Lakeshore Living. News on lake ecology, lake pollution, land use, natural resource management, community, and lakeshore living.
Emily Hilts, writing at 'The Life Aquatic' blog:
“Let’s say we could clean Mendota in an instant. What would it look like? Far clearer water, healthy stands of plants, no floating garbage… we can all agree on this vision, right? But what if we drift closer to shore – what does it look like then? Not everyone has the same idea of what a “clean” shoreline looks like.”
Nice story weaving recent lake science and what make place.
AP reporting:
“TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Toxins from blobs of algae on western Lake Erie are infiltrating water treatment plants along the shoreline, forcing cities to spend a lot more money to make sure their drinking water is safe.
It got so bad last month that one township told its 2,000 residents not to drink or use the water coming from their taps.
The cost of testing and treating the water is adding up quickly — the city of Toledo will spend an extra $1 million this year to combat the toxins while a neighboring county is considering a fee increase next year to cover the added expenses.”
Polluters need not worry; they have a free ride. We continue to allow private gain at public cost. When will governments create rules for markets for clean water?
Elizabeth Dunbar, reporting for Minnesota Public Radio:
“Phosphorus, a nutrient that is washed into Minnesota’s lakes with leaves and lawn fertilizer, can cause algae blooms and poor water quality. But efforts to reduce it in lakes can have an unintended consequence.
According to a new University of Minnesota study published online Thursday in the journal Science, reducing phosphorus can also result in less of the microbial processes that eliminate another unwanted nutrient: nitrogen.
As a result, nitrogen can accumulate in large lakes and lead to nitrogen pollution downstream, the study says.”
Jeff Beckham, reporting for the New York Times:
“Central Texas lakes are at their lowest levels in more than 60 years, despite heavy rains in the recent days, and Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan, the reservoirs northwest of Austin that supply water to the region, now stand at just 33 percent full. These lower levels have significantly reduced customer traffic and forced many lakeside business owners to make difficult decisions.”
The old proverb holds true today, 'You never know the value of water till the lake level falls [or the well runs dry].'
John Upton, reporting for Grist:
“The Great Lakes have been spared the ignominy of becoming a conveyor for crude oil fracked at North Dakota’s Bakken fields.
At least for now.
Plans to build a crude shipping terminal at Duluth, Minn., on the western shore of Lake Superior, have been shelved because of a lack of refining capacity on the East Coast. ”
It has to go somewhere. Where?
Lizette Alvarez, reporting for the New York Times:
“On wind-whipped days when rain pounds this part of South Florida, people are quickly reminded that Lake Okeechobee, with its vulnerable dike and polluted waters, has become a giant environmental problem far beyond its banks.”
We changed the hydrology with little understanding of the long-term consequences. The lack of humility in the engineering of nature often catches up to us.
Lynnette Hintze, reporting for The Daily Inter Lake:
“Last year the Whitefish Lake Institute released a study that confirmed pollution in Whitefish Lake due largely to failing septic systems.
It found contamination at City Beach, Viking Creek and Lazy Bay and pinpointed several shoreline areas at risk for future contamination.
The Institute’s probe confirmed a 1980s study that also found contamination in the lake from failing septic tanks. While the latest study concluded recreation is still safe on the lake, it sounded the alarm bell for city officials.
The Whitefish City Council appointed a community wastewater committee to prepare a report and make recommendations to the council regarding wastewater management.”
It is interesting to see communities struggling to deal with human waste. In this case it appears that the issue has been studied for 30 years but no solution has been acted on. The need for something besides traditional individual sewage treatment systems is long overdue.
David Richardson, reporting for Grist:
“Thomas Jefferson called Lake George in Upstate New York “without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw.” The painter Georgia O’Keefe lived part time at the lake during the 1920s and ’30s, drawing inspiration for some of her laconic, gauzy landscapes. The Whitneys summered there, the Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers — all the big industrialists. It’s still one of New York’s top vacation destinations, bringing in around $1 billion in tourism each year.
If climate change took vacations it would probably go there too. But climate change doesn’t take vacations. In fact, Mark Swinton says it’s kind of hanging out at Lake George all the time, and not in a regular-folk, kick-back-in-an-Adirondack-chair-and-read-a-good-book sorta way.”
Sean Pearce, reporting for the Newmarket Era:
“An Ecojustice report ranks York Region, along with Durham Region, second among 12 municipalities when it comes to keeping sewage out of the Great Lakes.Receiving a B+ grade, York and Durham placed behind only Peel Region in the organization’s 2013 Great Lakes sewage report card. York and Durham scored high in the majority of categories, given their lack of combined sanitary and storm sewers and the fact there is no mechanism for untreated wastewater to bypass the Duffin Creek water pollution control plant.
Unlike most other treatment plants on Lake Ontario, Duffin Creek has no bypass capability, he said, which means only treated effluent is released into Lake Ontario, even during periods of extreme storms.”
by Peter Bauer:
“As a society we know how to protect water quality. Engineers, landscape architects, excavators, and regulators, among others, know what protects water quality and what does not. Stormwater management is the key here. All too often though stormwater management is deferred, ignored or short-changed.
Shoreline regulation is not about aesthetics. It’s about protecting water quality.”
