Debate ongoing over fish farming in the Great Lakes

Michigan took a big step forward this summer in the business of fish farming. The state issued a permit to expand the Grayling Fish Hatchery more than tenfold.The hatchery raises trout for restaurants and grocery stores.

The expansion comes as interest in fish farming is growing nationwide and there is now talk of going offshore into the open waters of the Great Lakes.

LINK (via: Michigan Radio)

Good for your face, bad for the fish

Plastic microbeads — some of them fractions of a millimeter long — have been found in water samples from lakes Superior, Huron and Erie. The California researchers who collected them plan to troll lakes Michigan and Ontario next.

The beads are abrasive particles found in everything from toothpaste to liquid hand soaps to industrial cleaners. Lather up, and they provide an invigorating scrub that unclogs pores, removes dead cells and reveals a sparkling new you.

But the beads don't dissolve. They're designed to wash down the drain — after which they make their way into the water treatment system and eventually to our lakes or oceans, where they remain for who knows how long. Worse, they absorb and retain chemical contaminants.

LINK (via:The Chicago Tribune)

To estimate how big a problem the beads might be, the researchers emptied an entire tube of Johnson & Johnson facial scribe Clean & Clear, put it through a sieve, and collected a tablespoon of white powder made up of microbeads. When they counted the beads, they amounted to about 330,000 per tube.

LINK (via:CBC News)

Chicago flooding a threat to wash Asian Carp into Lake Michigan

Rains have brought the Des Plaines River on the east side of Chicago to major flood stage and a record flood crest was expected yesterday. Asian Carp are present in the Des Plaines River and the flood event is capable of washing significant numbers of Asian Carp from the Des Plaines River into a canal that feeds directly into Lake Michigan. 

LINK (via:Wunderground)

Due to the flooding brown trout are also being diverted into Lake Michigan.

Great Lakes have some of world’s most concentrated plastic pollution

Plastic pollutants circulate in pockets of the Great Lakes at concentrations higher than any other body of water on Earth, according to a recent State University of New York study.

The study is the first to look at plastic pollutants in the Great Lakes.

“We had two samples in Lake Erie that we just kept going back and rechecking the data, because the count, the number of plastic particles in the sample, was three times greater than any sample collected anywhere in the entire world,” SUNY chemistry professor and project lead Sherri Mason said.

LINK (via: Great Lakes Echo)

You Decide

Carol Browner addressing Great Lakes leaders in Cleveland

That's the headline Keep America Fishing used when they recently published the Presidential candidate's answers to some policy questions surrounding various issues important to anglers. One of those questions specifically revolved around the Great Lakes, most notably the threat from invasive Asian Carp. It's always easy to make policy statements, it's another to back them up. A recent Great Lakes event in Cleveland is perhaps more telling when it comes to the respective candidates answer to that Great Lakes policy question.

Romney's Silence on Great Lakes Protection Speaks Volumes

Last week in Cleveland, over 500 leaders from around the Great Lakes gathered in Cleveland to talk about the challenges facing the drinking water source for 38 million Americans - our Great Lakes.

On the agenda were assessments of toxic waste cleanup projects, the threat of Asian Carp and other invasive species, the growing water quality problem of nutrient pollution and algae overload, and evidence that climate change is already having significant impacts on this critical resource.

After weeks of considering whether to participate, the Romney campaign ultimately made the call: blow it off.

President Obama's campaign sent Carol Browner, until recently Obama's top adviser on energy and environmental policy, and also former head of the EPA for eight years. Browner spoke knowledgeably and forcefully about Obama's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program Obama created to clean up contaminated sites, restore the Great Lakes ecosystem's natural areas, and protect drinking water. She talked about the administration's multi-pronged defense against the Asian Carp, and of the new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement the administration just signed with Canada.

LINK (via: The Huff Post)

April Slab of the Month: Big Manistee Steelhead

      

After a killer 3 day session on the Big Manistee, Chummist Brian Morin sends us a couple entries.  Both impressive as hell.  Great lakes food supply seems to be just fine.