Congress has approved a plan to clean up some of the most polluted spots in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Congress has approved a plan to clean up some of the
most polluted spots in the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The Great Lakes Legacy Act authorizes 270-million dollars over the next
five years to clean up pollution hot spots known as Areas of Concern.
Matt Doss is with the Great Lakes Commission, which lobbies
Congress on behalf of the eight Great Lakes states. He says Congress still
has to approve appropriations for the Act.
“It’s an important victory, but we need to get the money to
implement the bill. And, secondly, I think people need to
recognize that this is a very important down payment on
getting this work done.”
The actual cost of the clean up of the areas will be much higher.
Doss says if this money shows measurable results, it will be easier to ask Congress for more in the future. Although 270-million sounds like a lot, other areas have pulled in a lot more. For instance, the Florida Everglades
recently pulled in nearly eight billion dollars for clean up projects there.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
This Thursday (November 21st), trees will be planted in every state capitol in all 50 states. The non-profit group, the National Tree Trust, is organizing the coordinated planting. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:
Transcript
This Thursday (November 21st), trees will be planted in every
state capitol in all 50 states. The non-profit group, the National Tree
Trust, is organizing the coordinated planting. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:
The National Tree Trust is celebrating the fact that they’ve planted 10
million trees since the organization was founded in 1990. That works out to
be almost two trees per minute. The tree trust helps local communities
plant trees and educates people about the benefits of trees.
Paul Rosenthal is with the National Tree Trust. He says this coast to coast
tree planting event will draw attention to the importance of trees in our
communities.
“It’s the trees that are planted in the urban areas and suburban areas of the
United States… are the ones which really go very far in helping to clean the
air where we live, clean the soil where we live, provide cooling shade where
we live, to help bring down energy costs in the summer and winter time.”
He says according to their calculations, one urban tree provides over
57-thousand dollars worth of benefits over its 50-year life span.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.
Terry Miller, of the Lone Tree Council, is
one of the few Bay City residents trying to protect
wetlands sprouting up along the beaches of Saginaw
Bay. Many of his neighbors prefer beaches with
less vegetation. Photo by Steve Meador.
With water levels below-average in the Great Lakes, emergent wetlands are flourishing in many large, protected bays. This thick vegetation, a few hundred yards wide at most, fringes the shoreline of exposed lakebeds. Scientists and government officials say emergent wetlands are valuable resources worth protecting. Others say the vegetation is a nuisance and want it destroyed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Meador has more:
Transcript
With water levels below-average in the Great Lakes, emergent wetlands are flourishing in
many large, protected bays. This thick vegetation, a few hundred yards wide at most,
fringes the shoreline of exposed lakebeds. Scientists and government officials say
emergent wetlands are valuable resources worth protecting. Others say the vegetation is
a nuisance and want it destroyed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Meador
has more:
There’s a dull gray sky over Saginaw Bay, a large, shallow arm of Lake Huron. A brisk
wind blows off the bay toward Bay City State Park.
“This is the area that bathers come to in the summer, and as you can see, there is only a
small portion of the beach left, that much of the rest has reverted to fairly high levels of
vegetation…cattails…bulrushes… lots of vegetation.”
Terry Miller heads an environmental organization in Bay City called the Lone Tree
Council. These days, Lone Tree is an appropriate description of Miller. He’s one of the
few locals trying to protect emergent wetlands. These wetlands remain mostly out of
mind during cycles of high water. However, with Lake Huron near its lowest level in
decades, thin bands of emergent wetlands now flourish along the shores of Saginaw Bay.
Scientists call these wetlands some of the most productive in the country because they
provide critical habitat for fish and birds. Yellow perch and northern pike use them as
breeding areas, and waterfowl feed and nest there. The wetlands also reduce coastal
erosion by anchoring shoreline sediment during storms.
Terry Miller sees the value of emergent wetlands and is fighting to protect them. He also
accepts that some people are less concerned with how wetlands benefit an ecosystem than
they are with clean, sandy beaches or an unobstructed view of Saginaw Bay.
“As you can see, some of this vegetation is taller than we are, and if you’re a homeowner
sitting back in your coffee hutch looking out and not seeing water but greenery, some
may find that pleasant, but more than likely they would prefer to see the water.”
