Sound familiar?
Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday hammered a company responsible for an 819,000-gallon oil spill near Marshall as the crude continued to flow westward along the Kalamazoo River, and government officials and company workers attempted to stop the disaster from spreading.
Cynthia Price of Grand Rapids, MI, puts it this way: "Given that every Republican candidate in Michigan is running on a platform of "fewer regulations on business," it seems unlikely that we ever WILL learn ..."
A quick Google News search for 'asian carp' yields over 2,000 articles in the last month alone. Not many of them speak favorably of the latest and largest non-native aquatic threat to the Great Lakes.
Kind of makes you think the carp should hire a K street lobbyist.
But they won't and they can't and so they're easy to beat up.
It's heartening to see Great Lakes political leaders speak out in unison (except for those from Illinois) against the carp. It's great to see specific anti-carp measures proposed. It's a little difficult, however, to see some of the rhetoric as anything but pure posturing.
On January 29th of this year President Obama nominated Lana Pollack of Michigan to the International Joint Commission (IJC).
The IJC is the U.S. and Canadian agency that advises the two governments on a range of transboundary water issues, and one need only look at a map to see the vast scope of what the commission touches.
In the scheme of presidential appointments, Pollack's received scant attention but that doesn't diminish its importance. Water defines the U.S. - Canada border and if it's the oil of the 21st century and beyond, the IJC and Pollack have the potential to be critical players.The Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada are stewards of 20% of the Earth's fresh surface water.
What do they have in common? Well, they're all large bodies of water, and they're covered in a single executive order signed by President Obama Monday. The text of the order is here.
The import of the order for the Lakes is unclear. Its central feature is coastal and marine spatial planning, a kind of aquatic zoning that earlier caused unfounded concern about the "outlawing" of sport fishing on the Great Lakes.
I try not to be a keeper of "things" and admire the philosophy of Chris McCandless, the inspiring but tragic figure whose life was chronicled by author Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild. McCandless wanted to experience life and eschewed material possesions.
On being told by his parents that they were buying him a car he responded, "I don't want any things."
It's hard to not collect things in a society that constantly promotes consumption.
Why do many environmental groups hail as big victories the passage of laws there are no dollars to enforce?
Why can't the supporters and opponents of offshore wind in the Great Lakes sit down and work out a common position that facilitates growth of the industry but does not demean the opponents as not-in-my-backyard naysayers?
Why are opponents of Michigan legislation to protect Great Lakes and tributary waters spreading clearly false and misleading information? Are they afraid they can't win on the facts?
No, Star Trek fans, it's not outer space, it's the spaces beneath the world's water -- including Great Lakes water. And it's time to explore it by creating a formal system of underwater preserves in the Lakes.
The issue has been on my mind for some time -- almost 30 years, since Michigan established a "bottomland preserve" system to manage access to and preserve shipwrecks. That's worthy, but shouldn't older historic sites underwater and other sites that are geologically or ecologically important also enjoy protection for this and future generations?
Nationally, efforts are underway to catalog so-called marine protected areas (MPAs) and marine managed areas (MMAs). Interestingly, the Great Lakes already has a number of each.
Following a presidential election the attenton immediately shifts to speculation about who will fill the new president's cabinet. It's an interesting exercise as names surface, many times as a trial balloon, cautious levels of interest or disinterest are expressed, and finally a selection is made.
2008 was no different and during the post-election process many in the Great Lakes community were focused on who would get the top job at the USEPA. Interestingly, one prominently mentioned name was that of Robert Kennedy Jr. of Kennedy clan fame and environmental activism notoriety.
A recent report from the Large Lake Observatory of the University of Minnesota-Duluth caught my eye. Tucked inside was a piece on observations of Lake Superior temperature trends.
The key finding was that traditionally frigid Lake Superior is in recent decades warming about two degrees F per decade compared with a warmup of one degree F in air temperature per decade. The explanation for the warming water appears to be a long-term trend of declining ice cover, which permits quicker and more pronounced warmup by sunlight.
Interestingly, higher winds, helping drive the surface layer deeper, may also be contributing.
It's not proof of climate change, but it's a sign of what could happen. A warmer Lake Superior ain't the same Lake Superior.
In one of those curiously timed anouncements - right before a long holiday weekend -the USEPA announced on Friday that Kennecott Eagle Minerals does not need a key federal permit to begin mining opertions in a pristine and sacred area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
This is the region where the State of Michigan, following the use of dubious procedures at best, and against the wishes of local citizens, has allowed Kennecott to begin a controversial mining operation.
In fact, Kennecott had already withdrawn its federal permit application saying that the permit granted by the Michigan was all it needed.
In this timely and urgently needed commentary in the Muskegon Chronicle, Michigan State Rep. Mary Valentine takes on directly the misinformation spread about a bill she is co-sponsoring to protect the public interest in Michigan's water.
For months, special interests who stand to benefit from exploiting groundwater, lakes and streams and the Great Lakes themselves for private profit have unrolled a carpet of untruths to stop tht legislation. This is not the place to dignify the falsehoods by repeating them.
The key points of Rep. Valentine's commentary:
It is and will remain James Rowens' The Political Environment blog. Jim has the political experience and knowledge to understand the sometimes byzantine Wisconsin policy scene, and nowhere has he been better in investigating and commenting on an issue than he has with the unnecessary proposal by Waukesha to divert Lake Michigan water to fuel urban sprawl.
A ban on high-phosphorus household dishwashing detergents takes effect Thursday in Minnesota and five other Great Lakes states. It should help reduce phosphorus levels and algae blooms in the Great Lakes and inland lakes.
As someone who's used dishwashing soaps on and off for the last two decades, I can attest that there's been significant improvement in the effectiveness of low-phosphorus product over that time. Our recent household use of Seventh Generation soap has proven it's as effective in cleaning dishes as (and maybe more effective than) the high-P brands sold by the big-name brands.
The recent discovery of a live Asian Carp near Lake Michigan has generated a predictable outcry.
Perhaps the most puzzling one comes from the Great Lakes senate delegation who wants the president's immediate assistance in the fight against Asian Carp.
That assistance comes in the form of a request to create a position titled Coordinated Response Commander "to fight this battle." This was disclosed last week in a letter from 12 Great Lakes senators to President Obama. The letter also says we need to marshal "the best and brightest - scientists, engineers, and environmental experts" to focus on keeping carp out of the Great Lakes.
Letters like this are cheap and common in Washington but this one borders on the bizarre.
From Washington, D.C. comes word that the U.S. Senate has finally confirmed Lana Pollack as one of three U.S. members of the International Joint Commission following her nomination by President Obama last winter.
As a longtime fan of Lana's during her three terms in the Michigan Senate and as a former employee of hers at the Michigan Environmental Council, I can assure anyone reading these words that she is not going to be a mere figurehead chair-warmer at the IJC. Instead, she'll ask tough questions, forge thoughtful policies, be accessible to citizens, and shun the platitudes that characterize much Great Lakes dialogue.
She also has an unparalleled ethic as a public servant and environmental champion.
My essays here must often seem churlish in light of the considerable progress made in the last five years of Great Lakes policy. The 2004 conference on the Great Lakes hosted by philanthropist Peter Wege of Grand Rapids has blossmed into a $475 million new investment in the Lakes by the federal government. Congress has approved the Great Lakes Compact. Public awareness of Great Lakes problems and protection is as high as it has been in years. All good news, all the result of hard work, particularly by Great Lakes advocates. Let's celebrate that.
But has anything in the fundamental governmental or personal approach to Great Lakes protection changed, in ways that will have lasting value?
As the gulf oil disaster drones on, we're starting to hear accounts of what we didn't learn from past disasters that we should have. Say from the Exxon Valdez spill 20 years ago, for example.
To that point, Boston College Environmental Law Professor Zygmunt Plater spoke recently on NPR about the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill, and the subsequent Oil Pollution Act law passed to minimize the chance of reoccurrences.
Summarized in two headlines: Pryor convicted of mine trespass. (On public land.)
Rio Tinto board approves Kenecott funding. (For the same mine, but as BP has shown, modern technology prevents environmental harm.)
Michigan is truly a bankrupt state, and I'm not referring to its treasury.
As wags have told me, the title of my book, "Ruin and Recovery: Michigan's Rise as a Conservation Leader," should be updated. "Ruin and Recovery and Ruin Again: Michigan's Rise and Fall as a Conservation Leader."
Sunday's St. Paul Pioneer Press published a column by climate change denier (and all-around grump) Joe Soucheray. Key clause:
In any event, a new phrase is entering the phenomenon, and that is "out of their range.'' We are hearing that all the time these days. It began with moose. Just within the last year, we were told that moose were on the decline in northeastern Minnesota, only to be told more recently that moose might not be in decline and that more and more moose are seen "outside their range.''
I checked that out with Minnesota DNR moose specialist Mark Lenarz. Is it true?
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