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Michigan is moving ahead with plans to buy 6,000 scenic acres near the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula for $12.5 million, shielding the land from development.

Prized for its rolling terrain, waterfalls and 6 miles of Lake Superior shoreline, the parcel was among acreage that had been proposed for a swap between the state and International Paper Co., a major Upper Peninsula landowner.

That deal never came together, but the state is using money from the Natural Resources Trust Fund to buy the 6,000 acres. Last week, the Legislature approved $37 million in grants from the fund for land acquisition and recreation projects, including $5 million for the Keweenaw parcel. Read the rest of this entry »

Ottawa County’s public beaches along the Lake Michigan shoreline have never been hot spots for bacteria.

But Jim Szejda is prepared if the rolling waves bring microscopic trouble.

Ottawa County is beefing up its beach monitoring program in summer to provide faster and more reliable water testing at the six Lake Michigan beaches and seven inland swimming sites under the county’s watch.

“We don’t suspect there is going to be a problem,” said Szejda, director of Ottawa County’s Environmental Health Department. “But we do want to monitor because we have a lot of tourists.” Read the rest of this entry »

We understand the concerns of Great Lakes shippers worried that a hodgepodge of state laws governing overseas freighters and their discharge of ballast waters could hurt the struggling industry. A federal law would indeed be a better solution. But since it doesn’t appear that Congress will pass such a law anytime soon, we see no reasonable alternative to states acting on their own.

Because given the dangers that are known to swim in those ballast tanks, doing nothing to tighten the rules governing their discharge is certainly not reasonable. The danger comes from the invasive species, such as zebra and a couple of other mussels, that scientists argue have used the ballast tanks of overseas freighters to infiltrate the Great Lakes.

Of the estimated 60 non-native species that have been found in the lakes since 1970, about 70% have invaded via those tanks, scientists say. And the mussels alone have caused local governments to spend about $1.5 billion over the last two decades just to keep pipes clear. Read the rest of this entry »

The health risks associated with mercury pollution have been well documented. Exposure to excessive mercury can damage the nervous system. Health officials warn that pregnant women who consume fish from waters polluted by mercury put the children they carry in danger of suffering a number of maladies, including cerebral palsy, mental retardation and blindness.

In the Great Lakes region, about 60 percent of the mercury pollution comes from coal-burning power plants, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Illinois is on the verge of adopting tougher standards that would greatly reduce the amount of mercury pollution caused by these plants. A key legislative step toward implementing those standards remains. On Tuesday, members of the Illinois Legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules will meet to act on the standards already given preliminary and unanimous approval by the Illinois Pollution Control Board. Read the rest of this entry »

State officials say they think they can hold off a gypsy moth infestation along the North Shore of Lake Superior.

A chemical poisonous to the moth has been applied on the Grand Portage Indian reservation. Later this summer, tiny chips will be dropped on Cook and Lake counties with a chemical that’ll confuse male moths.

But Kimberly Thielen-Cremers with the state Department of Agriculture says a permanent gypsy moth presence in Minnesota is just a few years away. Read the rest of this entry »

Control of the Great Lakes could fall deeper into federal hands if states and provinces don’t work together more aggressively to overcome some emerging political issues, a top U.S. adviser on water issues said in Toledo.

Several governorships are up for election within the next 13 months, including that of former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, now serving in President Bush’s cabinet in the newly created position of Homeland Security Director.

Ridge joined other Great Lakes governors and Canadian premiers in Niagara Falls to sign an agreement called Annex 2001, which pledged mutual cooperation on a plan for limiting diversions and withdrawals from the lakes. They gave themselves until 2004 to get it ratified. Read the rest of this entry »

In a sharp and decisive policy shift, the Ontario government acted yesterday to save the Oak Ridges Moraine permanently and create a park in Richmond Hill that will be larger than New York’s Central Park.

A bill introduced in the legislature will prohibit development on 92 per cent of the moraine and protect 100 per cent of the area’s water sources and natural features, said Chris Hodgson, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Read the rest of this entry »

“They have no business drilling (in the Great Lakes) because that is drinking water for millions of us,” said Macko, 66, of St. Clair Shores. “If we lose (the water), we’re dead. There’s no guarantee that drilling is 100-percent safe and that you won’t have accidents. Congress was right to say ‘Stay out of the Great Lakes.”

The ban comes as President Bush is pushing for more domestic energy production. But even slant drilling from the shoreline into the lakes is hotly opposed by many people in the state.

James Fisher, a retired Michigan State University professor of petroleum geology, said it’s a victory for Michigan’s shorelines. Read the rest of this entry »

A well-known children’s game involves removing wooden blocks from a block tower one at a time and then placing each removed piece carefully on top of the structure.

Remarkably, the tower can often stay standing for quite some time until a key block is removed and the whole structure topples into a heap. Thus, the tower changes catastrophically from one stable state — standing — to another — collapsed.

Now, research is showing that a similar situation can occur in ecosystems. A recent article in the journal Nature, for example, presents evidence that various ecosystems can exist in more than one stable state and can switch from one to another, but only after going through a period of catastrophic change.

The term “stable” is actually a bit of a misnomer, because ecosystems are naturally undergoing constant change, as all things do. But within certain limits, the ecosystems are able to maintain a general state of equilibrium. Only when their limits are surpassed does the state shift. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nature Conservancy has purchased nearly 7,500 acres of forest and bog near the headwaters of the St. Louis River as it moves to protect and restore critical habitat in Northeastern Minnesota.

The area — between Seven Beavers Lake and Sand Lake, just east of Lake County Highway 2 — is considered ecologically important because of its unique wetlands, lowland conifer forests and still-untamed wild stretches that are home to many plant species unique to the Arrowhead Region.

Rare plants on the land include the Michaux’s sedge. And the area includes rare peatlands that serve as generators for the waters that eventually form the St. Louis River, the largest U.S. tributary to Lake Superior. Read the rest of this entry »