Michigan Sen. Stabenow: Stop the Asian Carp

  • Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow says we need to move quickly to stop the threat of the Asian Carp on the Great Lakes' eco-system. (Photo: Kate Gardner, Flickr)

By now, you’ve probably heard all about the Asian Carp.

The invasive species is making its way up the Mississippi River and there’s concern that if the fish are able to get into the Great Lakes that they could drastically change the waters’ eco-system.

Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow and Michigan Republican Congressman Dave Camp introduced the Stop the Asian Carp Act last year. The legislation required the Army Corps of Engineers to create a plan to permanently separate the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan.

Transcript

Stopping the Carp

I spoke with Senator Stabenow this week and asked her where things stand with the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan. “The Army Corps of Engineers is working on a plan to give us specific recommendations on how to separate the waters… The problem is they say they won’t have this done until 2015. And, so, what we’re trying to do is push them to get this done much quicker,” Stabenow explains.

The Mississippi River: Not the only entry point for the Carp

A lot of attention has been paid to the Mississippi River as the main entry point where the Carp could get into the Great Lakes. But, Stabenow explains, “We also, now, are looking more broadly than just the Illinois River and the Mississippi River going into Lake Michigan. We’ve found that there have been some fish seen going across Indiana – in the Wabash River. At certain times, during the year, it connects to the Maumee River in Ohio and then actually goes into Lake Erie. And, so, this is a real challenge for us. There is, I believe, nineteen different tributaries and ways to get into the Great Lakes – that’s my biggest worry.”

Chicago shipping interests

Recently, we’ve been hearing more about the idea of permanently separating the waterways rather than a temporary solution. “I believe that we ought to be closing the [Chicago] locks until we get to a permanent solution. But, there is a lot of pushback from Illinois and Chicago,” Stabenow says. Those who work in commercial shipping in Chicago are against the idea of closing the locks. They say it would hurt their multi-million dollar business interests. “Personally, I’d say the other side’s interests are – not that we don’t respect them – but they’re small in terms of economic impact compared to what could happen having the fish go into the Great Lakes.

How to pay for it?

A question remains regarding closure of the waterways: who would pay for a permanent solution?  

“No one knows exactly how much it would cost to shut down the Chicago shipping canals and replace them with something else. But, the price-tag would be big, it could run into the billions of dollars, “Rick Pluta, Lansing Bureau Chief for the Michigan Public Radio Network explains.

Michigan Republican Congressman Dave Camp, Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee told Pluta, “I think there’s enough money certainly in the Great Lakes Restoration Fund that we could use to help with that problem.”

As Pluta explains, the Great Lakes Restoration Fund is used for, “Great Lakes cleanup, dredging and pollution prevention. Camp’s idea could divert funding from those purposes. But, environmentalist groups say restoring a physical separation of the two water systems, and eliminating the danger of non-native species back and forth between them, just might be worth it."

Salmon Fishery on the Rocks

  • The Chinook salmon was initially introduced to the Great Lakes in the 1870s. Michigan, New York and Wisconsin reintroduced the Chinook salmon to the Great Lakes in 1966. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

There’s a decision looming for Lake Huron that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. The state must decide whether it should keep putting chinook salmon in the lake. The fish has been the driving force behind sport fishing in the Great Lakes. But the salmon’s future in the Upper Lakes is now questionable. Peter Payette reports:


It’s hard to overstate how drastically salmon transformed the Great Lakes after they were introduced more than 40 years ago.


Ed Retherford is a charter boat captain on Lake Huron.
He says in the old days on a weekend in Rockport he’d see cars with boat trailers backed up for a mile or two waiting to launch.
But that’s all gone now.


“You’d be lucky, except maybe for the brown trout festival, you’d be lucky to see twenty boats there on a weekend. It just decimated that area. You can imagine the economics involved.”


Chinook or king salmon practically disappeared from Lake Huron about seven years ago. Most of the charter boats are gone now because the kinds of fish that remain are just not as exciting to catch as salmon.


State officials figure little towns like Rockport lose upwards of a million dollars in tourism business every year without the fishery.

More about Chinook salmon from the DNR

A related Environment Report story

Ten Threats to the Great Lakes

Transcript

The salmon’s demise followed the disappearance of its favorite food, little fish called alewives. Scientists say there were too many salmon eating the alewives and problems lower down on the food chain caused by invasive mussels.


