More than 800,000 gallons of oil have been released into a creek in Marshall that feeds the Kalamazoo River.

Houston-based Enbridge Energy Partners said Monday that oil flowed into the Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River after a leak developed in its pipeline.

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Introduced.Coastal Jobs Creation Act of 2010 – Directs the Secretary of Commerce to implement a Coastal Jobs Creation Grant Program which shall include:
(1) cooperative research to collect and compile economic and social data related to recreational and commercial fisheries management:
(2) establishment and implementation of state recreational fishing registry programs;
(3) training and deploying observers authorized or required under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act;
(4) preservation or restoration of coastal resources identified for their conservation, recreational, ecological, historic, or aesthetic values;
(5) redevelopment of deteriorating and underutilized working waterfronts and ports;
(6) research to develop, test, and deploy innovations and improvements in coastal and ocean observation technologies;
(7) cooperative research to collect data to improve, supplement, or enhance fishery and marine mammal stock assessments; and
(8) other specified activities. Amends the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to require the Secretary of Commerce to enter into contracts with, or provide grants to, states for the purpose of establishing and implementing a registry program to meet the requirements for the exemption from registration of a regional standardized fishing vessel registration and information management system program for state licensed recreational fishermen and charter fishing vessels when the Secretary determines that information from the state program is suitable for the Secretary’s use in completing marine recreational fisheries statistical surveys or evaluating the effects of proposed conservation and management measures for marine recreational fisheries.

The Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council based in Petoskey, Michigan, will hold the first of two Lake Michigan Summits on Monday, August 2, 2010, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Harbor Springs City Hall on Zoll Street in Harbor Springs, Michigan.

This year’s Lake Michigan Summit will include a program by the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee which is made up of federal, state, and local agencies working together to prevent Asian Carp from establishing populations in the Great Lakes. The Committee will provide the latest information about the Asian carp’s inroads into the Great Lakes.

NOAA has awarded $2.5 million to the University of Notre Dame and its partners to predict the next wave of invasive species likely to enter the Great Lakes and to identify cost-effective countermeasures.

“The Asian carp invasion will play a role in the study. Recently, the state of Michigan filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to force closure of waterways connecting a Chicago-area canal system to Lake Michigan. The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, which feed into Lake Michigan, are already teeming with the fish, which were likely released when flooding damaged aquaculture ponds where the fish had been used to eat pond waste.

Robert Haas of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment has called the project “essential.”

“We believe that this project will substantially improve our ability to protect the Great Lakes against new aquatic invaders and also help us to minimize spread of those invasive species,” Haas said.

Although NOAA is providing initial funding for the project, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to contribute an additional $2.25 million to the project, which will bring the total investment to $4.75 million over five years”

Beachgoers happy, but fishing charters, restaurants, marine life take hit

Each of the Great Lakes is registering temperatures that are well above normal for this time of year, the result of a shortened winter season and a hot spring. And those warmer waters are impacting the region in a variety of ways — from throwing off the spawning of native fish species to hurting some businesses that make a living off the waters. In other instances, the temperatures are seen as a welcome change.