Tag: lake huron

Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Wetlands Case

  • The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case that will determine how much power the federal government has over isolated wetlands - wetlands that aren't adjacent to lakes or streams. (Photo by Lester Graham)

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments that could decide which wetlands the federal government can regulate. The case before the court involves a couple of construction projects in the state of Michigan, but it’s being followed closely throughout the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments that could
decide which wetlands the federal government can regulate. The case
before the court involves a couple of construction projects in the state of
Michigan, but it’s being followed closely throughout the country. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:


The federal Clean Water Act is supposed to stop people from polluting
streams, wetlands and other waterways that are connected to the
country’s major lakes, rivers and coastal areas, but what if the wetland in
question is located 20-miles from the nearest major waterway? Is it
covered by the Clean Water Act? That’s the question the court will
consider.


In the 1980’s John Rapanos started moving sand from one part of
property he owned in Michigan to another, to fill in some wetlands. He
wanted to sell the land to a shopping mall developer. Trouble is, he
didn’t get permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to fill in the
wetlands. The government says he should have.


“The property has a drainage ditch that runs through it…”


Robin Rivett is a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation. It’s a
property-rights group that is representing Rapanos.


“And because of the movement of the sand on the property, which is
characterized as wetlands, the government came in and has prosecuted
him for actually discharging fill material into the navigable waters.”


Rapanos was charged with violating the Clean Water Act. Washington is
demanding 13-million dollars in fines and fees, and wants him to set
aside about 80-acres as wetlands.


In another case, that’s been combined with the Rapanos matter,
developers in Southeast Michigan were denied permits to fill in wetlands
so they could build a condominium complex. That site is about two
miles from Lake St. Clair, which lies between lakes Huron and Erie.


In both cases, the federal government says the sites fall under the Clean
Water Act because they’re located near navigable waters. Actually, that
term – navigable waters – has evolved over the years and come to mean
“interstate or intrastate waters,” along with their wetlands and tributaries.


The plaintiffs, their attorneys and supporters say the land should be
governed by state environmental regulations, rather than the federal
Clean Water Act, but on the side of the government in this case is 35
state governments, along with many environmental and conservation
groups.


Jim Murphy is a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation. His group
has filed briefs on behalf of more than a dozen organizations that support
the federal position.


“What is at stake here is the ability of the act to protect the vast number
of tributaries that flow into navigable waters and the wetlands that
surround and feed into those tributaries. If those tributaries and wetlands
aren’t protected under the federal Clean Water Act, it becomes difficult if not
impossible under the Clean Water Act to achieve its goal to protect water
quality.”


Murphy says if the Supreme Court rules that Congress did not intend to
protect wetlands like the ones in this case, then about half the wetlands in
the country could lose their federal protection. Murphy and others on his
side worry that wetlands could begin disappearing more quickly than
they already do today.


Scott Yaich directs conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited – a
wetlands protection group.


“The landowners who have those wetlands would no longer be subject to
getting the Corps of Engineers to review, so essentially they could do
anything they wanted.”


The lawyers for the landowners don’t see it that way. The Pacific Legal
Foundation’s Robin Rivett says individual states would have something
to say.


“I believe there are 47 states that have their own clean water programs.
If it is clear that the federal government doesn’t have jurisdiction over
local waters, the states will step in to protect those waters.”


Maybe they will; maybe they won’t, say environmental groups. They
fear a patchwork of water protection laws. They say it could mean
polluted water from a state with weaker laws could flow into a state with
stronger water protection laws.


Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation.


“The Clean Water Act provides a floor. It provides comprehensive
protection, a floor beyond which states must maintain that level of
protection.”


Those who support the property owners in this case say it’s about more
than clean water – it’s also about land use. They say if the court rules
that waterways and wetlands are interconnected and all deserving of
protection under the Clean Water Act, then what could be left out?


Duane Desiderio is with the National Association of Home Builders,
which has filed briefs supporting the property owners.