State fisheries biologist Jim Johnson says salmon would rather starve than eat something besides an alewife.


“So at first, the salmon went through a period of just being starved out. They didn’t have enough to eat. They wouldn’t switch to eating round gobies and they died of malnutrition.”


The changes in Lake Huron since have been significant.


Neither salmon nor alewives are native to the lake. And with them out of the way, native fish like walleye have come back.


The state continues to stock one and a half million Chinook salmon in Lake Huron every year.


But Jim Johnson says the walleye eat most of them. He says Lake Huron can’t support a big salmon fishery any more.


“It’s just not realistic. The lake doesn’t offer that and there’s nothing the DNR can do to change that.”


The question now is whether to stock any chinook salmon in Huron at all. Giving up on the most popular sport fish in the Great Lakes is hard to swallow but most people see the writing on the wall. So even if stocking continues, it will likely be a fraction of what it once was.


On the other side of the state, there are now worrying signs that the same fate might be in store for Lake Michigan.


There are lots of salmon in Lake Michigan today.


But charter boat captain Denny Grinold says something went wrong last fall. He says the big salmon, the four-year old fish that come up into the rivers to spawn in August, never showed up.


“You keep looking for ‘em. You keep looking for ‘em. You go out and you fish the patterns that you’ve fished in the past. Those large Chinook should be there and they just weren’t there.”


The warm water and lots of windy days last year might account for the missing fish. But research provides no comfort for the future.


The DNR has created a system of red flags to evaluate the conditions for salmon in Lake Michigan. These are based on things like how much food is available, the weight of the fish and how many are being caught.


Twenty of the 30 flags have been triggered.


The manager of Lake Michigan for the Department of Natural Resources, Jim Dexter, says the lake is not a happy place.


“The lake is very perturbed. It’s certainly not a stable, quality ecosystem. I mean it’s working right now. It’s producing a fishery. People are happy but it’s tenuous.”


There’s not much the state can do to change anything.


If the experience of Lake Huron is any guide, it’s the presence of those little feeder fish, alewives, that is critical.


At the moment, there are believed to be fewer alewives in Lake Michigan than at any time on record.


For the Environment Report, I’m Peter Payette.

Kudzunol

  • Kudzu grows wild. (Photo courtesy USDA)

If you’ve ever lived in the south, or even just gone for a visit, you
know kudzu. It’s an invasive weed that grows like crazy in the southern states. Rebecca Williams reports on a new use for the weed:

Transcript

If you’ve ever lived in the south, or even just gone for a visit, you
know kudzu. It’s an invasive weed that grows like crazy in the southern states. Rebecca Williams reports on a new use for the weed:


Kudzu grows about a foot a day.


“And it covers trees, fences, houses – it’ll cover you if you stand still too long.”


That’s Doug Mizell. He says he can run everything from cars to lawnmowers on his kudzunol. It’s a fuel-grade ethanol made from kudzu. He says he got sick of fighting kudzu and decided to figure out how to use it.


“And I thought well, I’m just gonna sit down and make myself a tabletop still and see if I can’t extract some sugars from this stuff and see if I can make some moonshine. And sure enough I was able to do that and the idea of kudzunol kinda grew from that.”


He says kudzunol smells like gin. Right now he’s working on getting patents – and money – to build a commercial plant to make it. He says with those things in place… he’s hoping to sell kudzunol as soon as six months from now.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Killing the Common Carp

  • The Common Carp was introduced a century ago and has been causing havoc in rivers, ponds and lakes ever since. (Image by Duane Raver, courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

In thousands of lakes and ponds across the country, there’s a fish messing up the water.
Some biologists say we’ve never seen these lakes the way nature intended due to the
common carp. The usual method to get rid of the common carp is to kill everything in
the lake and start over. Some biologists think there’s got to be a better way. Joel
Grostephan reports:

Transcript

In thousands of lakes and ponds across the country, there’s a fish messing up the water.
Some biologists say we’ve never seen these lakes the way nature intended due to the common carp. The usual method to get rid of the common carp is to kill everything in
the lake and start over. Some biologists think there’s got to be a better way. Joel
Grostephan reports:


Common carp are like underwater pigs. They root up aquatic plants. They constantly stir
up the mud in the bottoms of lakes, making them murky. And in some lakes, common
carp make up more than half of the total weight of fish. Peter Sorensen is a fisheries
professor at the University of Minnesota:


“With their habit of rooting around night and day, they will completely destroy the
bottoms of lakes, so they become cesspools.”


