Tag: tourism

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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Boat Nerds: The New Tourists

  • Ship-watchers gather at places such as the Welland Canal which allows cargo ships to go around Niagara Falls. (Photo by Lester Graham)

They look like birdwatchers. They stand with binoculars and notebooks and write down names. Or they travel to good spots for up-close viewing. But it’s not birds they’re looking for. They’re looking for ships. And they’re passionate about the huge boats that pass through the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has a look at the pastime of
ship-watching:

Transcript

They look like birdwatchers. They stand with binoculars and notebooks and write down names. Or they travel to good spots for up-close viewing. But it’s not birds they’re looking for. They’re looking for ships. And they’re passionate about the huge boats that pass through the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has a look at the pastime of ship-watching:


(Sound of sing-song shouting)


If you’ve ever been to the shores of the Great Lakes, or to the canals connecting some of the lakes, you’ve probably seen ship watchers. They’re the people with binoculars, trying to spot the name on a freighter’s hull.


It could be the romance of the sea, or a fascination with the storms or shipwrecks; something grabs people about it. Maybe it’s just because some Great Lakes ships are so huge. These kids on the St. Mary’s river near Sault Ste. Marie are trying to get the captain of a Great Lakes freighter to blow his whistle for them.


(Sound of horn, cheering)


Now, that’s big.


Sault Ste Marie isn’t the only seaway people visit to see the ships up close. At the other end of the lakes, in Thorald, Ontario, Ross McGimpsey watches the freighters. He’s come all the way from Northern Ireland to Lock Seven of the Welland Canal. He’s interested in the locks’ engineering, and in the size of the ships.


“I just came to see how they went up and down the locks, and to see how big it is and what it was like. You don’t really see this stuff when you go to Scotland, there sort of really small, just taking up, like little speedboats, but over here it’s full-sized ships, so it’s really different.”


McGimpsey’s one of the many people who travel for good ship-watching. Around the lakes, a cottage tourism industry has sprung up to serve the watchers. Terry Dow sees a lot of the tourists that come to the Welland Canal. She works at the locks viewing area in Thorald. Dow loves to talk to visitors about the ships.


“I love the ships. My office window is just, looks out here at lock 7, and you know, you can be typing away and there’s nothing in the lock and within ten minutes you have this huge ship in front of your window and I really enjoy them. My favorite is the John B. Aird from Algoma, she’s a great ship and I love watching her come through the locks, she’s also one of the largest ships that can come through, the biggest can come through is 740 feet, and I just like watching her come through. I love it here.”


Dow is a lucky ship-watcher; she works close to her hobby. She says some folks have actually moved to the area just to watch the ships. They call themselves the “boat nerds.”


“We have a lot of people here that live in Thorald that have retired from other areas, Toronto for instance, and they come because they love the ships so much, they buy a house along the canal and they are proud to be the “boat nerds” and they volunteer for me every day here in Thorald at the locks viewing complex.”


So, where do people like Dow and the boat nerds get their passion for the ships? Part of it is that people are just plain fascinated by the size of the vessels.


Lou Ann Kozma thinks many people first get interested in ship-watching because they hear some of the popular songs and stories about Great Lakes ships. Kozma organizes festivals in mid-Michigan that celebrate Great Lakes lore.


She brings in people who sing songs of life on the Lakes, tell stories of shipwrecks, and even make wooden models of the big boats people like to watch. Kozma says once a good ship story gets a person’s interest, they usually want to know the real facts behind the tales.


“In general, things like popular culture does romanticize it quite a bit like the Edmund Fitzgerald song, and perhaps shipwrecks, in particular hold that mystique, because ,there’s such a dramatic story, usually, behind each one, and then there’s the lure of just finding out about what happened, and people can discover that in so many different ways.”


Kozma says people find that ship-watching is another way to feel the adventure and romance of the lakes. Back at the Welland Canal, Terry Dow says even though she sees the ships every day, she and people like her never get tired of watching them.