“All water flows somewhere. Every drop of water in the United States,
when it goes down the Continental Divide, is going to drain into the
Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. Pretty much.”


Both sides are hoping the Supreme Court provides a clear definition of
which wetlands and tributaries Congress intended to protect when it
passed the Clean Water Act. A decision is expected this summer.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

Related Links

Supreme Court to Hear Beach Walking Case?

Shoreline property owners are asking the nation’s highest court to reverse a ruling that says the public has the right to walk along the beaches of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:

Transcript

Shoreline property owners are asking the nation’s highest court to
reverse a ruling that says the public has the right to walk along the
beaches of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick
Pluta reports:


The property owners are challenging a Michigan Supreme Court
decision. The state court held that the public owns the Great Lakes
beaches from the water to the high water mark. The case was filed by a
woman who was seeking the right to walk along the shoreline of Lake
Huron.


David Powers is an attorney with the property owners group Save Our
Shoreline. He says the Michigan decision rolled back property owners’
rights…


“And so, if the state has taken private property in violation of the
Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court should be very concerned about
that.”


The other side in the case says the Great Lakes shoreline is such a unique
resource that no one person should be allowed to claim exclusive rights
to it.


There’s no word on when the Supreme Court might make a decision on
taking the case. Lakeshore property rights are being litigated in other
Great Lakes states and whatever the Supreme Court decides to do could
have an effect on those cases.


For the GLRC, this is Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Botulism Kills Beach Birds

  • Interns for Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania walk along a Lake Erie beach picking up dead birds. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

We’ve been bringing you reports from the series, ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes’ which is now looking at the threat to beaches. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He reports that scientists are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly caused by humans.


Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


Along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, large numbers
of dead birds and fish are washing up on shore. If they’re left there, the
disease that killed them can be passed on to other wildlife. That’s why
park officials such as Mike Mumau at Presque Isle State Park at Erie,
Pennsylvania ask their staff to watch out for the dead carcasses.


“Our interns do a great job. They’re the eyes of the staff that are out. So,
there’s probably three to four days a week that they’re out on the
beaches, checking to see if they have anything.”


Since 1998, untold numbers of fish and sometimes hundreds of dead
birds a year have washed up on just these eight miles of Lake Erie beach.


Eventually, researchers figured out the problem: type “E” botulism. It
slowly paralyzes the birds until the respiratory system shuts down. Most
of them don’t make it that long. They get so weak they can’t hold their
heads up out of the water and they drown.


(Sounds of walking and shovel)


Leslie Jones and her fellow interns are headed out to an area to pick up
some dead seagulls on the beach.


“When we’re out here doing migratory bird studies, we might see some
and then we pick them up as soon as possible. A lot of times, we get
radioed from different people like lifeguards and they have us come out
and pick them up so that the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of
the ecosystem.”


They find five dead birds rotting on the beach. They bury the maggots
because they could carry the botulism toxin and other birds might eat the
maggots. They shovel the bird carcass into a black plastic garbage bag.


“If they’re very fresh, this one, obviously not very fresh, but, if we get a
fresh one, we actually freeze them and they’re sent off to be tested
botulism, but, something like this we’ll just bag up until we can get them
incinerated to get rid of all the disease.”


The fresh carcasses are shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in
Madison, Wisconsin.


There, Grace McLaughlin is among the researchers who are beginning to
put the puzzle together.

Here’s what they think is happening. The invasive species zebra mussels
and quagga mussels create huge mussel beds that begin a complicated
biological phenomenon. Organic matter collects there, and then decays. It
lowers the oxygen level in the immediate area of the mussel beds. Type
“E” botulism spores occur naturally, but when the oxygen level goes
down, they begin reproducing like crazy. The waste they produce is the
toxin.


“That toxin will accumulate in the organic matter as well as in the water
in the immediate vicinity of the mussel beds. As the mussels do their
filter feeding, they will accumulate the toxin in their tissue. They are not
susceptible to the toxin. However, when the fish start coming down
there and eating the mussels, they become intoxicated, lose their ability
to swim properly and become easy prey for the birds that come in.”