And it ruins the habitat for many birds and fish too:


“The fact is they are doing enormous damage. At a level that I don’t think people
fully realize. They are living with us, and we don’t know in many cases, what
these lakes and streams and rivers should be like and could be like.”


Common carp have been in U.S. lakes and ponds for more than a century. They came
from Europe and Asia. At the request of new immigrants, the United States government
stocked carp in lakes and rivers in the late 1800’s. Sorensen says it didn’t take long before
there were problems.


By the early 1900’s, it clicked this was a huge mistake, and they started to remove
them. Good records were not kept, and Sorensen says the overall impression is that
removal efforts didn’t work. Most attempts to control the fish are still unreliable. The fish
is very tough. It spawns every year, and females produce nearly a million eggs.


Fisheries managers try to control carp the best they know how. Some hire commercial
fisherman to net the carp. They also use poison — killing all the carp and all the other
fish in the lake and then start over.


Fisheries managers currently use a chemical called Rotenone, which they say is not toxic
to humans. Lee Sundmark is with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources:


“If we see that a lake that a lake way out of balance, might have a lot of carp,
bullheads, tried biological means, and they aren’t working. Sometimes we get to the
point where we use Rotenone to treat it. We basically clean a lake out, and then we
might restock it.”


The trouble is sometimes not all the carp die. And just a handful of them can reproduce
and dominate that lake within a few years. Peter Sorensen and his team of researchers
believe there’s a better way. Sorenson says he does not object to Rotenone poisoning out-
of-hand but, he says, it’s expensive, heavy handed. He and his team have been studying
carp-infested lakes for the past three years to see if they can come up with a new method
to control the fish.


On this cold day, the biologists are surgically implanting radio tags in carp. The
scientists will be tracking these fish so they can find weak points in their lifecycle.
Prezmyslaw Bajer and his colleague Mario Traveline are about to operate on a fish they
caught:


“She will be collecting data that we will then use to remove carp from the lake. She
will be our carp spy.”


The researchers say if they can figure out the habits, and the instincts of the Common
Carp, they will able to control them in way that’s both — effective, and doesn’t kill all the
other fish in the lake. The study’s lead investigator, Sorensen, says this is important
work:


“Something must be done. This is our first, and most damaging species, and if we
don’t do something with this, that like I said, we can do something about — I wonder
what hope there is for any of them. This is to me, the one you got to take out.”


Sorensen says he hopes he can create a model that can be replicated in different parts of
the country. If he’s successful, the ponds, lakes and rivers that have been assaulted by the
carp for the last century might once again be able to host fish and other wildlife that were
forced out.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joel Grostephan.

Related Links

Bird and Fish Poisoning Spreads in Great Lakes

  • Botulism is killing fish and the shorebirds that eat them. The cause is likely due to a disruption in the ecosystem by invasive zebra and quagga mussels. (Photo by Lester Graham)

A deadly toxin is killing fish and birds along the Great Lakes shoreline.
Researchers think type-E botulism works its way up the food chain from
the bottom of the lake through several invasive species. Bob Allen
reports:

Transcript

A deadly toxin is killing fish and birds along the Great Lakes shoreline.
Researchers think type-E botulism works its way up the food chain from
the bottom of the lake through several invasive species. Bob Allen
reports:


These days, Ken Hyde dreads walking the pristine sandy beaches along
the Sleeping Bear Dunes. He’s the biologist in this national lakeshore
along the Michigan coast, and he only has to hike maybe a hundred feet
to find a dead bird twisted head down and half-buried in the sand:


“This is a cormorant. Just in the last two or three weeks we’re
starting to see a lot more of them. So they’re probably starting to
migrate down from the upper parts of the lake.”



Last year botulism killed over 2,500 dead birds along this 35 mile stretch
of shoreline, mostly gulls and diving ducks, including nearly 200 loons
migrating south from Canada.


This year the die-offs started earlier in the summer and struck more
species. The park lost four endangered piping plovers. The National Park
Service brought in a research team from Minnesota to look for answers.
They’ve been diving in the lakeshore now for two years.