“There’s a lot of people who love these ships. They love the magnitude of them. I’ve named them the “Quiet Giants of the Waterway,” because you can’t even hear them coming into the lock, and they’re so big that you just can’t believe that something of that magnitude you can hardly hear coming into the locks. So, there’s a lot of people, yes, who truly enjoy these ships.”


It seems like the romance of the Lakes and the marvel of engineering are what draw “boat nerds” to the water. And the number of ship watchers might be growing. Earlier in the day, Terry Dow spent time with a whole busload of folks who scheduled their stop just in time to see one of her Quiet Giants glide by right in front of them.


For the GLRC, I’m Melissa Ingells.

Related Links

‘Water Trails’ Mark Region’s History

  • Dave Lemberg from Western Michigan University envisions not only opportunities for water sports, but also opportunities to see historical sites along waterways. (Photo by Tamar Charney)

If you traveled this summer, you might have noticed more and more cars with canoes or kayaks on top. Recreation associations say paddle sports are growing in popularity. And so are efforts to give paddlers places to go. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports some of these places benefit more than just the person in the boat:

Transcript

If you traveled this summer, you might have noticed more and more cars with canoes or kayaks on top. Recreation associations say paddle sports are growing in popularity and so are efforts to give paddlers places to go. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, some of these places benefit more than just the person in the boat:


It just stopped raining, which has made the air even more thick and humid than it was before. But there’s a slight breeze coming off the water.


(Sound of splashing, scraping, and paddling)


Dave Lemberg from Western Michigan University slides his yellow kayak into the St. Joseph River in Southwest Michigan.


“There’s a heron off to the right.”


We’re at the beginning of a water trail he’s helped to create. It is one of two pilot trails for The Michigan Heritage Water Trail Program.


His idea is that mapped-out water trails will lead you to places where you can put in and take out your boat, places to stop and stretch your legs for a moment, and places where you might want to stop and check out a historical bridge or museum you pass by. Lemberg wants to see these kinds of
water trails created all across the state.


“We are looking at this as a type of heritage tourism. Every river, every piece of coastline in the Great Lakes has a story to tell.”


As we paddle down the river, signs guide us from point to point. Along the way the signs tell about the history of the area, and refer to a trail guide that contains even more information.


“The country was settled on water trails; we just didn’t call them that.”


Water trails are popping up all over the country. Paul Sanford is with the American Canoe Association. Last month, the organization launched an on-line database of trails. There are more than four hundred of them. He says people new to the sport like them because they tell you where to go. And he says these days you don’t just find water trails in beautiful areas.


SANFORD: “You see more and more trails being developed in urban areas as a way to change public attitudes about a waterway that might have historically been pretty industrialized, pretty uninviting to local citizens as a recreational resource that folks are saying, ‘Hey wait a minute, we can have fun on this river.'”


LEMBERG: “Let’s see, let’s back up and go over there this channel seems to have disappeared.”


On the St. Joseph River, the water trail passes ruins of bridges, old mills, and other remnants of early settlements dating back to the 1800’s. There used to be bustling communities along rivers like this, but many riverside towns were left behind when the interstates took a different route. Dave Lemberg thinks water trails can be a way to revitalize some of these bypassed communities.


“So the vision is people paddling from bed and breakfast to bed and breakfast, eating in local restaurants, browsing in local stores. There’s where well be eating, on the deck up there, overlooking the river.”


After a morning on the river, we arrive eight miles downstream from where we started. One of the signs directs us up a creek to the Mendon Country Inn.


(Sound of door)


Gerard Clark is the chef and owner of this historic inn. He says the water trail has been good for business.


“Since the inauguration which was in August last year, we’ve a seen a three-fold increase in our canoe business which has impacted on lodging and as well as our dining facilities. We have a lot of city folk who come in who are so stressed out you can’t believe it, after a couple days on river and good food they unwind.”


Clark says the trail is drawing people from all over the region, and the hope is, paddle trails like this one will become a tourist draw in other places as well.