The fish that feeds on the mussels the most is another invasive species,
the round goby. Researchers made the connection when they noticed the
botulism started being a problem shortly after round gobies arrived in big
numbers.


The type “E” botulism toxin has killed tens-of-thousands of birds such as
cormorants, terns, loons, ducks, and seagulls.


Back at Presque Isle State Park, Mike Mumau says it’s terrible to see so
many birds die.


“We just do our best on our end to stop the botulism cycle. When we
can, provide samples, and also, keep it a positive recreational experience
for all our visitors. They don’t want to see birds decomposing and
rotting out on the beaches, so we’re pretty diligent with that.”


Researchers say that’s about the best that can be done. Since ocean-
going vessels brought zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and round gobies
to the Great Lakes, all three of the invasive species have flourished. It
will likely be a long time before we’ll ever begin to understand the full
extent of the damage to the native wildlife of the lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Break in the Food Chain?

  • Diporeia are disappearing from Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The actual size of a diporeia is ½ an inch. (Courtesy of the EPA)

Some of the life in the Great Lakes has been hit hard by industry and trade. Pollution and
invasive species have hurt some of the native plants and animals important to the food
chain. While popular game fish might be the first to come to mind, it’s a little organism
at the bottom of the food chain that has biologists and fishing experts most concerned.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

In a survey, experts said one of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is a disappearing
species. Some native fish populations and organisms are declining. Our guide through
the Ten Threats series is Lester Graham.


Some of the life in the Great Lakes has been hit hard by industry and trade. Pollution and
invasive species have hurt some of the native plants and animals important to the food
chain. While popular game fish might be the first to come to mind, it’s a little organism
at the bottom of the food chain that has biologists and fishing experts most concerned.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of swinging doors)


Jack Donlan is taking me behind the fish counter at Donlan’s Fish House. In the
backroom he’s scaling and filleting some whitefish.


“Of the fishes caught in the Great Lakes, whitefish is one of the big volume fishes. Lake
perch, walleye bring more money per pound, but I would think from a tonnage-wise,
whitefish, it’s an extremely popular fish.”


This is a popular place to get Great Lakes fish, but Donlan’s suppliers, the commercial
fishers, are worried about the catch. At some places in the Great Lakes whitefish aren’t
doing too well.


(Sound of Lake Guardian motors)


Tom Nalepa is trying to figure out why whitefish are struggling. He’s onboard the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency research ship, the Lake Guardian. Nalepa is a
biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes
Environmental Research Lab. He’s been studying Lakes Michigan and Huron, and on
this day he’s getting ready to study the bottom of Lake Erie.


He’s not studying whitefish. He’s actually looking for a tiny shrimp-like crustacean, only an
eighth to a quarter inch long, called diporeia. Eighty-percent of the whitefish diet is
made up of diporeia.


“And what we’re seeing is a dramatic drop in populations, and not only drops, but there are
large areas now in all the lakes, except Lake Superior, that no longer have diporeia. This
is real concern because diporeia is a very important fish food.”


Researchers used to find eight to 10-thousand diporeia or more in a square meter of sediment just
a few years ago. Now, there are only a dozen or so, or none at all. Diporeia is one of the
mainstays of the bottom of the food chain, and Nalepa says whitefish aren’t the only ones
that eat the tiny critters in the sediment at the bottom of the lakes.


“Just about every type of species found in the Great Lakes will feed on diporeia at some
stage in its life-cycle. Diporeia is high in calories and has a high-energy content. It’s a
very good food, nutritious food source for fish.”


Without it, fish are not getting enough to eat. Marc Gaden is with the Great Lakes
Fishery Commission. He says when diporeia disappears, commercial fishers can’t help
but notice.


“Right now we’re seeing skinnier whitefish. Whitefish that are somewhat emaciated in
some areas because they just don’t have as much of these low-end of the food web organisms
to eat, and we think it’s related to an invasive species that came in.”


