Tag: foreign

New Ship Has Balance Without Ballast

  • A diagram of the ballast-free ship (Photo courtesy of Professor Michael Parsons)

Cargo ships move sea life around the world.
Moving aquatic life from one port to another can cause
environmental havoc. Lester Graham reports there’s a
new idea that could nearly eliminate the problem of
transporting sea life to foreign ports:

Transcript

Cargo ships move sea life around the world.
Moving aquatic life from one port to another can cause
environmental havoc. Lester Graham reports there’s a
new idea that could nearly eliminate the problem of
transporting sea life to foreign ports:

There is an invasion of every major port on the globe.

“Today, the world’s shores are under attack. Armies of aliens are secretly invading our coasts.”

If this video, Invaders from the Sea, from the International Maritime
Organization sounds a little over-dramatic, it’s really not. Invaders from far-flung
corners of the world are brought in by commerce. In their travels, cargo ships pick up the
hitchhikers.

Those hitchhikers can be fish, mussels – aquatic bugs of all kinds. They can become
pests. Out-compete native species for food and space. They can destroy the
native ecosystems and often damage the economic well-being of people.

Here’s how it happens. Ocean-going cargo ships dock at a foreign port. They pump in
water for ballast to keep the ship stable. They also pump in some of the living things in
the water. When they arrive at the destination port, they can pump out that water and
the critters that were sucked up with it.

In the US, ports from Chesapeake Bay to San Francisco have been invaded. But,
the Great Lakes have been hit especially hard by invasive species.

Michael Parsons is a professor of naval architecture at the University of Michigan. He
says when foreign ships were able to come in from the Atlantic and travel as far as
inland as Duluth, Minnesota; they brought a lot of invaders with them.

“With the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the ‘50’s, that led to increased
introduction of non-indigenous species such as the zebra mussel, and the round goby, and
the ruffe, and the various smaller creatures that have been brought in to the Great Lakes.”

Those creatures have damaged the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. And they’ve cost the economy.
By one Environmental Protection Agency estimate about five-billion dollars a year.

Parsons and his colleagues have been working to design a ship that has no need for
ballast. In the lab, a scale model has been tested in a long pool. Instead of pumping
water in and out of the ballasts, the water would flow through big
tubes that run the length of the ship.

“And so, that’ll create a slow flow through these trunks so that they’re always swept
clean of foreign water.”

“A ship like that is just what we need in the Great Lakes.”

Andy Buchsbaum runs the Great Lakes office of the environmental group, the National
Wildlife Federation.

“If you eliminate the need for ballast water altogether, then you’re eliminating the vast
majority of invasive species introductions that come in through the discharge of ballast.”

The ballast-free ship design is creating some excitement. Even the shipping industry is
paying attention because the ship also is more fuel efficient.

If someone decides to actually build the ballast-free cargo ship, it’ll be a while before
the first one is on the high seas.

Allegra Cangelosi has been working on the ballast and invasive species problem for
close to a decade. She’s a policy analyst with the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

“I think it’s a wonderful development. I don’t think there’s going to be any one answer
for all ships plying all waters throughout the globe. However, the more good answers
that are out there to choose from, the better for the environment.”

Some of those choices are filtering ballast water or killing organisms in the ballast with
chemicals. Those systems are expensive. And since fuel isn’t getting any cheaper, that
might make a more fuel-efficient ballast-free ship attractive.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Big Ships Required to Flush

  • A ship discharging its ballast water (Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)

Ships should be bringing in fewer unwanted
pests into the Great Lakes. Both Canada and the
U-S are now requiring ships to flush out their
ballast water tanks before entering the lakes.
Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

Ships should be bringing in fewer unwanted pests into the Great
Lakes. Both Canada and the U.S. are now requiring ships to flush out their
ballast water tanks before entering the lakes. Tracy Samilton reports:

Ships need to take on ballast water to keep them stable. When they pump in
water from freshwater foreign ports, they also suck up pests.

Since 2006,
Canada has required ships to flush their tanks with salty ocean water
before entering the Great Lakes. The U.S. adopted the requirement at the
start of this year.

Collister Johnson is with the U.S. side of the St.
Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Great
Lakes. He says the rule will eliminate almost 99% of freshwater
pests in ballast tanks.

“If they’re exposed to salt water, especially full strength sea water, they
are effectively killed.”

Samilton: “Why didn’t we do this before?”

Johnson: (laughs) “I don’t know.”

It won’t completely eliminate the problem because some aquatic pests can
still survive in the sediment in the bottom of ballast tanks.

For The Environment Report I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Stopping Ships’ Stowaways

  • A ship discharging its ballast water (Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)

Congress might take a final vote soon on a bill
that would make foreign ships treat ballast water to
kill unwanted species, before entering US waters.
Many environmental groups support the measure, but some
worry about the loss of state control. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

Congress might take a final vote soon on a bill
that would make foreign ships treat ballast water to
kill unwanted species, before entering US waters.
Many environmental groups support the measure, but some
worry about the loss of state control. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Backers of the ballast water requirement, recently passed by the House, hope to reduce the
number of invasive species brought in by foreign vessels.