For the GLRC, I’m Tamar Charney.

Related Links

Wind Turbines Stir Up Neighbors (Part 2)

Most people think renewable energy is a good idea. It’s better
than burning fossil fuel to create electricity. But “green energy”
alternatives
can be controversial. Windmill farms are springing up all across the
nation.
Some people think the windmills are eyesores. But others say windmill farms
can help preserve the agricultural landscape by supplementing the income of
farmers. In the second of a two-part series on wind energy, the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:

Transcript

Most people think renewable energy is a good idea. It’s better than burning fossil
fuel to create
electricity. But “green energy” alternatives can be controversial. Windmill farms
are springing
up all across the nation. Some people think the windmills are eyesores. But others
say windmill
farms can help preserve the agricultural landscape by supplementing the income of
farmers.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:


For 30 years, Matt Mauer raised crops and livestock on his farm about 10 miles from
the Lake
Michigan shoreline. Today, he’s in his backyard looking at the land now farmed by
his daughter
and son-in-law. Standing there, he feels a crop they’re not harvesting.


“The good Lord makes it windy all the time for us, so let’s use it, you know.
Because I’m like
everybody else. When I get up in the morning, I want lights.”


Mauer’s hoping to put four wind turbines on his family’s farm near Ludington,
Michigan. That
would power about 24-hundred homes. Nearby, a renewable energy company’s working with
other farmers to build a hundred turbines in the area. Mauer says many of his
neighbors want in
on the deal because they think wind energy could help save their farms.


“It’s hard to make a living just farming right now. And I consider the wind one of
the crops that
we could harvest. It will help keep farmers on the land. Like if, in this place, if
we could get
seven–thousand dollars a year, six-thousand dollars a year for four of them, that’d
make it a hell
of a lot easier to keep the people here and farm.”


The state government’s backing similar projects. It’s training financial advisors
to show farmers
how they can turn a profit with windmills.


But not everyone likes the idea. Some people who live in the area around the
planned windmills
say they’re worried the towers would destroy the region’s charm. That’s linked to
property values
and to tourism. And they don’t like the size of the proposed windmills. Each one
would be four-
hundred feet tall. The blades would have a diameter nearly as long as a football
field.


It’s a story that’s heard in many places. Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the prairies of
Illinois, and
around the Great Lakes. For example, a Michigan couple who wanted large-scale
turbines on
their property ended up losing a court-battle against local government that opposed
the plan. And
two turbines already in place in Mackinaw City – between Lake Michigan and Lake
Huron –
have some unhappy neighbors as well.


Thomas and Virginia Alexander’s home is about 15-hundred feet away from the windmills.
They’re in their eighties and they both wear hearing aids… but even without them,
they say the
windmills are loud…


Tom Alexander: “There’s things about it we don’t appreciate, at times the noise –
not always –
depending upon the wind and the direction.
Virginia Alexander: “Yesterday. Very noisy yesterday. The wind was high and they,
you could
really hear them.”
Tom Alexander: “Just a continual swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.”


Windmill developers say the sound is no louder than normal speech. But this noise is
different. It
goes beyond the frequencies of normal speech. The sound can travel long distances
through both
the ground and the air. They keep Virginia Alexander awake some nights.


Tom and Virginia Alexander’s son Kelly lives next door with his family. He calls
himself a
windmill victim. He has this advice for others:


“Don’t let them go in your backyard. There are places they can go. You don’t just
put those in
somebody’s backyard. I don’t think it’s right.”


A lot of people agree with the Alexanders. Even wind energy boosters concede that
location is
key to successful projects. David Johnson heads up the program for the state of
Michigan that’s
encouraging farmers to allow windmills on their land. He says turbines should be
constructed
where there’s lots of wind and few neighbors. But he says when people say ‘no’ to
windmills,
they should consider the alternative.