That invasive species is the zebra mussel, and more recently another invader that was
likely carried to the lakes in the ballasts of ocean-going cargo ships, the quagga mussels.


Back on the Lake Guardian, Tom Nalepa says he’s seen the connection again and again.


“There’s no question that it’s related to zebra mussels and quagga mussels. In every area
that we’ve studied, regardless of the lake area, declines were happening a couple of years
after the quagga mussel or zebra mussel were first found, but that connection remains
elusive.”


Biologists thought the invasive mussels might have been filtering out all of the food the
diporeia eat, but when they find diporeia, they don’t appear to be starving. They appear
healthy. Now, scientists are wondering if there’s some kind of disease or toxin spread
by the mussels that’s wiping out the diporeia.


Even if researchers learn why the diporeia are disappearing, there might be nothing that
can be done to help. Some scientists worry that the decline of diporeia and other
organisms at the base of the food chain might ultimately lead to a massive collapse of fish
stocks in the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Chemical Valley Spills

  • Sarnia, Ontario's shoreline with Lake Huron. (Courtesy of the EPA)

Most people think the days of industry polluting rivers and lakes are past, but that’s
just not the case. There’s a lot less pollution spewing out of factory pipes, but there
are still some real problem areas. Rick Pluta reports on how one of those areas is not
in the U.S., it’s in Canada, but the pollution ends up in the Great Lakes:

Transcript

Here’s the next report in our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The series
guide is Lester Graham. He says our next piece reveals we still have a long way to
eliminate pollution in the lakes.


Most people think the days of industry polluting rivers and lakes are past, but that’s
just not the case. There’s a lot less pollution spewing out of factory pipes, but there
are still some real problem areas. Rick Pluta reports on how one of those areas is not
in the U.S., it’s in Canada, but the pollution ends up in the Great Lakes:


North of Detroit, just across the border from Michigan is Canada’s Chemical Valley. It’s a
complex of dozens of petro-chemical factories that employ thousands of people near Sarnia,
Ontario. Chemical Valley is the center of the economy here, but it also has a major
environmental effect on the Great Lakes.


That’s because Chemical Valley sits on the Saint Clair River, one of the rivers that connects
Lake Huron to Lake Erie. What happens on the Saint Clair River affects thousands of people who
downstream from the plants. Chemical spills from Sarnia have polluted the shorelines of both
countries.


Jim Brophy is the director of a health clinic for people who work in the sprawling complex of
factories on the Canadian side of the Saint Clair River. Brophy says he’s seen people suffering
and lives shortened by cancer, respiratory failure, and neurological disorders.


“It’s an unbelievable tragedy because these diseases are all completely preventable, but arose
both because of government and industry negligence over the course of 30 or 40 years, or even
longer.”


Brophy says many of those health problems are also being exported downstream to other
communities.


The Aamjiwnaang tribe makes its home right next to the Chemical Valley complex. A recent
study of Aamjiwnaang birth records found that, in the last decade, instead of births being about
half girls and half boys, only one-third of the babies born on the reservation were boys. Shifts in
reproduction patterns often serve as a signal of an environmental imbalance.


Jim Brophy says that suggests the impact of Sarnia’s chemical industry on the environment and
people deserves more attention.


“We cannot put a particular exposure from a particular place and link that at this point, but what
we are putting together are pieces of a puzzle, and I think that’s becoming a major concern not
just for our community and not just for the American community on the other side of the river,
but I think for people all along the Great Lakes.”


Environmental regulators agree. The province of Ontario recently ordered 11 facilities to clean up
their operations so there are fewer spills and emissions. Although the provincial government has
little power to enforce those orders, officials say it’s a step in the right direction.


Dennis Schornack is the U.S. chair of the International Joint Commission. The IJC looks to
resolve disputes and solve problems in the Great Lakes international waters. He says that, since
World War II, Chemical Valley has changed the character of the Saint Clair River.


“We really have to watch this for drinking water – that’s the main thing. Canada does not draw its
drinking water from the river and the U.S. does.”