What they’ve found is a huge shoal stretching more than a mile off shore.
It’s covered with native green algae and loaded with invasive zebra and
quagga mussels:


The Park’s research boat docks at a small village along Lake Michigan.
Dive team leader Brenda Moraska Lafrancois was surprised when she
first saw the underwater landscape:


“Last year when we first dove this area we went down and it was
shocking how little of the biomass down there was native. I think
we’re looking at a really altered system.”


Here’s what researchers know so far. The mussels filter nutrients from
the water, the clearer water allows more sunlight to reach the bottom, and
that spurs more algae growth. For good measure, the mussels excrete
phosphorus, in effect fertilizing the algae in the near shore zone. When
millions of mussels and big globs of algae begin to decompose, that uses up
most of the oxygen in water near the bottom of the lake, and that’s a
condition just right for a naturally occurring botulism to grow.


So how does the botulism migrate from the bottom to the surface and
poison shorebirds? Enter the round goby. It’s a small invasive fish that
comes from the same Caspian Sea area where zebra mussels originated.


Last year the research team at Sleeping Bear saw gobies in some places.
Now, says Byron Carnes, everywhere they looked when diving on algae
beds there solid sheets of mussels and blankets of gobies, and he
watched them feeding on mussels:


“Part of the zebra quagga mussel that is the juiciest these guys tend
to go right in and do this frenzy feeding where they just come in and
start pounding away at all the broken shells and trying to get out as
much of the good stuff inside the quagga mussel as they possibly
can.”


Mussels don’t have a nervous system, so they aren’t harmed by botulism
toxin. But when gobies get a dose they flop around on the surface for a
day or so while succumbing, and that’s when shorebirds pick up an easy
but potentially deadly meal.


Some diving ducks may also get poisoned by feeding directly on the
mussels. That’s the theory most scientists in the field think explains
what’s happening, but Harvey Bootsma says it’s not active all the time, so
it’s hard to prove each step. He’s with the Great Lakes Water Institute in
Milwaukee:


“I think the problem is it’s usually a sporadic and short-lived event
when this occurs. And unless somebody happens to be fortuitously
collecting the right samples at the right place and the right time it”s
very difficult to pin down the process as it’s occurring.”



While researchers try to pin down the effects of invasive species in one
place, the cycle spins off somewhere else. This fall there are half as
many dead birds along the Sleeping Bear Dunes shore as last year, but
the die-off is now spreading farther north along the Lake Michigan coast,
and there have been similar outbreaks along Lakes Erie and Huron.


So far Harvey Bootsma says there are no good solutions to break the
cycle of algae, mussels and gobies that scientists think is transporting
botulism toxin to shorebirds.


“And it’s just a great example of how huge an impact a new species
can have on an ecosystem. And I think it makes it all the more
imperative that we try to stem the tide of exotic species coming into
the Great Lakes.”


Researchers say it may take decades for the Great Lakes to recover from
the effects, if they ever do.


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Virus Killing Great Lakes Giants

  • Fishing guide Rich Clarke of Clayton, NY, is famous for muskie hunts. He's worried so many adult muskies are falling victim to VHS. (Photo courtesy of Rich Clarke)

Fall is when avid anglers flock to the Great Lakes for one of the most
challenging freshwater catches: the muskellunge, or muskie. Some call it
“the fish of 10,000 casts.” This year’s muskie season is clouded by bad news
of a new fish disease and invasive species crowding muskie habitat. David
Sommerstein reports scientists are watching this top-of-the-food-chain
species carefully:

Transcript

Fall is when avid anglers flock to the Great Lakes for one of the most
challenging freshwater catches: the muskellunge, or muskie. Some call it
“the fish of 10,000 casts.” This year’s muskie season is clouded by bad news
of a new fish disease and invasive species crowding muskie habitat. David
Sommerstein reports scientists are watching this top-of-the-food-chain
species carefully:




It’s a cool afternoon as fishing guide Rich Clarke fillets the day’s catch:


“Went out, caught some northerns, a few bass, some jack perch. Had a
pretty good morning.”


Clarke’s specialty is hunting for muskies, 60 pound fish with a lot of fight:


“I mean, the rod screams, they yank, yank, and yank. It doesn’t come all that
often, but when it comes, it’s one of the most exciting things you’ll see when
you fish in fresh water.”