“So, does that mean that you should build another big coal-fired plant? Is that the
preferable way
of doing it with the global warming impacts and the mercury pollution and so on that
go with
that? Is that the choice that the public wants to make?


States across the nation are struggling to find the right balance between clean
energy and the
beauty of an uncluttered landscape. Few regulations are in place right now. More
and more,
communities will be facing the decision of whether clean energy and keeping farmers
on the land
is worth the price of adding wind turbines to the scenery.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Linda Stephan.

Related Links

Dilemmas for Wastewater Treatment Plants

  • Water contamination from sources that might include some wastewater treatment plants closes some beaches. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts
that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the
water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus
reports:


(sound of cars moving along a small street and a few people talking)


A typical summer day by the lake: SUVs pull boats on trailers. People saunter from an
ice cream shop to the city beach. Jet skis and water skiiers slice through the waves.
Carpenters raise trusses on homes being built into the remaining lakefront lots.


Just a few years ago it seemed towns like this were just for loggers and locals. But now
people are flocking to the lakes around the Midwest and staying there. And that’s putting
a strain on local sewer plants.


(sound of machines inside the water treatment plant)


For 40 years, the treated waste water from the Boyne City, Michigan sewer plant has
been released into the big lake it was built on…Lake Charlevoix.


“It’s located right adjacent to a public swimming beach, park, marina and some valuable
waterfront property. We are only a block off the downtown district.”


Plant manager Dan Meads wants to stop mixing the end product with the water where
tourists and the locals swim and play. He tests daily for E. coli bacteria. He
doesn’t want anyone getting sick. But it’s still a concern, and there are other concerns.


In recent years, the United States Geological Survey has reported on new kinds of
contaminants that they’ve found in ground and surface water. The USGS says treated
wastewater from sewer plants can contain hormones from birth control pills, antibiotics,
detergents, fire retardants, and pesticides.


USGS microbiologist Sheridan Haack says the effects of all these compounds are still
unknown. Most are found in tiny quantities, but combined they could cause any number
of chemical reactions.


“There are many different chemical structures and it would be very difficult to state for
all of them what we would actually expect the environmental fate to be and how they
would actually be transported through the environment.”


Haack says the medicines people take don’t disappear. They eventually leave the body
and are flushed down the toilet. Those drugs have been tested for safe human
consumption, but the question is: what happens when those chemicals are mixed in with
industrial waste, accidental spills and nature’s own chemical processes? Haack says they
just might come back around to hurt humans, fish and wildlife.


The Boyne City solution is to build a new wastewater treatment plant two miles from the
beaches up the Boyne River. Officials say contaminants will be diluted by the time they
flow back down into Lake Charlevoix.


(sound of the Boyne River)


Larry Maltby volunteers for a group called “Friends of the Boyne River.” The group
doesn’t like the city’s plan to discharge treated wastewater directly into the river. It wants
them to consider some non-traditional methods. They say the new sewer plant could run
a pipe under a golf course or spray the treated water on farm fields… or let it drain into
wetlands to let nature filter it out.


“It will seep into the soils which are very sandy and gravelly underneath the golf course
and then the filtration through the ground will have a great deal of effect of continuing to
purify that water. Much more so than it would be with a direct deposit, straight into the
surface waters of Michigan.”


Lawyers for the Friends of the Boyne River have appealed to the state dept of
environmental quality and filed a lawsuit.


But wastewater treatment plant manager Dan Meads says the city doesn’t want to please
just one group and end up angering another…


“There isn’t any guarantee that you can satisfy everybody. We think we have the best
option available.”


As municipalities are short on funds and personnel, they don’t want to wait for decades
for the perfect solution. Still, nobody wants any amount of pollution to affect their home
or their recreational area.


Sheridan Haack with the USGS won’t take either side in this dispute. She says not only
are the dangers from contaminants unknown, the best way to deal with them is unknown.


“I am not aware of any consensus in the scientific community on the nature or types of
treatment for this broad range of chemicals.”