One local resident who doesn’t like the wetlands is Ernie Krygier. He says the vegetation
reduces property values and prevents access to the water. Worst of all, he says it ruins
sandy beaches, like the one at Bay City State Park.
“This park used to be just jammed, you see all the parking lot space that’s out here, you
couldn’t find a spot back when we had beaches. Now you could shoot a gun through here
and not hit anybody.”
Krygier wants the vegetation along the park’s shoreline removed. He says the place for
wildlife is in the nearby Tobico Marsh, away from park users.
“This is where people belong, that’s where nature belongs.”
Krygier’s issue with the park is part of a larger conflict with government regulators that
also involves private property. The dispute has been dubbed the “weed war” by a
property rights group called Save Our Shoreline, or SOS, that Krygier heads up.
SOS members say they have the right to remove vegetation below the ordinary high
water mark. That’s land the state and federal government says is publicly-owned
bottomland. Government regulators protect this land by requiring permits for
mechanized activities like plowing or grading. This helps preserve the dense root mat
that anchors the shoreline.
Some less destructive techniques for controlling vegetation are allowed without a permit,
including mowing, weed-whacking, and hand-pulling vegetation. Nevertheless, many
property owners have used tractors and other heavy machinery to destroy vegetation on
public land without a permit. Government regulators say this is a violation of the Clean
Water Act. They’ve sent “cease and desist” letters to many property owners, including
one state legislator.
Krygier’s main contention is that property owners have ownership rights to the water’s
edge.
“The government, the state of Michigan wants to take ownership of our property, and that
is wrong. We feel we have the law on our side.”
Some law experts say Krygier’s interpretation is wrong. Chris Shafer is a professor at
Thomas M. Cooley School of Law in Lansing. He’s had some experience in this area.
He ran the Great Lakes Shorelands program for the Michigan Department of Natural
Resources for more than 15 years.
“I think the law is real clear on this, that all of the land we’re talking about below the
ordinary high water mark on the Great Lakes is owned by the state of Michigan. It’s held
in trust for all nine million citizens of Michigan.”
Shafer says that while property owners have some legitimate concerns, they don’t own
the land out to the water’s edge as they believe. They have a right to access the water, but
no right to destroy vegetation on public land.
Shafer says that, unlike the sand dune shores of Lake Michigan, it may be unrealistic to
expect sandy beaches throughout Saginaw Bay. Dr. Thomas Burton agrees. He’s a
professor of fisheries and zoology at Michigan State University who studies wetland
ecosystems.
Burton says emergent wetlands have always been an important part of Saginaw Bay, and
that they naturally grow and recede as water levels fall and rise. He says wetlands are a
vanishing resource along the Great Lakes, and that the small portion of coastline that’s
not sandy beach should be protected. Burton says property owners are missing the bigger
picture.
“To call it a ‘weed war’ to me is very short sighted, and really says that the person doesn’t
either, A. understand the importance of these wetlands, or B. they just don’t care about
nature at all, and are willing to destroy it just so they have a sandy beach in front of their
house, and my own opinion is that that’s a pretty lousy way to look at nature.”
Back in Saginaw Bay, Terry Miller says his crusade to protect emergent wetlands is a
lonely one, especially when neighbors tell him he’s one of the most hated people on the
beach. He says these wetlands are held in the public trust to benefit everyone who uses
the bay, and hopes that some day the effort expended by property owners will be
redirected.
“And the sad thing, the thing that I find very frustrating is that, from an environmental
perspective, our Saginaw Bay is hurting. There are a host of environmental problems that
this energy could be directed at, but it’s not.”
For now, property owners are putting their energy into changing state law. A bill before
the Michigan legislature backed by SOS would allow unpermitted destruction of wetland
vegetation on publicly-owned lands.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Steve Meador.
A worker samples polluted mud in a test pit. Researchers are trying to break down contaminants in the mud using electrical charges. A German company developed the technology, which U.S. officials hope will be cheaper than dredging polluted sediments.
Photo courtesy of MPR.