Dozens of non-native species, like the zebra mussel, are causing major problems in the
Great Lakes. But the group ‘Midwest Environmental Advocates’ is raising concerns.

Executive Director Karen Schapiro says the House bill would prevent states from
developing ballast water treatment standards that are tougher than federal law, or that
take effect sooner.

“You know we would like to see the most feasibly stringent standards on the table, on the books,
even if that’s done on a state by state basis.”

But the shipping industry says it doesn’t want a patchwork of state regulations. The
national ballast water language is part of a Coast Guard bill that still has to be reconciled
with a Senate measure.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Citizen Lawsuit Targets Foreign Ships

  • Ocean vessel loading grain at elevator in Superior, Wisconsin. Nine foreign ships have been identified in the lawsuit against international shipping companies. (Photo by Jerry Bielicki, USACOE)

For decades foreign ships have brought tiny stowaways – called invasive
species – into the United States. And once they get loose, they upend
ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage. The shipping
industry has yet to seriously address the problem, and now conservation
and environmental groups are suing the companies they say are most at
fault. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

For decades foreign ships have brought tiny stowaways – called invasive
species – into the United States. And once they get loose, they upend
ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage. The shipping
industry has yet to seriously address the problem, and now conservation
and environmental groups are suing the companies they say are most at
fault. Mark Brush has more:


In 1988, the now infamous zebra mussel slipped out of a ship’s ballast
tank near Detroit. It didn’t take long for it to spread, first
throughout the Great Lakes, then through the Ohio and Mississpi rivers,
then on to Alabama and Oklahoma, and now it’s as far west as Nevada.


The mussels clog up intake pipes at water and power plants and mess up
the food chain. In some places in the Great Lakes, they’ve severely
damaged the sport fishing industry.


And that’s the damage just one foreign pest can do. More than a
hundred have gotten in and more are on the way. The government has
done little to stop the spread of these pests from foreign ships. In
2005, a federal court in California ordered the EPA to set up a system.
The EPA appealed that ruling.


Andy Buchsbaum is the Director of the National Wildlife Federation’s
Great Lakes office. He says ballast water from foreign ships should be
regulated:


“The law is very clear. The Clean Water Act says you cannot discharge
pollution into navigable waters, like the Great Lakes, without first
obtaining a permit. Period. Any discharge without a permit
is illegal.”


So, instead of waiting for the EPA to act, several environmental and
conservation groups, including Buchsbaum’s group, say they are planning
to sue several shipping companies that operate ocean-going boats on the
Great Lakes. They’re targeting nine boats they feel are the biggest
violators.


Industry representatives have said that ballast water regulations would
hurt international shipping, but in the Great Lakes, it’s estimated
that ocean-going ships make up only 6% of the overall tonnage.


Joel Brammeier is with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, one of the
groups that intends to sue the ship owners. He says a few ocean-going
boats have caused a lot of damage:


“The cost savings that we’re seeing from allowing unregulated ocean
shipping on the Lakes pales compared to the economic burden that
invasive species are placing on the Lakes. That’s stunning. The
ocean-going shipping industry is actually bringing in less than the
region is losing because of the things that ocean going ships
unintentionally bring in.”


The environmental and conservation groups who intend to sue say there
are ballast water cleaning technologies available now. The National
Wildlife Federation’s Andy Buchsbaum says they’re willing to back off
their lawsuit if the ship owners promise to clean up their ballast
water:


“This legal action is not designed to shut down the shipping industry
in the Great Lakes. That is not our intention. Our intention is to
get these guys to comply with the Clean Water Act. And that means
putting on treatment technology and getting permits.”


The shipping industry says it needs more time. Steve Fisher is with
the American Great Lakes Ports Association. He concedes there are some
technologies to clean up ballast water:


“I’ll be very frank with you. There’s technologies out there that will
do something.”


(Brush:) “So, why not use those?”


“Because a ship owner needs to know how high the bar is before he jumps
over it.”


In other words the ship owners won’t clean up their ballast water until
the federal government tells them how clean is clean, and so far, the
federal government hasn’t done that.


The EPA and the shipping industry say they’re working on the decades
old problem, but the groups that intend to sue say they’re not moving
fast enough. More invasive species are getting in. They’re hoping the threat of a
lawsuit will help force more action sooner.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Migrant Workers: Reaping Education

  • The migrant children spend a lot of time with their families. In their culture, life revolves around family and community events. (Photo by Gary Harwood )

Lots of farm workers in the U.S. are migrants from Mexico and other southern places.
Many farm owners say they couldn’t be profitable growing food without these migrants.
But the workers are growing something of their own: children. The children are often uprooted. Julie Grant reports on the challenges of educating children whose lives are dictated by the growing season:

Transcript

Lots of farm workers in the U.S. are migrants from Mexico and other southern places.
Many farm owners say they couldn’t be profitable growing food without these migrants.
But the workers are growing something of their own: children. The children are often
uprooted. Julie Grant reports on the challenges of educating children whose lives are
dictated by the growing season:


In this farm town another house or trailer empties nearly every night. The growing season
is over and migrant workers are leaving, headed to Florida, Texas, Mexico, or someplace
else. That means their children will be pulled out of school. Cyndee Farrell is principal
of the elementary school:


“They’ll just not show up. Sometimes we get word, ‘Oh, we’re leaving tomorrow.’ Other
times, if the weather changes over the weekend or whatever happens and they just decide,
oh, we’re going to leave, they pack up and go. They know they can count on us being here when
they return, and we make it work.”