In the meantime… communities such as Boyne City have the unenviable task of trying to
dispose of their residents sewage without polluting the beaches, the fishing, and the
environment that brought folks there in the first place.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

Historic Castle Fortifies Great Lakes Research

During the summer, lots of people visit the Lake Erie islands at the southwest end of the lake. But there’s one island you can’t visit. It’s the site of a historic home and reserved for scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant recently visited Gibraltar Island and files this report:

Transcript

During the summer, lots of people visit the Lake Erie islands at the southwest end of the
lake. But there’s one island you can’t visit. It’s the site of a historic home and reserved
for scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant recently visited
Gibraltar Island and files this report:


(sound of ferry)


Visitors taking the ferry to Lake Erie’s popular South Bass Island can see a castle-like
structure through the trees on Gibraltar Island across the bay. But they can’t go there.
The island is owned by Ohio State University and home to a research lab called Stone
Laboratory.


Recently, a few reporters got to go where usually only scientists go.


(sound on boat)


Lab Director Jeff Reutter is taking soil samples from the lake bottom to show some of the
latest concerns about blue-green algae… an algae that’s toxic to some aquatic life and
makes drinking water taste bad. It’s been appearing more frequently and scientists think
the zebra mussel might be causing it.


(more boat sounds)


Researchers and students from Ohio State and elsewhere study invasive species,
pollution, shoreline erosion, and other ecological lake issues at the lab.


(sound inside castle)


The scientists who worked in the lab used to live in the structure next door, known as
Cooke’s Castle. The large home was built in the 1860’s by the family of Jay Cooke.


Cooke was not a scientist. He was a banker and investment broker, and he played a
major role in raising money for the Union Army during the Civil War. Cooke came up
with the idea of selling war bonds and raised a billion dollars for the Union Army.


Cooke bought the seven-acre Gibraltar Island in 1864 and had his summer home built on
it. Ironically, while the Union fund-raiser was vacationing on his island, Confederate
soldiers were imprisoned on nearby Johnson’s Island.


Retired Ohio State Administrator John Kleberg has been researching Jay Cooke. He says
Cooke was an avid hunter and fisherman, so Kleberg suspects he would be pleased to see
the science lab there today.


“There is a penciled correspondence where Cooke is complaining about the reduction in
the population of the fish, the bass specifically, I think, because people are net fishing,
you know where they’re taking too many fish out of the lake and the bass population
therefore is decreasing. And that’s not the way you ought to protect the bass population.
So obviously in that context he was sensitive about the need for conservation and how we
fish and how we protect fish populations. So I suspect he would be very pleased with the
kind of work that’s being done.”


Cooke’s daughter sold Gibraltar in 1925 to Franz Stone, whose family donated it to Ohio
State.


Outside, the four-story limestone turret’s crenellated top gives the appearance of a castle.
The inner rotunda walls have held up surprisingly well over 140 years.


But after years of use, the building is in need of some major repairs. Lab Director
Reutter wants to renovate the 15 room building into a conference center.


“It’s interesting too, Cooke’s, one of his sons, was an amateur photographer, and we’ve
got great photos of how the place looked at that time, so obviously that’s our goal to take
it back.”


(ambient sound inside castle runs underneath this section.)


The castle includes a spiral staircase and there’s a gorgeous wood-paneled library that
overlooks the bay…


Reutter: “So, obviously, this would be my office…” (laughter)


Ohio State University is looking for money to make renovations. But that’s proved
challenging. The castle will never be open to the public. Lab Director Reutter says that’s
not its purpose…


“Oh no, this would not be used for tourists, this is an education and an outreach facility,
so it would be a conference center but it would be for research conferences, education
conferences, Great Lakes management, this will never be open to the public.”