Clarke worries that magical hit might become even more rare. Since 2005,
several hundred of those prized muskies were found belly-up dead, victims
of viral hemorrhagic septicimia, or VHS.


(Sound of hose)


Clarke washes down his fillet table. He mutters VHS is just another non-
native organism threatening the muskie. There are already more than 180
invasive species in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River system:


“Everything from the goby to the , y’know, and weed species and all
sorts of stuff, spiny water fleas, you name it, all sorts of stuff that are not native to this
waterway that we have to deal with, and it changes the whole ecology.”


A new invasive species is found every six to nine months. Scientists can
barely keep up in understanding the impact on the native environment.




In a nearby bay of the St. Lawrence River in northern New York State,
Roger Klindt, John Farrell, and a crew drag a huge net through the water:


“We’ve got two people pulling it slowly through the vegetation just trying
to basically corral fish.”


This is called seining, getting a sample of all the fish that live here. Klindt
and Farrell have been doing this in the same marshy shallows for more than
20 years. And Farrell says what they’ve found this year is disturbing:


“Muskellunge numbers in the index are at their lowest levels on record since
we’ve been collecting data.”


Down from almost 50 in the spring spawning run of 2003 to just 4 this year.
Farrell’s a researcher with the State University of New York Environmental
Science and Forestry. He says this could be the result of VHS killing so
many adult muskies in their reproductive prime.




Yet another invasive species is also troubling, the round goby. It’s an ugly
little fish from Eastern Europe that breeds like crazy. Farrell and Klindt
count minnows flipping and fluttering in the seining net:


“15 black gins, 8 blunt nose, 5 spot tail.”


“I didn’t actually count things, I was just picking gobies.”


Farrell says they’ve found more round gobies in these marshes than ever
before:


“Which is a bit of a surprise to us.”


Now the muskie young have to compete with round gobies for food:


“How these species are going to respond to the presence of gobies is
unknown at this time, but they have high predation rates, they’re very
prolific, becoming extremely abundant, so the food web in this system is
shifting.”


This is what frustrates people who study invasive species. Once researchers
train their focus on one, like the fish disease VHS, another emerges to
confound the equation. Roger Klindt is with New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation
:


“Change happens, y’know, nothing stays the same forever. But when we
have invasive species and exotic species come in, the change is often so
rapid that native species can’t adapt to it.”


That talk makes anglers nervous. Peter Emerson’s been fishing around here
for years. In fact, he participated in a catch and release program that brought
muskie populations back to health in the 1980s:


“There was a real bonanza, til this virus showed up. I’m hopeful they don’t
go extinct.”


Biologists expect adult muskies that survived VHS will develop resistance to
the disease. But they fear the next generation won’t inherit the immunity,
causing more die-offs of one of America’s most prized freshwater fish.


For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Warming to Change Great Lakes Ecosystem?

Some researchers say global warming will impact fish habitat in the
Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Some researchers say global warming will impact fish habitat in the
Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Some scientists have projected that more global warming will mean less
rain and snow falling into the Great Lakes and the continuation
of low water levels.


Researcher Brian Shuter is with the Ontario Ministry of Natural
Resources. He says if the projection comes true, there will be
more stress on the millions of Great Lakes fish:


“I mean the space for fish to live in is just gonna shrink and the less
space there is, the less fish there will be.”


Shuter also anticipates higher summertime water temperatures and less
ice cover in the lakes. That’s a change that could lead to more warm
water fish like bass and fewer of the cold water fish like salmon
and trout that people like to eat.


Shuter says the change could also promote the growth of invasive
species that favor warmer water temperatures. So, he encourages tighter
controls on invasives and more water conservation programs.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Live Animal Import Laws

A recent report accuses the federal government of failing to take simple, inexpensive steps that could reduce the risk of live animal imports. Zebra mussels, Asian carp, and pets that get loose, such as Burmese pythons in Florida, hurt native wildlife and can damage the nation’s economy. Lester Graham talked with Peter Jenkins, one of the authors of the report issued by the Defenders of Wildlife. Jenkins says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is one of the agencies that needs to do a better job screening for invasive species:

Transcript

A recent report accuses the federal government of failing to take simple, inexpensive steps that could reduce the risk of live animal imports. Zebra mussels, Asian carp, and pets that get loose, such as Burmese pythons in Florida, hurt native wildlife and can damage the nation’s economy. Lester Graham talked with Peter Jenkins, one of the authors of the report issued by the Defenders of Wildlife. Jenkins says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is one of the agencies that needs to do a better job screening for invasive species:


Peter Jenkins: They’re charged with protecting native species. They’re charged with enforcing the
Endangered Species Act, which is an important part of this issue because these non-
native species threaten our native species, including threatening endangered species in
many cases.


