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Asian carp issue jumps back into court on Tuesday September 7

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:54:27 +0000

The anticipated three-day legal showdown begins Tuesday in federal court as attorneys from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota will try to persuade U.S. District Judge Robert Dow that Asian carp pose such a grave threat to the Great Lakes that nothing short of an emergency shutdown of the system will stop them. At a preliminary hearing last week, Michigan's Assistant Attorney General Robert Reichel told Dow the U.S. has reached a "biological tipping point" for invasive species threatening the Great Lakes. He said closing the locks, which open to regulate water levels and permit the passage of boats and ships, is perhaps the only way to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes and protect its estimated $7 billion annual commercial and recreational fishing industry. Attorneys representing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the locks, argued the federal government has spent millions of dollars to monitor and stop Asian carp on their march up the Illinois River. They say closing the locks may not be effective and could make the problem worse.

Lake Superior expected to rise slightly next month

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 10:27:24 +0000

NEWS RELEASE -INTERNATIONAL LAKE SUPERIOR BOARD OF CONTROL ***************************** Temporary closure of Gate 1 and update on Lake Superior outflow The International Lake Superior Board of Control, under authority granted to it by the International Joint Commission, has set the Lake Superior outflow to 1,560 cubic meters per second (m3/s) (55.1 thousand cubic feet per second (tcfs)) for the month of September, effective September 3. This is the outflow recommended by the regulation plan for the month of September and is the same as the August outflow. The September outflow will be released by discharging about 1,440 m3/s (50.9 tcfs) through the three hydropower plants and passing most of the remaining flow through the control structure at the head of the St. Marys rapids. The gate setting of the control structure will be maintained at the existing setting equivalent to one-half gate open (four gates open 20 cm, or about eight inches each). The International Joint Commission has granted authority to Brookfield Renewable Power to make temporary closures of Gate 1 that supplies the Fishery Remedial Works.

Death of the ‘Doughnut’: How quaggas are casting a pall on the Lake Michigan fishery

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:54:10 +0000

No one knew about the doughnut in southern Lake Michigan, much less the mollusk, until Michigan Technological University biologist W. Charles Kerfoot and his research team first saw it in 1998. That’s because scientists have always been wary of launching their research vessels on any of the shipwreck-studded Great Lakes in winter. But NASA’s new Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project was giving scientists a safer way to look at the lakes in bad weather. SeaWiFS satellite data showed Kerfoot’s team a roughly circular river of phytoplankton—algae and other tiny plants—that was drifting counterclockwise around the southern end of Lake Michigan, creating a doughnut. The group determined that the doughnut was formed when big winter storms kicked up sediments along the southeastern shore of the lake. There, Michigan’s biggest rivers drain a watershed rich in phosphorus and other nutrients from cities and farms. Those nutrients settle in the lake’s sediments until storms stir them up.

Rating of 2010 walleye hatch proving difficult for Ohio experts

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:29:51 +0000

Over the past few weeks, fisheries biologists for the Ohio Division of Wildlife have been looking for 5- to 7-inch walleye born last spring in order to rate the 2010 hatch. The experts may have been looking in the wrong places. Lake Erie Supervisor Jeff Tyson said Thursday that levels of dissolved oxygen in the water around half of their survey sites were down to about 1 part per million, or less. The lack of dissolved oxygen, said Tyson, has chased walleye away from their usual haunts in and around the western lake islands and eastward into the Central Basin of Lake Erie, where the notorious oxygen-depleted “dead zone” has been studied in recent years.