One of the biggest challenges facing Great Lakes water quality comes from polluted harbors. Scores of underwater sites have been identified, but cleanup has been painfully slow. Now, some people are taking a new approach – they’re using an electrical charge to clean up pollutants. It’s the first test in this country of the system. Supporters say it’s cheaper and faster than conventional methods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Kelleher reports:
Transcript
One of the biggest challenges facing Great Lakes water quality comes from
polluted harbors. Scores of underwater sites have been identified, but
cleanup has been painfully slow. Now, some people are taking a new
approach – they’re using an electrical charge to clean up pollutants. It’s
the first test in this country of the system. Supporters say it’s cheaper
and faster than conventional methods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Bob Kelleher reports:
Stryker Bay is a lovely little cove alongside the St. Louis River, near Lake
Superior, in Duluth, Minnesota. It’s a gentle water with ducks in the
summer; and a shady hiking path along the shore.
Tim Leland lives along the shore. From his home, he sees waterfowl, and
fouled water.
“Stryker Bay is a shallow bay. It’s six foot at the most of water.
But there’s a silt that’s underneath it, and all this tar and stuff that’s
coming up. Summertime there we do have a lot of oil that makes the surface
there.”
The bottom of Stryker Bay is a biological time bomb. Under the sand, are
pools of oily stuff – that experts call polynuclear aromatic-hydrocarbons,
or PAH’s. For nearly a century, Stryker Bay was an industrial sewer. PAH’s
were first identified under the bay in the 1970’s. That tar like stuff is
still there. There’s not enough money and little agreement how to get rid
of it.
But what if you could make pollution go away by throwing a switch? That’s
essentially what a German based company promises. And U.S. officials are
listening. The first underwater test in the United States of
Electrochemical-GeoOxidation treatment is underway in Duluth. And early
results show promise. It’s a simple concept, according to Ken Whittle with
Electro Petroleum Inc., who describes the process underway behind him in a
pair of water-filled pits.
“It’s a pretty simple kind of thing. If you want to look at it;
if you have a battery charger at home, you plug the battery charger in, you
take the two leads and you connect them to the terminals on a battery. Well,
that’s pretty analogous to what’s going on here.”
Each pit is filled with polluted mud and covered with water. Metal pipes
are sunken into the muck. In one pit, a carefully controlled electrical
charge pushes electrons through the sediment between the pipes. It’s
supposed to break the electron bonds of dangerous molecules; like PAH’s.
What’s left is harmless – like carbon and water.
The test is financed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers: the agency responsible for dredging shipping lanes.
Dealing with polluted sediment is a huge expense, according to Army Corps
researcher Tommy Myers.
“It’s a real big problem for us to dispose of that material. We
can’t put it back into the water. And, typically, we confine it in what we
call a confined disposal facility, and just store the material into
perpetuity and let it break down by natural processes, if it will.”
Officials would rather destroy pollutants than store them, but conventional
methods are expensive, smelly, and noisy. And they all require dredging,
and that’s expensive.
“In this particular technology, it wouldn’t necessarily require
dredging. There’s very little noise or gaseous emissions associated with
it. The main thing is it could be applied in situ; that means in the water,
without having to dredge.”
Proponents say Electrochemical-GeoOxidation is a bargain. Pollution
officials say conventional methods might cost as much as 200 dollars to
clean up a single cubic yard of sediment from Stryker Bay. But, according
to David Bowman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit, electrical
cleanup might cost a quarter of that.
“Our goal with this project was to find a technology that would
work for around one hundred dollars per cubic yard. The vendor talked about
that they might be able to treat material for around forty five to fifty
dollars per cubic yard at Duluth Harbor.”
And the contractor claims the process works fast. A typical site can be
cleaned in just a few months. It’s also supposed to work on metals, like
mercury, which attach to the electrodes, which can then be disposed of in a
hazardous waste facility.
In the Duluth test, PAH’s have decreased by forty five percent in about a
month. That’s promising, although far from conclusive. The process
won’t get every molecule, but it’s intended to reduce contaminants below
dangerous levels.
Tests began in Duluth this summer, but results are several months away.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bob Kelleher.