The migrant children leave as most students are just settling in to the semester.


For some migrants, it’s the only schooling they’ll get until they return to Ohio in April or
May, just a few weeks before the end of the school year.


Lisa Hull teaches reading to 4th and 5th graders. She says the migrants add a whole new
culture to this rural school. They laugh a lot and almost always seem happy.


But she says they don’t treat the classroom like the American kids:


“They don’t value education as well as i would say a normal, typical American would.
They have a different lifestyle. They’re easy going. We’re into all the possessions and
stuff, whereas they don’t really care if they have anything.”


The migrant children spend a lot of time with their families. The families are close and
they stay close. In their culture, life revolves around family and community events. One
person’s birthday is usually reason enough for an entire migrant neighborhood to
celebrate.


(Sound of knocking on door)


“Where is everybody?”


It’s Friday night and neighbor Pat Moore drops in on the Soto Family. They’ve just come
in from weeding lettuce in the fields. They’ve been migrating to rural Ohio from outside
Mexico City for more than a decade. The three ‘boys’ are all grown now and have
become U.S. citizens. They all graduated from Mexican high schools. 21 year-old
Alberto Soto also wanted a diploma from an American high school, so he stayed in this
town of Hartville on his own one winter:


“That year, I saw the snow for my first time. Here, it was too cold.”


The whole family is gathered in the living room: all three brothers, two younger sisters.
The mother and father don’t speak English, but they sit and listen, as Alberto Soto
explains why he stayed in Ohio that year:


“To finish my high school, I was in 12th grade. So I think that was important for me.
To get my diploma so I can get a better job, so they can pay me more. An easy job. Not
too hard like in the fields.”


Soto says he cried when his family left. He was lonely. But even after staying that
winter, he still hadn’t learned enough to graduate. He quit school and he’s been working
in the fields with his family since then. His 19 year-old brother Marco Soto has also
become an expert at weeding lettuce. Marco says it’s hard, boring work and he wants to
do something else:


“I think everything is going to be the same every year. And you are not going to learn something to do something because here, is almost the same. Like what you do everyday is going to be the same, like if you want to stay here for the rest of your life, it’s gonna be the same thing and you are not going to learn anything.”


Educators say most migrants need more schooling to improve their lives, but foreign-
born Hispanic students have the highest dropout rate in the U.S. The migrant
neighborhoods in the Hartville area are looking dark these days, but they’ll spring back to
life when the growing season begins again. The public school teachers say they’ll do
their best to keep working with the students who return.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Big Three Pump Up Ethanol

Leaders from Detroit’s Big Three automakers say they’ll
double the number of vehicles that run on renewable fuels by 2010.
The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has more:

Transcript

Leaders from Detroit’s Big Three automakers say they’ll double the number of vehicles
that run on renewable fuels by 2010. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has more:


General Motors, Ford and the Chrysler group have lagged behind their foreign rivals in
producing fuel-saving hybrid technology. But they’ve been out front when it comes to
producing cars and trucks that can run on ethanol-based E85.


Now, the heads of the three companies say they’ll have 10 million E85 capable vehicles
on the road by the end of the decade. And they’re asking Congress to help gas stations
pay for installing more E85 pumps.


Sue Cischke is Ford’s Vice President of Environmental and Safety Engineering. She says
E85 cuts down on the use of fossil fuels:


“And there really is a net benefit from a CO2 standpoint from ethanol produced by corn.”


Some critics argue that if you include the energy needed to grow and refine the corn,
ethanol doesn’t provide much of an environmental benefit.


For the GLRC, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Expanding the Seaway

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

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

Transcript

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


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


(Sound of rumbling noise of front-loaders)


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


(Sound of crashing cargo)


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Closing a Door

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

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

Transcript

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


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


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


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


GRAHAM: “Oh, yeah. I see.”


MCCLELLAN: “You see a line?”


GRAHAM: “Right.”


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


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


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


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


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


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


(Sound of footsteps thumping on metal)


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Natives Bite Back

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

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

Transcript

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


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


(waves)


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


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


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


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


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


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


(Sound of walking over rocks and zebra mussels)


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


(Sound of fisherman casting a spinning rod)


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Ten Threats: Predicting New Invaders

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

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

Transcript

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


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


(Sound of boat motor)


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


For the GLRC, I’m Zach Peterson.

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