So communities on the U.S. side have to deal with chemical spills and other pollution in their
drinking water, but they have no control over the polluters on the other side of the border.


Peter Cobb is a plant manager who sits on the board of the Sarnia-Lambton Environmental
Association. That’s a consortium of Sarnia petro-chemical operations. He says the problem is
spills into the Saint Clair River peaked in the 1980s, when there were roughly 100 spills a year.
He says now that’s down to five to 10 spills a year.


“We have made significant progress. Having said that, our target remains zero spills per year,
and industry is well aware that our current performance does not meet our own target as well as
the expectations of the public.”


Cobb also acknowledges there have been some major setbacks in the last couple of years. Some
big spills have forced downstream communities to once again stop taking their drinking water
from the Saint Clair River. Cobb says Chemical Valley will try to do better.


For the GLRC, this is Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Salmon Stocking Cuts to Hurt Native Fish?

Several state agencies in the region will
reduce the amount of salmon stocked in Lakes Huron and Michigan next year. The change is designed to help the alewife population recover. Alewives are the salmon’s main food source, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports, some biologists think helping the alewife will hurt native fish:

Transcript

Several state agencies in the region (IL, IN, MI, WI) will reduce the amount
of salmon stocked in Lakes Huron and Michigan next year. The change is
designed to help the alewife population recover. Alewives are the salmon’s
main food source, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette
reports some biologists think helping the alewife will hurt native fish:


The total number of salmon stocked in the two lakes will be cut by more than
a third next year. The state agencies that manage the stocking programs say
there was widespread support for the decisions, but one dissenting voice was
the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, or CORA.


CORA supports recovery of native fish species like the Lake trout. Mark
Ebener is a fishery Biologist with CORA. He says you can’t protect
alewives and expect lake trout to do well.


“So you have to commit to one or the other. Instead of what the states are
going to do, and what Michigan is going to do, it’s going to protect alewife
by reducing stocking so they can have healthier salmon, but at the same time
it’s going to say, ‘Well tribes we still want you to support Lake trout
rehabilitation and we still support it and think it’s still feasible.'”


Female lake trout that have a diet heavy in alewives can develop a nutrient
deficiency. It causes most of their young to die soon after birth.


For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Luring the Lamprey

  • The sea lamprey, up close. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is the decline of many of the native species. The lake trout has been in trouble from over-fishing and because of an invasive species called, the sea lamprey. Conservation agents use a pesticide to keep the lamprey down, but it’s expensive, and sometimes it kills other fish. Now, researchers have discovered a lamprey pheromone that could help the fight against the sea lamprey. Stephanie Hemphill has that story:

Transcript

In our next report in the series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes we hear about how a native
fish has been hurt by an invasive species that swam into the lakes through a canal. Lester
Graham is our guide through the series.


One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is the decline of many of the native species.
The lake trout has been in trouble from over-fishing and because of an invasive species
called, the sea lamprey. Ever since it invaded the Great Lakes, scientists have been trying
to keep the invasive sea lamprey under control.


Conservation agents use a pesticide to keep the lamprey numbers down, but it’s expensive,
and sometimes it kills other fish. Now, researchers have discovered a lamprey
pheromone. They think the chemical attractant could be a big help in their fight against
one of the most destructive invasive species in the Great Lakes. Stephanie Hemphill
has that story:


The sea lamprey came into the Great Lakes through canals more than a hundred years
ago. The slimy parasites attach themselves to big fish and feed on them until they die.
Each lamprey can kill 40 pounds of fish in its lifetime.


Between sea lampreys and over-fishing, the big native fish, the Lake Trout, was wiped out
in the lower Great Lakes. Only a few survived in small pockets in Lake Huron. Lake
Superior is the only place Lake Trout survive in healthy numbers.


There’s an aggressive 15-million dollar a year program to keep sea lamprey numbers
down. Part of the effort is using a chemical called TFM that kills the lamprey.
Wildlife managers spread the lampricide in streams in the spring. It kills some of the
young lamprey as they swim down into the lake.