It’ll cost two and a half million dollars to make the renovations. If they can find the
money, Reutter and the university say Cooke’s castle will become an even more
important research center. One he expects to draw scientists to study the problems facing
the Great Lakes.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Commercial Fishers Angling for Trout Fishing Rights

  • Steve Dahl is one of about 25 commercial fishers on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Dahl makes a modest living selling herring, but he'd like to be able to fish for lake trout too. When he's fishing for herring, Dahl pulls his gill net up and passes it across his boat, plucking herring from the mesh. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the
devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a
new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport
anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


(sound: engine zooms, slows)


Steve Dahl guides his aluminum boat to his gill net, anchored below the waves of Lake
Superior. He fishes out of Knife River, a small town just up the shore from Duluth
Minnesota. A few feet at a time, the net offers up its catch – slender silver herring
caught by the gills.


“The mesh actually has a little bit of flex to it. That’s why I can squeeze them out. One
that’s too big or fat, you have to back it out, so you don’t harm the flesh.”


The openings in the net are just right to catch herring. Too small for lake trout. Dahl
isn’t allowed to catch lake trout anyway. He says they mostly just bounce off the net.


When the net is empty, about 40 herring – each of them about a pound – are lying in a tub
at the bottom of the boat.


Dahl is working hard for these fish. It’s pretty cold, and the wind is gusting.


(ambient sound)


Dahl says sometimes the current is so strong, he can’t pull the net up out of the water.
Sometimes there are no fish in the net. In the
summer, they move around and they’re hard to find. And of course, he can’t fish when
the lake is frozen.


But he loves this life.


“I get to be outside all the time, my own boss. It’s great fun.”


Steve Dahl sells his catch to the restaurants and fish houses that dot the North Shore of
Lake Superior. He makes his living this way. He says he doesn’t make a lot of money,
but it’s a good life.


Dahl says the money would be better if he were allowed to fish for lake trout. He figures
he’d be able to make several thousand dollars more a year if he could catch even just a
few hundred lake trout.


“That’s all we’re asking for is to be able to supply the local restaurants through the peak
tourist season.”


Lake trout were almost wiped out by over-fishing and by the parasitic sea lamprey in the
1960’s and 70’s. The lamprey are under control now, and decades of stocking lake trout
have brought the population back up. People who fish for sport have been catching more
and more lake trout. Last year, they caught about 15,000 of the fish on the Minnesota
side of Lake Superior. But so far the state of Minnesota won’t allow commercial fishers
to go after them. Neither will Michigan, although Wisconsin and Ontario do.


Don Schreiner manages the Lake Superior fishery for Minnesota. He says restoring the
lake trout population is taking a long time. That’s why they don’t want to open it up to
commercial fishing just yet.


“Right now we’re pretty cautious, we’ve just started kinda pulling back on stocking and it
seems a little premature to start thinking about opening the door for commercial
fisheries.”


Next year, Minnesota plans to create a new ten-year plan for the fish in its Lake Superior
waters. Don Schreiner says during the planning process, everyone will be able to have
their say. But sport anglers far outnumber the two dozen or so commercial fishermen on
the North Shore. So they’ll need to find allies in their claim on the lake trout.


Paul Bergman is likely to speak up in favor of commercial fishing for lake trout. He
owns the Vanilla Bean Bakery & Café in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He buys herring from
Steve Dahl. He says half his customers order fish, and they love it when it’s locally
caught.


“People really do come up here for the native fish on the North Shore, so we’re getting so
many more repeat customers now from the cities. More and more are asking for the fish.”


Bergman puts a sign in the window when he has fresh herring, and he says it pulls people
in. He’d like to be able to do the same with lake trout.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Divining Future of Fast Ferries

High-speed ferries have come to the Great Lakes. A ferry between Toronto and Rochester, New York, is scheduled to start this week – joining another ferry that started earlier this month between Milwaukee and Muskegon, Michigan. But transportation experts say it isn’t clear that the fast ferries will prosper. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

High-speed ferries have come to the Great Lakes. A ferry between Toronto, Canada,
and Rochester, New York, is scheduled to start this week, joining another ferry that
started this month between Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Muskegon, Michigan. But
transportation experts say it isn’t clear that the fast ferries will prosper. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The privately owned Lake Express ferry between Milwaukee and Muskegon cuts across
Lake Michigan at nearly forty miles per hour. Four diesel engines drive high-powered
jets underneath the catamaran-style boat. The jets shoot huge plumes of water out the
back end of the nearly 200 foot-long vessel.