The courts have ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot keep the whereabouts of endangered species secret. The ruling comes in a case where a builder tried to find out whether there was an endangered species on land he wanted to buy for development. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The courts have ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot keep the
whereabouts of endangered species secret. The ruling comes in a case where a builder
tried to find out whether there was an endangered species on land he wanted to buy for
development. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The Fish and Wildlife Service says it didn’t want to reveal whether it found endangered
species on private property, afraid it would lose the trust of private landowners if it made
the information public. So, when the National Association of Home Builders filed a
request for the locations of an endangered species, the Fish and Wildlife Service omitted
all the sitings on private land. Jerry Howard is the CEO of the home builders group. He
says builders need that information.
“Our members who are looking at buying land in areas affected will be able to make
informed decisions and comply with the regulations because they’ll know what they’re
walking into. And we’ll be able to protect the species ’cause we’ll know that they’re
there and we’ll be able not to do things that harm their habitat.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service could appeal the ruling because it sets a precedent that
could be used by any group to determine where endangered species are located.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A new study shows African Americans are disproportionately affected by power plant pollution. The study finds most African Americans are concentrated in urban areas, closer to power plants. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports, health problems in the community such as asthma have been tied to air pollution:
Transcript
A new study shows African Americans are disproportionately affected by power plant pollution. The study finds most African Americans are concentrated in urban areas, closer to power plants. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports, health problems in the community such as asthma have been tied to air pollution:
The study shows blacks are hospitalized for asthma attacks at more than three times the rate of whites, and their death rate from asthma is twice that of whites.
Brian Urbaszewski with the American Lung Association says there’s a direct link between air pollution and asthma, especially within the black community.
“African Americans just tend to have a higher rate of asthma, so you have the people who are more likely to be sick in an area where the air is more likely to trigger an asthma attack.”
In one Great Lakes state, 90 percent of blacks live in counties with air pollution levels that exceed federal health standards.
African-American babies are in greater danger of sudden infant death syndrome and respiratory mortality because they live in more polluted areas.
The groups that put out the study want stricter laws to reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.
Companies who fear that their greenhouse gas emissions may soon be regulated are being offered a new alternative. A Virginia-based firm has created an emissions trading system that will capitalize on telecommuting. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
Companies who fear that their greenhouse gas emissions may soon be regulated are being
offered a new alternative. A Virginia-based firm has created an emissions trading system
that will capitalize on telecommuting. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly
reports:
The company is called “Teletrips.” And it’s created a system in which industries that
need to reduce their emissions can buy credits from businesses with large numbers of
telecommuters.
Teletrips president Mary Beatty says the trading system would force polluters to buy
credits to offset the amount they pollute. They’d buy the credits from companies who
keep their employees off the road.
“We felt like if you could find an incentive that would motivate companies to set up
(programs) trip reduction programs and (be able to quantify that) and give them some real
financial benefit back for creating those programs, that was much better than mandating
an approach.”
The company’s software converts the number of trips saved by working at home into the
amount of emissions averted.
It’s currently being pilot tested in five U.S. cities.
For the Great Lakes Radio consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
The recent elections mean that there’s a power shift in the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that a group made up of Great Lakes states governors will change dramatically:
Transcript
The recent elections mean that there’s a power shift in the region. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that a group made up of Great Lakes states
governors will change dramatically:
Of the eight Great Lakes states, five of them have elected new governors. And most of
the new governors are from a different party than their predecessor.
“Actually, this is the largest turnover in one election cycle that the Council’s had in its
twenty-year history. ”
That’s Maggie Grant with the Council of Great Lakes Governors. The council deals with
issues surrounding the Great Lakes and trade in the region.
“We don’t see major policy shift, although, we look forward to the new energy and ideas
of our governors that they bring to the table.”
Coming to the table are a lot more Democrats. Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Pennsylvania all elected Democrats to replace their Republican governors. Grant says
party affiliation isn’t that important to the group – fighting for the Great Lakes region is.
For the Great Lakes Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Each fall, thousands of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey fly hundreds of miles in search of warmer climates. And between August and December, nearly 70-thousand people will climb to the top of a bird sanctuary called Hawk Mountain to get a closer look at those birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:
Transcript
Each fall, about thousands of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey fly hundreds of miles
in search of warmer climates. And between August and December, nearly 70-thousand
people will climb to the top of a bird sanctuary called Hawk Mountain to get a closer
look at those birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:
“Those of you haven’t found the osprey, it’s over there at owl’s head, naked eye here to
the right.”
