Beaches throughout the Great Lakes have long been plagued by bacteria that can make people sick. For the first time in the region, researchers will test a filter designed to guard a swimming beach from hazardous bacteria. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports:
Transcript
Beaches throughout the Great Lakes have long been plagued by bacteria that can make people
sick. For the first time in the region, researchers will test a filter designed to guard a swimming
beach from hazardous bacteria. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports:
Next April, the Chicago Park District plans to install and test an eighteen-hundred foot-long
floating filter system. A similar technology was used to protect fish hatcheries during the 1989
Exxon Valdez oil spill. And studies show the system has been successful in decreasing bacteria
levels at New York beaches.
Jim Miner is the Executive Vice-President of Gunderboom Incorperated, the company that makes
the filter. He says the filter will surround the beach like an underwater curtain:
“What is underwater, the fabric curtain, will not be seen by the swimmer and it is a non-intrusive,
fabric-filtered barrier that goes from the surface to the bottom and it’s anchored there and
protected so that only filtered water can get into the swimming area.”
The technology could reduce swimming bans at city beaches.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.
Beaches along Lake Michigan were closed more often this year as a result of high bacteria levels, according to a new report. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
Beaches along Lake Michigan were closed more often this year as a result of high
bacteria levels, according to a new report. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah
Hulett reports:
The report from the Chicago-based Lake Michigan Federation says beach closings and
advisories were at an all-time high in 2002 – at nearly 900 in Wisconsin, Illinois,
Michigan, and Indiana.
Part of the spike can be attributed to more frequent testing in coastal counties. But
Federation director Cameron Davis says an uptick in sewage spills and wastewater
overflows are also to blame. Davis says tracking and cleaning up pollution sources should
be the next step for communities along the Lake Michigan coast.
“That is absolutely key, because right now, so much of the debate has been on monitoring
technology and whether counties are even testing in the first place. We need to start to
move beyond that to identify sources and eliminate them once and for all.”
Davis says Indiana lawmakers recently passed legislation aimed at reducing sewer
overflows. And voters in Michigan are considering whether to approve a billion dollar
bond proposal to repair aging sewers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.
Fishing boats that once braved Lake Superior storms now sit idle and deteriorating on the shore of a small village. Some of the local folks believe the remnants of the village’s fishing past should be preserved. Others wonder if some relics of our past should simply be allowed to slowly fade away. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:
Transcript
Fishing boats that once braved Lake Superior storms now sit idle and
deteriorating on the shore of a small village. Some of the local folks
believe the remnants of the village’s fishing past should be preserved.
Others wonder if some relics of our past shouldn’t simply be allowed to
slowly fade away? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson
has more:
(soft sounds of waves)
This quiet, sandy beach in Wisconsin’s northernmost village of Cornucopia is
left with a few hints of its past. Three gray wooden fishing boats sit in
disrepair on the sand dunes…boats that were part of this harbor’s fleet of
25 vessels when the Lake Superior fishing industry was at its peak. These
days, the cool mornings are disturbed only by a town meeting of seagulls…
(seagulls)
They’re waiting for the lone fishing boat to return for a late
breakfast.
(fishing boat engine)
The 44-foot steel hulled Courtney Sue is the last of the fishing boats in
Cornucopia. Brothers Mark and Cliff Halverson continue a family
tradition…bringing in the day’s catch.
“How was the catch?”
“Good enough for what we needed today.”
(sound of boxes sliding onto dock)
“These are lawyers, this is a trout, and the rest are whitefish. Been kind of slow
this year. Gonna pick up, but the water’s real cold yet. The fish are still out deep.”
(sound of sharpening knives)
With sharpened knives, the Halversons gut the fish so fast that the catch
continue to flop about even after filleting.
(sound of slitting fish)
“Been doing it for quite a few years. (slop, slop) Takes awhile
to get used to handling ’em (slop).”
These men are the last of their kind in town. The rest of the fishermen who
sailed on boats like the three beached relics have either left Cornucopia,
retired or died.
Fishing peaked in 1955. Then, it became a casualty of over-fishing and the
invasion of the sea lamprey…a life-sucking eel with no natural enemy in the Great
Lakes. It devastated the fishing.
(fishermen playing cribbage)
Most days you can find 64-year-old “Snooks” Johnson and 74-year-old Harold
Ehlers among a friendly game of cribbage at Corny’s Village Inn.
“Sorry, Harold.”
“Well, you’re gonna get better, I know.”
“Well, I can’t get any worse (laughs).”
Ehler’s family has owned the town general store since 1915. He remembers
the men and women who made fishing their livelihood from the 1920’s till
the 50’s.
“I have to say they were very independent people. They just depended on their skill to make a living.”
Harold Ehler’s store played a critical role…making sure fish got to the
market fresh, and for good prices.
“So their market was mainly in Chicago… my dad spent most of his noon hour
on the phone, which wasn’t that great in those days. Selling the fish. Then we’d go down and tag ’em, put them on a truck and take them to the railroad station in Ashland and so they’d get there the next morning.”
(sound of waves)
The old wooden boats now weathering on the beach are just about all that’s
left of that heritage. Battered letters spell out “The Eagle,” “Ruby,” and
“Twin Sisters.” Some people in Cornucopia hope to save the old boats from
the ravages of Lake Superior. “Snooks” Johnson’s family operated “Twin
Sisters”…and he joined the crew as a teenager in 1955…the last good year.
“Yeah it looks kinda sad, doesn’t it? How it got its name, my Dad’s brother had
twin daughters so that’s what the “Twin Sisters” came from. It was a pretty good boat.”
Johnson says these homemade wooden boats were plenty seaworthy…with lots
of room for fish and a crew of four or five.