After 25 years, Lake Michigan refuge fails to nurture wild lake trout

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:10:10 +0000

"When you look at the category of wild or natural reproduction, it’s still pretty pathetic for Lake Michigan,” said study co-author Chuck Madenjian, a fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes Science Center. “For all we know, it’s still close to being a goose egg.” he said. “Zero.” Low stocking numbers, two invasive species and even a native fish are all to blame. The study reports 14 years worth of lake trout surveys within the northern-most of the no-fishing zones. Biologists looking for baby lake trout in this 860-square-mile Lake Michigan refuge where fishing for the species is banned found none in 14 years of looking. Biologists dragged nets around the refuge scouting for wild lake trout less than a year old. Finding such a young fish means that it was probably born nearby. That helps measure the area’s productivity as a lake trout nursery. But in 14 years of looking, they found none. A 2008 survey turn up six adult wild lake trout, but biologists guess that they were already four years old. It’s less likely that they were born in the refuge because no two- or three-year old wild fish were caught in the years before.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Announces $3.2 Million in Funding For Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:11:22 +0000

Midwest Regional Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Tom Melius, recently announced more than $3.2 million in Federal funding under the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act to support Regional Projects that will expand mass marking capabilities for lake trout and salmon, and protect important habitat surrounding state and federal wildlife refuges of southwest Lake Erie. Both projects are supported by an $8 million allocation from the administration’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). Regional Projects through the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act are projects accomplished by the USFWS on behalf of the applicants. Applications for regional projects must involve more than one Great Lakes watershed, be submitted by one or more state agency directors and/or tribal chairs and reviewed by a 24 member Proposal Review Committee that makes funding recommendations to the USFWS. Once approved, the USFWS works in close partnership with the appropriate state or tribal agency to implement the project.

Grand Traverse Band joins Asian carp lawsuit

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 14:14:27 +0000

The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians filed a motion to join Michigan and the Great Lakes states as an intervening plaintiff. A portion of the Brief filed by the Tribe is below: Historically, fishing played a central role in the spiritual and cultural framework of Native American life. As the Supreme Court noted more than a hundred years ago, access to fish and wildlife was "not much less necessary to the existence of the Indians than the atmosphere they breathed." United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371, 381 (1905). Not only are the Great Lakes fish culturally important to the Tribes, these communities depend upon fisheries resources for their livelihoods. Moreover, by virtue of the supremacy clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the Constitution, Indian Tribes have a property right in treaty-reserved fishery resources that is paramount to the other economic interests cited by Defendants in defense of the relief requested by Plaintiffs. See Grand Case: 1:10-cv-04457 Document #: 122-7 Filed: 08/31/10 Page 1 of 6 PageID #:4813

Three Sault tribal members have been found guilty -illegally setting nets in Little Bay de Noc to catch walleye.

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:01:49 +0000

MANISTIQUE -- Three members of the Sault Tribe were found guilty in Tribal Court Friday on numerous charges for an illegal fishing operation on Little Bay de Noc. The three tribal members were found guilty on 79 of 105 civil infractions including illegally setting nets in Little Bay de Noc to catch walleye. They took thousands of pounds of fish out of the lake last year and sold them for profit through a tribal commercial fishing operation and a state-licensed wholesaler.

Muskegon setting standard for lakeshore cleanup efforts, says one EPA official

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:15:45 +0000

Excavating the hardened southern shoreline to "soften" it for wildlife, fish and native plants has produced a myriad of items among the tons of lake fill that historically was foundry sand. The million-dollar question that no one has the answer to is 'where did this stuff come from?' " said Brian Majka, restoration specialist for JF New -- the West Olive engineering consultant on the $10 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant for Muskegon Lake restoration. An update of Muskegon's shoreline restoration at the project's midpoint was conducted Wednesday by NOAA officials for other federal and state agencies. During a boat tour of the lake and walking tour of the Grand Trunk dock property, Muskegon was praised as a community actively improving its environment. "Look at a map of the Great Lakes and you should see a little star at Muskegon," said Judy Beck, the Lake Michigan manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago. "That would be for the perseverance and spirit in this community of not giving up on its environment."

Enbridge Pipeline Has Dent In St. Clair River

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:20:04 +0000

(Washington, DC) – The pipeline that spilled up to one-million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River last month also has a dent in a section of pipe running under the Saint Clair River between Lake Huron and Lake Saint Clair. U.S. Representative Candice Miller, the former Michigan Secretary of State, asked for a House committee to expand its investigation into the Enbridge pipeline to include the area under the river. Testing has uncovered hundreds of anomalies in the pipeline, raising fears of another possible oil spill.