Joy Hampton, reporting for The Moore American:
“Lake Thunderbird’s well-earned nickname, “Dirtybird,” may not apply in six years, according to computer model projections. The model projections and recommended requirements for reducing lake pollution were developed by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and Dynamic Solutions LLC.
Regulations implemented as a result of the study will affect Moore and south Oklahoma City as well as Norman because all three of those municipalities discharge stormwater into Lake Thunderbird’s watershed.”
Lake Thunderbird is not alone. There is a large number of lakes in the United States that are polluted and the prospects for restoring water quality are daunting.
Lisa Maria Garza, reporting for Reuters:
“Tiny plastic beads from beauty products are showing up in North America’s Great Lakes, and an environmental group is calling upon companies to stop using the plastic particles.
Scientists have already been found the particles, known as microplastic, floating in the oceans but recently reported the same contamination in the largest surface freshwater system on the Earth. The particles are often less than a millimeter (0.04 inch).
”
What we put in our products enters the environment and then circles back to pollute our bodies.
Michael A. Mallin and Kenneth H. Reckhow, reporting for the newsobserver.com:
“Jordan Lake is a major drinking water supply for the Research Triangle area and a heavily used recreational area. Over the years, inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus have led to large algal blooms that impair this waterway, causing the U.S. EPA to require North Carolina to devise a plan (called a TMDL – total maximum daily load) to reduce nutrient inputs. Over several years, a variety of stakeholders worked out a plan involving compromise that was signed by Gov. Bev Perdue.
However, the General Assembly is now considering delaying pollutant controls for three years and suggests that using as-yet unidentified technology within the lake proper can clean it up. The best and cheapest way to improve water quality is to keep the nutrients from entering the lake in the first place.”
Chicago Tribune editorial:
“BP, one of the world’s biggest companies, dumps nearly 20 times more toxic mercury into Lake Michigan than federal regulations permit.
This has been known for years, but BP still gets away with it. How? Ask the people of Indiana.
In 2007, a Chicago Tribune investigation documented that Indiana allowed the massive BP refinery in Whiting to increase the amount of pollutants it released into the lake water that’s used by millions of people for drinking, fishing and recreation. Permitting the oil company to dump high levels of mercury, ammonia and suspended solids helped to clear the way for a big expansion of the refinery.”
Josephine Marcotty, reporting for the Star Tribune:
“Nitrogen contamination in southern Minnesota is so severe that 27 percent of the region’s lakes and rivers could not be used for drinking water, according to an unexpectedly blunt assessment of state water pollution released Wednesday.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said that, overall, 41 percent of the streams and lakes in southern Minnesota have excessive nitrogen, which can be toxic to fish and other forms of aquatic life and is the state’s most widespread form of water pollution.”
From Science Daily:
“Researchers have detected microplastic pollution in one of Western Europe’s largest lakes, Lake Geneva, in large enough quantities to raise concern. While studies in the ocean have shown that these small bits of plastic can be harmful to fish and birds that feed on plankton or other small waterborne organisms, the full extent of their consequences in lakes and rivers is only now being investigated.”
Jamie Munks, reporting for the Glen Fall Post-Star:
“It was Lake George that drew Tony DeFranco back to this northern Warren County town to work for his family’s firm, which has a growing aim to plant landscaping features that protect the lake from pollutants.
DeFranco returned three years ago to work with his father at DeFranco Landscaping Inc. in Hague, the business David DeFranco started in 1984.
The younger DeFranco’s interest in coming back to the area was piqued in part by projects like the West Brook Environmental Initiative in Lake George.
“If something happened to this lake, we wouldn’t have this business,” DeFranco said. “Tourism is what we have here in the Adirondacks, in Lake George.”
The family-owned firm, which has counted all five of the DeFrancos (both parents and three children) as employees at one point or another, has found a niche in northern Warren County — combining landscaping with stormwater and erosion control and property management.”
It is important to have a job that does good work and makes a difference for people and their environment.
Dan Gunderson, reporting for MPR:
“A new study of Minnesota lakes finds more evidence that water across the state contains a wide range of chemicals.
The largest study of its kind ever done in Minnesota shows chemicals from household products, prescription drugs and illegal drugs are common in Minnesota lakes. ”
What we use in our homes, our gardens, and in our manufacturing and agricultural industries, ultimately ends up in our lakes and rivers. Are you surprised about these results?
Ron Meador, reporting for MinnPost:
“Two new reports on Minnesota’s groundwater resource deserve more attention than they’ve been getting. One, from the U.S. Geological Survey, updates and elaborates its findings that falling water levels in White Bear Lake are largely attributable to increased groundwater pumping by city water systems to the north and west. Another, from the Freshwater Society, sets that lake’s predicament in the context of a much larger problem — a huge increase in groundwater pumping all across Minnesota during the last quarter-century.”
Anne Phillips, reporting for the Tampa Bay Times:
“Lake Tarpon and Lake Seminole are extreme examples of costly restoration projects in Pinellas, but some commissioners say they are hearing a growing number of complaints about other polluted lakes and creeks. And the County Commission is awakening to the realization that reversing decades of fertilizer runoff and drainage problems is going to be expensive.”
Lakeshore Living and Walleye. This blog builds upon these books, which provides insight into relevant aspects of environmentally-sensitive lakeshore living and the life of walleye. This blog may provide some meaning for people interested in improving lakeshore living and understanding walleye and fisheries management.
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