(sound of ferry)


It only takes two and half hours for the Lake Express to make a crossing, about half the
time of an older ferry that travels across northern Lake Michigan. A Milwaukee-based
passenger named Jack says the faster pace is what draws him to the new boat.


“This is quick… we’re all about being quick.”


The Lake Express also has room for 46 cars and smaller vehicles such as motorcycles. A
motorcycle passenger named Bobbie says using the ferry is a breeze, compared to driving
around Lake Michigan and fighting traffic in Chicago.


“Have you ever ridden a motorcycle and had a semi pull up behind you? I mean, it
seemed like he was that far away, maybe two feet, and it’s very frightening and it’s
happened to us several times.”


Some people who study ferries say less stress and time savings are just two of the appeals
of the boats. University of Delaware professor James Corbett says fast ferries have a
certain cachet for the upscale, leisure tourist.


“Fast ferries are very, very attractive first choices when people are considering new
routes… they look for the latest and greatest vessel designs.”


But Corbett says the ferries have several drawbacks. For one thing, the faster boats use
more energy and that helps push up ticket prices. Adult roundtrip fares for the
Milwaukee to Muskegon route start at 85 dollars.


Sue McNeil heads the University of Illinois-Chicago Urban Transportation Center. She
says the fares may scare off repeat business in certain markets.


“Just what I know about travel patterns and where people go, the Rochester-Toronto
seems to make more sense than the Milwaukee to Michigan.”


Still, McNeil says she hopes all the ferries succeed, because they provide another
transportation option. Federal, state and local governments are buying into the concept,
by offering some subsidies to promote the boats and build docking terminals. Chicago
and Cleveland are also looking at adding the faster moving ferries.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Lawn Companies Sue Over Fertilizer Ban

Several lakefront communities in the region have banned certain lawn fertilizers. Naturally, some lawn care companies are opposed to the ban, and now they’re cultivating a case for court. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:

Transcript

Several lakefront communities in the region have banned certain lawn fertilizers. Naturally, some
lawn care companies are opposed to the ban, and now they’re cultivating a case for court. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:


(sound of waves)


The 44 lakes in Dane County are one of Wisconsin’s biggest attractions. Also eye-catching are
lawns around the lakes, but officials say fertilizer from these lawns is running into lakes,
causing stinky, ugly, algae blooms. To improve water quality, Dane County has become the latest
community in the region to restrict phosphorus fertilizer.


The Wisconsin Landscape Federation hopes their lawsuit will stop next year’s ordinance from
taking effect. David Swingle is the Federation’s Executive Director. He contends the phosphorus
ban breaks state law and is based on faulty science.


“This was an effort to try to bring attention to area lakes, the problems they’re having from
so many other sources… and lawn fertilizer really was an easy to target to grandstand on.”


County officials are reviewing the ban to see if it will hold up in court…
or whether changes need to be made.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Shamane Mills.

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City’s Growth Tied to Superfund Site

  • This beach and its surrounding area is one of 409 contaminated sites on the EPA's National Priorities List in the eight Great Lakes states. The sign tells people to wash their skin immediately if they come into contact with the tars and oils washing up on shore. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Ashland, Wisconsin is a small city along the coast of western Lake Superior. It was once a town that thrived on an industrial economy. Today the town is living with a legacy of pollution, and people are fighting over how to clean it up. Ashland’s mayor says he’s not giving up on the city’s future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has more:

Transcript

Ashland, Wisconsin is a small city along the coast of western Lake Superior. It was once a town
that thrived on an industrial economy. Today the town is living with a legacy of pollution, and
people are fighting over how to clean it up. Ashland’s mayor says he’s not giving up on the city’s
future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has more:


Ashland, Wisconsin, sits on Chequamegon Bay. It’s a wide curve of gently sloping land on the
south shore of Lake Superior. There used to be a busy port here. Ships moved in and out, loaded
with iron ore, lumber, and coal.


But those ships are gone. Ashland’s industry is gone, and the town is trying to create an economy
based on tourism.


But the bay is polluted. The waves lapping gently on the shore carry a thin film of oily scum.
Bright yellow signs warn people not to wade in the water or run their boats in the bay. A year ago,
the EPA named this part of the bay a Superfund site.


It’s not the kind of place that’s likely to attract tourists. But that’s exactly what Ashland’s mayor
wants to do.


“This lakefront is really underdeveloped. And in a service-based economy like we’re at, we could
really be turning some money for our community here.”


Fred Schnook wants to double the size of the city marina. He wants to turn the old sewage
treatment plant into a museum.


“There could be retail shops, there could be a marine repair shop, to have all these boats that we
have here fixed.”


Ashland is within a short day’s drive of Chicago, Milwaukee, and other major Midwestern cities.
The tourism potential is huge.


But a gas plant polluted the bay years ago, and there’s no money to clean it up.


For seventy years, a company made gas to heat and light Ashland’s homes. Most cities had gas
plants like this. The raw material was coal or petroleum. By-products were tars and oils in
various thicknesses. Some of the waste was as solid as roofing tar, some was as runny as used
engine oil. The gas company sold some of the by-products to other industries. It dumped the rest
into Chequamegon Bay. The plant closed years ago.


“So we have the legacy of history.”


Jerry Winslow is an engineer with Xcel Energy, formerly called NSP. NSP bought the
manufactured gas plant in 1976. Now it’s used as a place to repair equipment.


Winslow says other industries along the bay, including a city landfill, added their own pollution
over the years.


“Manufactured gas plant being one issue. Wood treating being another issue with the same kind of
coal tar products. Landfill, which gets a little bit of everything.”


Because it owns the manufactured gas plant, Xcel will probably have to pay a big chunk of the
eventual clean-up cost. But Xcel says if the old city dump is part of the problem, Ashland itself
should bear some of the cost.


Eight years ago the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began studying the pollution
problems here. The tars and oils can cause cancer. And animal studies suggest they might cause
infertility.


Xcel and the DNR worked together to cover places on land where the pollutants were bubbling to
the surface. And Xcel is slowly pumping the tars out of the deep aquifer that runs under the old
coal plant and into the bay.


The problem right now is the bay itself. The pollutants have settled on the bottom, and whenever
there’s a northeast wind, they get churned up and rise to the surface.


Since the bay is listed as a Superfund site, the EPA is in charge. The federal agency says Xcel will
have to pay for most of the cleanup. So the EPA wants Xcel to figure out how the pollution should
be cleaned up.


Ashland’s mayor, Fred Schnook, doesn’t like that idea. He says Xcel is looking for the cheapest
way to clean up the site.


“Xcel’s fighting any kind of dredging that has to take place. Some of the options include capping
and other remediation that would be a heck of a lot cheaper than dredging. And again, it’s
understandable what Xcel is doing, they have a profit motive at stake here.”


Schnook says he’s looking out for Ashland. He says Xcel doesn’t have the same motivation to
move quickly and do a thorough cleanup.


But pollution cleanups only get more expensive as time goes by. Jerry Winslow has worked on
several other manufactured gas sites. He says they weren’t so complicated to clean up, because
they weren’t sitting next to a lake.


“You don’t have to worry about the fish, the terns, the birds, the whole ecosystem, the worms, etc.
etc. Here we need to worry about that.”


Winslow says Xcel won’t have plans for a clean-up for at least two more years.


But Ashland mayor Fred Schnook says he’ll push the company to move faster. And he’ll be
keeping a close eye on its work. He says Ashland’s future depends on a clean Chequamegon Bay.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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