University of Minnesota biologist Peter Sorensen says he and other scientists noticed that
TFM kills not just the juveniles, but the larvae that live in the streambed too. They also
realized, after a stream is treated, very few adult lamprey come back to the stream to
spawn, or lay new eggs.


“And this led to an observation decades ago, which was key, that adult lamprey must be
selective in how they pick streams. They only pick a few, and if you remove the larvae
they don’t seem to go in there.”


Scientists suspected the larvae might play a role in the spawning migration of adults.
That might mean the larvae are putting out a pheromone that tells the adults it’s a good
place to spawn. Just one larva attracts a lot of adult lamprey, indicating the pheromone
is very potent.


It was up to Jared Fine to determine what the chemical is. Fine is a PhD student working
with Peter Sorensen. For two years he sifted through the water in tanks holding lamprey
larvae.


“Separating the different chemical compounds, testing them biologically, seeing which
ones have activity, coming back to the active ones, further separating them, and just
repeating this until you get down to the one or two or three compounds that have the
activity.”


Fine narrowed it down to three compounds. He purified them and gave them to a colleague in the chemistry department, Thomas Hoye. Hoye created a synthetic version of the most potent pheromone. He says it should be possible to produce it on a large scale, and that means it could be used to treat the
Great Lakes. The question is, how much would he need?


“You know, would it be a tank car load, would it be a football field, would it be a dump
truck? It’s none of those. Would it be a barrel? No. Is it a bucket-full? No. In
fact it’s only about 500 grams, that’s just one pound, would treat all that water for a
month.”


And that’s all it would take, because the lamprey only spawn for a month, but the
treatment would have to happen once a year. Peter Sorensen says when lamprey
approach a stream to spawn, their clock is ticking. They have a powerful urge to lay
eggs, and once they’ve done that, they die.


“They are driven animals. Frankly they’re kind of on autopilot and pheromones are
what’s driving that autopilot to a very large extent, and now that we’ve got it, I think we
can really powerfully use that to our advantage.”


Sorensen says fisheries managers could use the pheromone to attract more lampreys to
streams outfitted with traps.


“You know the key here is the fact that this pheromone is natural, safe, and should be
very inexpensive to add.”


Fisheries managers hope the pheromone will help reduce the cost of controlling the
lamprey and add a new weapon to their arsenal.


The news on lamprey couldn’t have come at a better time for wildlife managers
around Lake Superior. After years of relatively constant numbers, the lamprey
population jumped dramatically this year. Scientists say lamprey may be finding new
spawning grounds in the mouths of streams, where lampricide is less effective. They’re
hoping they can use the pheromone to draw the lamprey to traps further upstream.


For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Wetlands – Where Life Begins

  • Great Lakes coastal wetlands filter water, give lots of wildlife a place to live and help prevent erosion. These wetlands are also greatly responsible for feeding the fish of the Great Lakes. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes were identified for us by experts from all over the region.
Again and again they stressed that the shores and wetlands along the lakes were critical to the
well-being of the lakes and the life in them. Great Lakes coastal wetlands filter water, give lots of
wildlife a place to live and help prevent erosion. But the coastal wetlands are also greatly
responsible for feeding the fish of the Great Lakes. Biologists are finding that when people try to
get rid of the wetlands between them and their view of the lake, it hurts the fish populations.
Reporter Chris McCarus takes us to where life begins in the lakes:

Transcript

We’ve been bringing you the series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. One of the
keys to the health of the lakes is the connection between the lakes and the land.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through the series:


The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes were identified for us by experts from all over the region.
Again and again they stressed that the shores and wetlands along the lakes were critical to the
well-being of the lakes and the life in them. Great Lakes coastal wetlands filter water, give lots of
wildlife a place to live and help prevent erosion. But the coastal wetlands are also greatly
responsible for feeding the fish of the Great Lakes. Biologists are finding that when people try to
get rid of the wetlands between them and their view of the lake, it hurts the fish populations.
Reporter Chris McCarus takes us to where life begins in the lakes:


(sound of walking in water)


About a dozen researchers have come to Saginaw Bay off of Lake Huron. They walk from the
front yard of a cottage into some tall grass and black mud out back. The coastal wetland is wide
here.