“But they all rolled and I’d always get seasick when I was on the thing. Because
when it was rough weather and you took the fish in and piled them up on the
bow so they wouldn’t roll too much, because the bow would keep them confined.
And you had a stove that burned coal just for heat. Someone would start cookin’.
So you would have the engine smells, the coal smells and the half-cooked fish
smells. I spent quite a bit of my time sticking my head out that gangway right
there to chum the fish.”
Johnson says remembers Tom Jones, the builder of these boats. The oldest
dates back to 1927. The others were built in 1935 and 1940.
“What he would do is make half a boat, a model. He’d say well
this is the way you guys want it or whoever one like this, or one like
that. They’d agree on it and that’s how it would turn out. I think he had
about a third or fourth grade education, but he was brilliant. Nobody really
knows how to work on them anymore.”
When Tom Jones passed away, so did the know-how of restoring these boats.
Now, protected only by a rope to keep people from climbing onboard, these
remnants of a more prosperous day slowly decay.
A “Save the Boats” committee was formed, but recently dissolved. This
village of 50 people just doesn’t have enough resources, says the former
co-chair of “Save the Boats,” Phyllis Johnson. She hopes somebody someday
does something for the boats…
“It’ll be as a result of someone saying, “Hey, those boats are lookin’ pretty shabby, aren’t you gonna get the young people around, have them work on them or something.”
But nothing has happened yet. Not even so much as a coat of paint protects
the boats. The sterns and hulls are cracked open. Only one boat has a
propeller. Johnson would like to do something, but she’s realistic.
“In the end they’re going to go back to nature. They’re not going to float again, never. But as a part of heritage, it’s probably better to keep them in as good as shape as we can keep them as long as we can.”
Snooks Johnson says as each season takes its toll on the old boats, it’s
likely preservation isn’t in the cards.
“I don’t know, I kind of like to see it just the way it is.
fishing went to hell, and so do the boats. So they’re kind of following
suit and they’ll still last a long time I guess. I don’t know, a lot of
memories.”
But there are fewer and fewer people to share those memories remaining in
Cornucopia. And fewer people to worry about the fate of the old fishing
boats.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.
Researchers have found that building housing along lakeshores affects the kinds of birds drawn to the area. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Researchers have found that building housing along lakeshores affects the kinds
of birds drawn to the area. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Researchers have been looking at the differences between populations of birds along a lakeshore where houses have been built and where they’ve not. Alec Lindsay is a University of Michigan doctoral student who’s been working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, studying the birds…
“What we found is that the birds that feed on insects were found less frequently on lakes
that had significant shoreline development than lakes that were undeveloped. And on the other hand, birds that feed on seeds which are not normally associated with these sorts of habitats were found more frequently on developed lakes than undeveloped lakes.”
So, lakeshore housing developments might be discouraging the kinds of birds that eat mosquitoes and keep down other insect pests. Conservation officials suggest homeowners should plant more native shrubs and grasses to encourage the bug-eating birds to stay.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Lake Michigan had a record number of beach closings this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has more:
Transcript
Lake Michigan had a record number of beach closings last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.
The Lake Michigan Federation is reporting almost six hundred beach closings on Lake Michigan in 2001. That’s up from just over four hundred last year. Federation director Cameron Davis says most of the closings are due to wastewater carrying bacteria to the lakes when treatment plants are at capacity. He says the solution is to cut back on development near the lakes:
“We need to try to limit the amount of pavement that’s being laid down all across the region, so that rainwater naturally filters through the ground rather than getting shuttled off into a sewage treatment plant.”
Davis says the number of beach closings on Lake Michigan should actually be higher than his report shows. He says Michigan does a poor job testing for bacteria near beaches, and says Wisconsin’s numbers are excluding Sheboygan County where there have been problems in the past. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
Lake Michigan beaches were closed more often this summer than ever before. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports, beach closings can translate into significant economic loss:
Transcript
Lake Michigan beaches were closed more often this summer than ever before. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.
A report from the Lake Michigan Federation shows an all-time high of 600 beach closings in 2001. High levels of bacteria found in the water caused most of the closings. Federation director Cameron Davis says in addition to the environmental problems, the closings have an economic impact on the region:
“Take a look at a place like Chicago that gets 60 million visitors a year to the lakefront. And you get a beach closing Labor Day weekend or a fourth of July weekend. You’re looking at millions of people, some from around the world, that can’t visit the beaches here.”
Davis says the bacteria is getting into the water when heavy rains force wastewater and sewage carrying human and animal waste past treatment plants and into the lake. The Lake Michigan Federation is setting up a center to help citizens and community groups solve bacteria problems at beaches. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
Scientific discoveries sometimes raise more questions than they
answer. That’s been the case since scientists found e-coli bacteria in
the sand of some Great Lakes beaches. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports:
Great Lakes regulators are worried people will start building closer to
the lakes because the water levels are lower. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports…. they want local governments to
restrict building homes where the owners might regret it later:
Similar scenes can be found up and down the eastern shore of
Lake
Michigan.
Now that summer’s officially here, beaches around the region are packed with
tourists and locals. But this year many beaches have been plagued with
unwanted visitors: tens of thousands of dead fish in the water and on the
sand. It’s a revolting sight-and smell – but in fact, the fish play an
important role in the lakes…and present an ongoing management challenge to
biologists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson explains:
The water levels of the Great Lakes are down this year…way down.
Lakes Erie, Michigan and Huron are two feet lower than last year at this
time, Lake Superior is down a foot, while Lake Ontario is down three
feet. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports that
lower lake levels will have a big effect on people who work and play on
the Lakes:
