Great Lakes Calendar — Fall 1994
~
The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
Lake St. Clair, on Michigan’s sunrise side, had a rough summer due to growing pollution and its effect on the water supply of Detroit and other communities. Officials were also looking for ways to clean up some 26,000 cubic yards of rotting seaweed that piled up on the Macomb County shoreline. The smell of the decomposing vegetation forced some lakeside businesses to close and nearby residents to abandon homes while state crews and National Guardsmen removed the offending seaweed. Huge seaweed masses were spotted moving south toward the Detroit River and aerial surveys showed massive plant growth on the lake bottom across most areas of Lake St. Clair. Some scientists say zebra mussels may be responsible, claiming the mollusks clean the water which allows sunlight to penetrate more deeply into the lake and speed the water plants’ growth.
***
While the officials of the Ohio Environmental Agency remain unconvinced, Toledo officials determined the reason the Ottawa River developed a stench that sickened riverside dwellers and forced some businesses to close, may have been the accidental daily discharge of 8,000 pounds of formaldehyde into the river. In the summer-warmed river water, bacteria broke down the diluted formaldehyde compound into carbon dioxide and water and con- sumed nearly all the oxygen. Fish suffocated and bacteria fed on the dead fish which robbed the river of still more oxygen causing more fish to die. Rotting plants and fish produced ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide which smells like rotten eggs. The final finger has yet to be pointed but for now, the stench has subsided.
***
“MARPOL,” a special Coast Guard unit, has laid the ground work for a three-year educational campaign aimed at garbage and trash, especially plastics, pitched overboard by boaters. “Sea Keepers,” a school based educational project organized and promoted by Group Sault Coast Guard at Sault, Michigan covers all of Lakes Michigan and Huron, Straits of Mackinac, St. Marys River, and the eastern half of Lake Superior. Ninety percent of the garbage and trash hazardous to the environment and wildlife comes from recreational boaters but may also include discarded or lost monofilament fishing line and commercial fishing nets gone adrift.
***
Researchers on the S. S. Milwaukee Clipper reported earlier this year that freshwater sponges in Lake Michigan might be a remedy for the zebra mussel invasion of the Great Lakes. But researchers from the University of Wisconsin down-played this theory. One UW researcher noted in an Associated Press story, “We’ve looked at individual zebra mussels completely covered by sponges and the mussels were just dandy under there.”
***
In seven Ohio nests located between Toledo and Port Clinton, only two eaglets were hatched during the 1994 season; only two eaglets in 11 nests in Michigan between Temperance and Detroit. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, there seems a correlation between prey consumed by eagles in coastal areas with persistent high toxic levels versus less-toxic inland areas.
***
While the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Species Prevention and Control Act of 1990 suffers from inadequate funding, Coast Guard officers at Massena, New York check the ballast water of incoming ships to be sure ballast tanks have been flushed at sea. According to the Toledo Blade, nearly 150 exotic, non-native species have invaded the Great Lakes including zebra mussels, quagga mussels, river ruffe, and sea lamprey.
Under the 1990 law which the Coast Guard was not allowed to enforce until 1993, ships that fail the authorized test of their ballast water are issued a warning and instructed to keep the water in their tanks until they leave the Great Lakes. During the first 15 months of the new program, the Coast Guard found four ships that did not meet the standard but none was fined.
***
Causing great concern among biologists of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is fear that the Eurasian Ruffe, currently isolated in the cold waters of southwestern Lake Superior could invade the rest of the Great Lakes. The ruffe dominates Duluth harbor only a decade after it arrived from Europe in the ballast of an ocean-going freighter. Biologists who fear the ruffe will proliferate rapidly in the warmer waters of the Lower Lakes, plan to use fish-killing chemicals in 1995 in a containment zone 35 miles west of Michigan’s Porkies to Wisconsin’s Chequamegon Bay.
Read More of Inland Seas Online