Don Uzarski is a professor from Grand Valley State University. He wants to see just how many
different kinds of microorganisms live in this wetland. He asks a colleague to dip a fine mesh net
into the muck.


“Why don’t you give us your best scoop there…”


The net’s contents are poured into a tray. The water and muck is pushed aside and tiny animals
are revealed. None of them is any bigger than an inch.


“There are a lot organisms right there. That’s a lot of fish food. Lot of water boatmen. We have
scuds swimming through here. We have snails. Probably a bloodworm. I don’t see it. But the
red thing.”


Uzarski says this is a healthy patch of wetland. It’s where Great Lakes life begins.


“The whole community starts here. And we’re talking about everything from the birds and fish
and all the things that people tend to care about more. But without this stuff we don’t have
anything.”


These microorganisms are at the bottom of the food chain. Lake trout, walleye and salmon are at
the top. But this natural order has been disturbed by humans. Only parts of the wetland are able
to work as nature intended. The bugs, snails and worms are supposed to be everywhere here. But
Uzarski says they’re not.


“Look at if we take 20 steps over there we’re not going to find the same thing. It’s gonna be
gone. And where’s that coming from? It’s coming from these disturbed edges. Which were
disturbed by? It was the spoils from dredging out that ditch right there.”


The dredging material is piled along the edge… a bit like a dike. Uzarski says that’s one of the
three main threats to coastal wetlands.


The dikes stop the natural flow of water. Farm and lawn fertilizers, sediment and chemical
pollution are not filtered out when they run off the land. Dikes also stop the water from carrying
food for fish out into the lake… and in the other direction, water can’t bring oxygen from the lake
into the wetlands. They’re at risk of becoming stagnant pools.


A second threat to the wetlands is alien invasive plants. Ornamental plants intended for gardens
have escaped. Phragmites, purple loosestrife, and European water milfoil among others all choke
out the native plants that help make the wetland systems work.


But… the greatest threat to the coastal wetlands is construction. We’ve been building homes,
buildings and parking lots right over the top of some of the Great Lakes’ most critical wetlands.


Sam Washington is Executive Director of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the state’s
largest hunting and fishing advocacy group. He says we need healthy wetlands if we want to
keep fishing the Great Lakes.


“If we didn’t have wetlands, if we didn’t have the ability to regenerate the bottom foods in the
food cycle of these animals, we wouldn’t have the big fish that people go out in the Great Lakes
to catch everyday. They just wouldn’t be there.”


Washington says the way to fix the problem is easy… but it will require us to do something that
comes really hard…


“The best thing human beings can do for wetlands, even though we really believe we know how
to fix everything, is just to leave ’em alone.”


Sam Washington gets support from the biologists who tromp out into the wetlands. They say
we’ve got to protect the whole food chain… so we should leave wetlands alone and just let nature
do its job.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

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Ten Threats: Dead Zones in the Lakes

  • These fishermen at Port Clinton, Ohio, are a few miles away from the dead zone that develops in Lake Erie every summer... so far, most fish can swim away from the dead zone. But the dead zone is affecting the things that live at the bottom of the lake. (Photo by Lester Graham)

One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is nonpoint source pollution. That’s pollution that
doesn’t come from the end of a pipe. It’s oil washed off parking lots by storms, or pesticides and
fertilizers washed from farm fields. Nonpoint source pollution might be part of the reason why
some shallow areas in the Great Lakes are afflicted by so-called dead zones every summer.