Lester Graham: In the past, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has been accused of being too
slow to act, even when a problem is pointed out. Would the regulation changes you’re
talking about help speed that process?


PJ: Well, Congress would have to agree to commit more resources to the agency…I mean,
there is only one person, believe it or not, only one person whose job is to assess species
to be listed under that law to keep out of the country. Obviously, we need more than one,
we need some qualified professionals working this area. We don’t need millions and
millions of dollars, but we do need a significant increase, probably five or six or up to ten
professional staff looking closely at these imported animals to assess whether we’re
gonna have problems and which ones need to be restricted.


Now, how’s that gonna be paid for? Well, the industries that are bringing these species in
and that want to benefit from the import trade, whether it be pet or live animals or
biomedical testing or zoos or what have you…Those people bringing these species in
clearly should carry some of the cost of what they’re bringing in and in that way, the
taxpayers don’t get burdened too much.


LG: As you’ve mentioned, this is as much an economic problem as it is an environmental
problem. Why haven’t the dollars and sense of this issue really had an impact on the
politics behind making sure that we can restrict this kind of trade?


PJ: Well, that’s a great question and defenders of wildlife did do a white paper on the
economic impact of animal imports trade. The reason is very simple…the people who
benefit do not suffer the cost when these things go wrong. That is to say, the costs are
suffered by the public in terms of disease or invasive species concern or pests, so these
costs are externalized or passed on to the general public and it’s the taxpayers in the end
who wind up having to pay the costs. On the whole, these species that are brought in,
non-native species, are brought in for the pet trade…That’s by far the biggest reason that
species are brought in. That’s basically a luxury item, that’s not an essential item. Those
that benefit from luxury items should bare the cost.


LG: Now, nature seems to eventually cope with many of these exotic species, even the
invasive species to one degree or another and some people would say that this biological
pollution is nearly impossible to prevent so why fight the inevitable?


PJ: Uh, I don’t buy that argument at all. It’s like saying diseases are natural and people are
going to eventually cope with diseases, so why bother trying to prevent diseases? I mean,
we do it because we want to protect certain values. We want to protect our native species,
we want to protect human health, we want to protect the health of our livestock. Of
course we need to be protective and have adequate standards. I mean, we don’t need to be
operating under a law that was written in 1900 just because some people think it’s futile
to try to deal with this issue…We could cope with it.


HOST TAG: Peter Jenkins was one of the authors of a Defenders of Wildlife report calling on the government to do a better job of screening live animal imports. He spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham. The report is available at www.defenders.org.

Related Links

Fed Court Okays Ballast Law

A federal judge has upheld the constitutionality of a state law restricting ballast water on
ships entering the Great Lakes. As Rachel Lippmann reports, the ruling clears the way
for other states to take similar action to control the spread of invasive species:

Transcript

A federal judge has upheld the constitutionality of a state law restricting ballast water on
ships entering the Great Lakes. As Rachel Lippmann reports, the ruling clears the way
for other states to take similar action to control the spread of invasive species:


The Michigan law requires ocean-going ships that want to exchange ballast water while
in Michigan ports to clean that water before discharging it into the Great Lakes. The
court rejected arguments from shipping companies that Michigan’s action violated the
Interstate Commerce Clause.


Cameron Davis is the president of the Great Lakes Alliance, which joined the state of
Michigan in the lawsuit. He says the ruling makes it clear states have the right to adopt
their own environmental protections:


“We’re really challenging the other states to quit sitting on the sidelines and start to move
ahead with their own invasive species protections.”


Ohio lawmakers have just proposed similar ballast water law. The bill would also require
Ohio to work with the seven other Great Lakes states and Ontario to develop region-wide
regulations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rachel Lippmann.

