Security

The heightened security following last week’s terrorist attacks is extending to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

The heightened security following (Tuesday’s/last weeks) terrorist attacks is extending to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The U-S Coast Guard is increasing patrols, and closely monitoring every ship that is navigating the Great Lakes. It is also adding patrols to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the St. Mary’s River.


There are no specific new regulations in place, but the Coast Guard is evaluating each vessel on a case-by-case basis. The Guard also has the authority to restrict any movement or remove ships from ports.


The Coast Guard is also increasing security at its own ports, and has restricted access to all Coast Guard Buildings and vessels.


The Secretary of Transportation gave the increased authority to the Coast Guard shortly after the attacks. There is no timetable for how long the heightened security measures will be in place. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.