Transcript

In another report on the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes series, reporter Lester Graham looks at a
growing problem that has scientists baffled:


One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is nonpoint source pollution. That’s pollution that
doesn’t come from the end of a pipe. It’s oil washed off parking lots by storms, or pesticides and
fertilizers washed from farm fields. Nonpoint source pollution might be part of the reason why
some shallow areas in the Great Lakes are afflicted by so-called dead zones every summer.


Dead zones are places where there’s little or no oxygen. A dead zone develops in Lake Erie
almost every summer. It was once thought that the problem was mostly solved. But, it’s become
worse in recent years.


(sound of moorings creaking)


The Environmental Protection Agency’s research ship, the Lake Guardian, is tied up at a dock at
the Port of Cleveland. Nathan Hawley and his crew are loading gear, getting ready for a five day
cruise to check some equipment that measures a dead zone along the central basin of Lake Erie.


“What I have out here is a series of bottom-resting moorings that are collecting time series data of
currents and water temperature and periodically we have to come out here and clean them off and
we take that opportunity to dump the data as well.”


Hawley is gathering the data for scientists at several universities and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. The information helps
them measure the behavior of the dead zone that occurs nearly every year in Lake Erie…


“What we’re trying to do this year is get a more comprehensive picture of how big this low-oxygen zone is and how it changes with time over the year.”


One of the scientists who’ll be pouring over the data is Brian Eadie. He’s a senior scientist with
NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. He says Lake Erie’s dead zone is a place
where most life can’t survive…


“We’re talking about near the bottom where all or most of the oxygen has been consumed so
there’s nothing for animals to breathe down there, fish or smaller animals.”


Lester Graham: “So, those things that can swim out of the way, do and those that can’t…”


Brian Eadie: “Die.”


The dead zone has been around since at least the 1930’s. It got really bad when there was a huge
increase in the amount of nutrients entering the lake. Some of the nutrients came from sewage,
some from farm fertilizers and some from detergents. The nutrients, chiefly phosphorous, fed an
explosion in algae growth. The algae died, dropped to the bottom of the lake and rotted. That
process robbed the bottom of oxygen. Meanwhile, as spring and summer warmed the surface of
Lake Erie, a thermal barrier was created that trapped the oxygen-depleted water on the bottom.


After clean water laws were passed, sewage treatment plants were built, phosphorous was banned
from most detergents, and better methods to remove phosphorous from industrial applications
were put in place.


Phosphorous was reduced to a third of what it had been. But Brian Eadie says since then
something has changed.


“The concentration of nutrients in the central basin the last few years has actually been going up.
We don’t understand why that’s happening.”


Eadie says there are some theories. Wastewater from sewage plants might be meeting pollution
restrictions, but as cities and suburbs grow, there’s just a lot more of it getting discharged. More
volume means more phosphorous.


It could be that tributaries that are watersheds for farmland are seeing increased phosphorous. Or
it could be that the invasive species, zebra mussel, has dramatically altered the ecology of the
lakes. More nutrients might be getting trapped at the bottom, feeding bacteria that use up oxygen
instead of the nutrients getting taken up into the food chain.


Whatever is happening, environmentalists are hopeful that the scientists figure it out soon.


Andy Buchsbaum heads up the Great Lakes office of the National Wildlife Federation. He says
the dead zone in the bottom of the lake affects the entire lake’s productivity.


“If you’re removing the oxygen there, for whatever reason, for any period of time, you’ve
completely thrown that whole system out of balance. It’s all out of whack. It could mean
irreversible and devastating change to the entire ecosystem.”


And Buchsbaum says the central basin of Lake Erie is not the only place where we’re seeing this
low-oxygen problem…


“What makes the dead zone in Lake Erie even more alarming is that we’re seeing similar dead
zones appearing in Saginaw Bay which is on Lake Huron and Green Bay in Lake Michigan.
There, too, scientists don’t know what’s causing the problem. But, they’re already seeing
potentially catastrophic effects on aquatic life there.”


State and federal agencies and several universities are looking at the Lake Erie dead zone to try to
figure out what’s going on there. Once they do… then the battle likely will be getting
government to do what’s necessary to fix the problem.


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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