On a clear day, the view from atop Hawk Mountain stretches for more than fifty miles.
But on this particularly hazy Saturday afternoon, bird-watchers are pushing their
binoculars and telescopes to the limits.
“Well, we’re making them out there, they’re coming in. It’s like you just gotta wait ’til
they get a little closer than what they typically do. They’ve been popping out of clouds
and haze all day for us.”
Doug Wood is a volunteer at Hawk Mountain in Eastern Pennsylvania. This afternoon,
he’s the official bird counter.
“We’re basically taking a lot of field information. Wind, weather, temperature, cloud
cover, wind direction. And then we’re basically monitoring the birds’ species, age, sex,
and recording it every hour.
“Look! An Osprey! And then fade to scene change.”
Researchers at Hawk Mountain have been keeping records of osprey and other migratory
raptors for more than seventy years, making it the oldest monitoring station in the world.
In the early twentieth century, hunters would shoot thousands of birds from the
mountainside each year. Today, people travel from all over the world to shoot birds with
their cameras.
Matt Wong came all the way from New Zealand to study at the sanctuary.
“Hawk Mountain is internationally renowned as a hawk watch site. And also a place
where big research actually happens. Now, not many of the locals around Pennsylvania
actually realize this, but it’s actually huge on the international scene. It’s world
recognized, and that’s one of the reasons why I came here.”
In Wong’s country, there are only two species of raptors. In America, he’s had a chance
to study dozens of varieties.
But even with so many different species populating North America, many people still
think of them as strangers or sometimes even as monsters.
“I still get, amazingly to me, a lot of people that think that these birds are out to get us.”
Volunteer Bob Owens has spent the last 20 years doing education programs at Hawk
Mountain.
“If you intrude into their territory when they have young in the nest, or something like
that, yeah, they’re probably going to chase you. As far as them killing babies and taking
them from baby carriages, this is all old wives tales. This just does not happen.”
Owens runs a small farm for a living, where he says hawks and barn owls help keep
rodents under control. But in a larger sense, Owens says there’s a lot people can learn
from these birds.
“Any three and a half pound bird that can apply four hundred pounds of pressure with its
talons is built to do what they’re doing. They are at the top of the food chain. And that’s
the other big thing that it shows us. It just opens up a door here as to all the reasons the
birds are either dropping or rising in population. What are we doing?”
Owens says in the seventy years researchers at Hawk Mountain have been counting birds,
they’ve seen populations rise and fall. Hawks and eagles are hardy birds. But even the
most successful predators can fall victim to environmental change.
Keith Bildstein is the sanctuary’s director of conservation programs. He says raptors are
like sensitive tools, telling researchers when something’s wrong with an ecosystem.
“Birds of prey are excellent biological indicators. In the middle of the last century they
told us that we were having a problem with our misuse of organochlorine pesticides,
specifically DDT. Today, they’re leading us in explorations of the spread of West Nile
Virus.”
Bildstein says because raptors are at the top of the food chain, when their numbers fall
it’s a pretty good sign that their food source is dwindling, their habitat could be
disappearing, or air quality might be suffering.
But for most of Hawk Mountain’s visitors, the birds are more than barometers of a
healthy ecosystem. According to birder Judy Higgs, they’re beautiful creatures,
especially when viewed from a great height.
“These birds are just majestic. And the other thing is that they go so far. You know,
some of these birds are going to South America!”
Higgs first climbed the mountain in 1970, when she was a student at nearby Kutztown
University. Before moving out of state, Higgs used to come to Hawk Mountain daily…
she stills visits on weekends whenever she can.
“I used to do work in the morning, come here in the afternoon, go home, and finish my
work at night so I could be here.”
By day’s end, Higgs and her fellow birdwatchers count more than 600 raptors. During
the fall season, as many as 70-thousand predatory birds, from vultures to falcons might
pass by on their way to distant points.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brad Linder.
Government, industry, and activists work to inform people about individual threats of non-native invasive species. However, there is no comprehensive approach to reducing biological contamination of the Great Lakes region.