Related Links

Saving Historic City Parks

  • In October 2006, a surprise snow storm did considerable damage to the trees in the Olmsted Park System. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

At one time, cities were little more than stone and brick. But in the mid-1800’s
Frederick Law Olmsted began changing all that. The landscape architect
designed some of the most important park systems in the country. But decades
of neglect and nature’s wrath are threatening Olmsted’s largest park system.
Joyce Kryszak has the story of plans to restore it:

Transcript

At one time, cities were little more than stone and brick. But in the mid-1800’s
Frederick Law Olmsted began changing all that. The landscape architect
designed some of the most important park systems in the country. But decades
of neglect and nature’s wrath are threatening Olmsted’s largest park system.
Joyce Kryszak has the story of plans to restore it:


You’ve no doubt heard of, and maybe even taken a stroll through New York’s
Central Park. It was Olmsted who created that 800 plus acres of sprawling urban
backyard. But Olmsted didn’t just carve out a magnificent green space. He also
carved out a reputation for himself, and a demand for his designs for parks all
over the country. Olmsted’s green thumb-print can be found all the way from
Boston’s Emerald Necklace to Yosemite National Park. Brian Dold is a
landscape architect from Buffalo, New York. He says even his profession is an Olmsted
creation.


“[He] came up with the term landscape architecture and really brought it to a
scale where he could do these major projects. So, he sort of grew
from getting work and the profession sort of took off from there.”


And Dold has plenty of work to do in Buffalo, New York. There, he is
maintaining Olmsted’s first, and one of his largest, integrated park systems.


Last October, a surprise snow storm dumped two feet of heavy snow on the still
leaf-covered boughs of Olmsted’s majestic trees. Many of them splintered under the
weight, leaving an amputated landscape. Ninety percent of the trees were
damaged and hundreds were lost. But devoted park lovers are volunteering to help
the non-profit conservancy plant new trees throughout the six parks and
parkway.


“Woo, that’s a lot of work. All right, you got it.”


John Penfold even climbs up on top of the shoulders of other volunteers to unlash the
branches of a newly planted maple. Penfold says they’re willing to do whatever it
takes to save the parks.


“When the storm hit, kind of saw all the trees fall, so, I think it brought the
community together to realize, we have these trees and we need ’em.”


Before the storm hit, the park system was already in crisis. American Elm
disease swept through, killing the stately trees. Then the city cut money for
maintenance. But now, the non-profit conservancy has come up with a twenty-
year master plan to restore the Olmsted park system. Executive Director
Johnathon Holifield says they have their work cut out for them:


“This system, at one time, was home to about 40,000 trees – 40,000. We’re
down to about 12,000,” said Holifield. “So, we have a long way to go to
truly recapture the Olmstedian glory.”


The sense of urgency is helping the conservancy raise the money and muscle
needs to fully restore Olmsted’s vision. The vision part is where landscape
architect Brian Dold comes in. Dold poured over Olmsted’s plans and he consulted
with other conservancies. It’s his job to make sure that the system returns to the
naturalistic setting Olmsted intended.


“He really tried to make it look like it had naturally occurred. He used like
large open meadows, and dense woodland and pathways through there,
sort of meandering through, sort of creating that Olmstedian landscape
that looks like it could have been there from the beginning of time.”


But Olmsted’s plan will get tweaked a bit. Dold says had some experiments that
didn’t work out so well. Over time, the Norway maples and the Common Buckthorn
trees pretty much took over. Dold says they won’t repeat the mistake:


“We’re not planting any of those trees that aren’t zone hardy and trees that
are put on invasive species lists. Those are pretty much eliminated from
anything we would ever do in these parks. And we are actually
physically removing many of them.”


Instead, Dold says they’ll plant native species. Lots of sugar and red maples,
service berries, eastern redbud and others. 28,000 trees over the next 20 years.
Executive Director Johnathan Holifield believes the new plan would meet
Olmsted’s approval:


“He would be pretty happy and particularly when you look out there and
you see the diversity of use in the park, the volunteer element that we
have. That’s what Olmsted was about – democratic,
egalitarian use and that certainly is represented today.”


So, if you happen to be in a Buffalo Olmsted park this summer, be sure to bring a
picnic basket and blanket, or maybe a shovel and some tree stakes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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