One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Great Lakes is the introduction of foreign plants and animals. Invasive species such as the zebra mussel are causing havoc to the lakes. Local, state, and federal governments know about the problems. But there’s not been much public pressure on the governments to do much about them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Great Lakes is the introduction of
foreign plants and animals. Invasive species such as the zebra mussel are causing havoc
to the lakes. Local, state, and federal governments know about the problems. But there’s
not been much public pressure on the governments to do much about them. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Here’s a factoid for you. In the United States alone in the 1980’s and ’90’s, it’s estimated
that it cost more than two-billion dollars to keep zebra mussels from clogging up water
intake pipes. Two-billion! Guess who paid for that? You did – in higher bills.
Zebra mussels are an invasive species. That is, they are native to a foreign place and they
were transported here – like many invasives – by a ship. Zebra mussels were sucked up in
ballast water in a foreign port and then pumped out in a Great Lakes port. The zebra
mussels have spread all over the Great Lakes, in huge numbers. They attach to
everything, including intake pipes. They’ve crowded out native mussels. And zebra
mussels eat the microscopic plant life at the bottom of the food chain, making fish more
scarce and causing fish prices to go up.
And that’s just the beginning. There’s been something like 160 invasive species such as
foreign fish, aquatic nuisances, plants, and insects brought into the Great Lakes region
one way or another and each one has caused problems. Dutch elm disease kills trees. A
fish called round goby eats the eggs of native sport fish. Invasive mites are killing off
honey bees.
“People aren’t outraged about it. And they’re not outraged about it because, I think, we in
the public interest community and the government side haven’t done what it takes to
clearly communicate why this is a problem to people.”
Cameron Davis is with the Lake Michigan Federation, an environmental group that
works to get policies changed in the Great Lakes basin. Davis says most of the time
people just don’t understand that because the government is not doing enough to stop
invasive species from entering the country, it ends up costing them and takes a toll on the
natural environment.
“When zebra mussels, for example, get into drinking water intakes, municipalities have to
pay to keep those things out of there. That means higher rates for you and me. For other
people, fishing is impacted. Invasive species getting into the lakes can mean competition
for those native species like yellow perch because of round gobies, because of zebra
mussels and other invasive species getting into the Great Lakes.”
The government agencies which work on these kinds of problems know about them and
some things have been done to try to prevent new invasive species from being introduced
or control them once they’re here.
Tom Skinner is a regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and also heads up the EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office. Skinner says there
are several obstacles to stopping the invasions.
“One is identifying all the possibilities out there. Two is identifying how they get into the
lakes. Three is coming up with a technical solution to deal with the invasive nature of the
species. And four is getting the resources to make sure that you put the technical
solutions into place.”
And there’s another problem – government agencies, much like people, tend to deal with
one problem at a time. For example, sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes after a canal
was opened. They decimated lake trout populations. Government agencies attacked that
problem. Asian carp are threatening to spread from the Mississippi River system into the
Great Lakes through a canal. Government agencies are putting up barriers. One problem
equals one fix.
Tom Skinner’s counterpart in Canada, John Mills with Environment Canada, says
governments are beginning to realize that stopping the spread of invasive species cannot
just be fixed one problem at a time.
“It isn’t a simple problem of just focusing in on ballast water. It’s a much broader
problem. You can get organisms coming in on wood or other commodities that will take
up residence in the basin and create havoc.”
So, there are lots of ways for invasive species to enter the Great Lakes region. But the
Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says no one seems to be looking at the
overall problem.
“We’ve got a number of different gateways to get into the Great Lakes, but we have all
kinds of different departments looking at A) individual gateways, or B) looking at
individual species. Nobody’s really there to pull it all together. We have a big
institutional problem that way.”
And there’s no one movement among environmental groups or consumer groups to
pressure the governments to step back and look at the policies that allow shipping and
trade to continue to easily transport invasive species into the Great Lakes region.
The EPA’s Tom Skinner says government agencies are working on it.
“We’re going to continue to work with the Coast Guard, with the Corps of Engineers,
with our friends to the north in Canada and try and come up with a comprehensive
solution to these various invasive problems. But, it’s easy to say; it takes a great deal of
work and effort to do that.”
And government agencies are not getting any real kind of public pressure to do it because
the public doesn’t realize the price it’s paying for invasive species.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
