Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act.

By Superior Telegram
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative is pleased the United States Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act.

WIIN includes many provisions that are critically important to the Great Lakes. It includes authorization of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative for five years at $300 million per year, provides support for shipping, addresses the algal bloom problem, allocates funding to solve the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., and strengthens programs to improve fish and wildlife in the Great Lakes.

"The passage of this law is critically important to the future of the tremendous freshwater resource we share between Canada and the United States and to our communities, and ensures that the momentum developed over the past five years in protecting and restoring the resource will be maintained," Mayor Paul Dyster of Niagara Falls, current vice chairman of the Cities Initiative.

"Many of our member cities have received funding under GLRI, which has allowed them to complete restoration projects that otherwise would not have been possible," said David Ullrich, Cities Initiative executive director. "These projects contribute to the economic well- being and quality of life in our communities, and make them more attractive for locating a new business and as a destination for visitors."

The actions by this Congress and the president are essential to the future of many programs that are important to the Great Lakes, and it will be important for the next Congress to fund these programs at levels that will ensure their success.

The legislation includes the following Great Lakes provisions:

* Authorizes the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a successful and popular program that is helping states and local communities clean up degraded toxic hotspots, restore habitat for fish and wildlife, thwart Asian carp and other invasive species, and prevent polluted runoff across the eight-state Great Lakes region.

* Makes permanent the allocation of priority funds from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for the Great Lakes Navigation System, sets a minimum appropriations level from the fund and requires the Army Corps of Engineers to complete guidance on managing the Great Lakes as a single, comprehensive navigation system.

* Establishes a Great Lakes Harmful Algal Bloom coordinator to work with federal, state and local agencies to coordinate actions to address harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes.

* Includes a variety of provisions that respond to the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., and support the work of states and local communities to repair, upgrade and monitor water infrastructure.

* Reauthorizes and strengthens the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act and the Great Lakes Fishery and Ecosystem Restoration Program, which support fish and wildlife restoration, conservation and management projects in the Great Lakes region.

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative is a binational coalition of 127 mayors representing over 17 million people, that works to advance the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. For more information, go to www.glslcities.org.

Ice Starting to Form on Lake Michigan

Ice is starting to form along the shore of Lake Michigan.  Pictured is the beach at Grand Haven, Michigan.  Ice formation here usually starts on Thanksgiving, but due to the warmth of the water, the ice is late this year, but now it has started to form with the colder weather.  Read about ice formation in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes available at Amazon.com, bn.com and many other bookstores such as the Bookman in Grand Haven, Schuler Books and Music etc.

Oil and Water Do not mix

Oil Pipelines that threaten our drinking water  click the link

An oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac would be a disaster for our fresh water and for the fish and wild life around the Great Lakes. 

Living Waters

            The north woods ring—the waters gather dripping from the tops of pines, running, running, running over ancient rocks.  The veerys trill up and down the scales, the warblers chime their notes through still bare twigs and the water runs, it runs down to Lake Superior swirling downstream, plunging over waterfalls just freed from ice curtains.  Curious deer come to drink from the pool below lifting their heads, standing motionless to sense the air.  Is it bear?  Wolf? Lynx?

            Sun dapples down through bare forest trees—sun streams, the ground steams, wet leaves tilt insisting on light, thrust new spikes.  Water flows through mobile root hairs, roots, stems, vaporizes into air.

Wild geese weave the wind, skid along black marsh water among tangles of cat tail.  Further downstream waves curl onto a rock shore polishing stones to oval and the small stones roll chinking and chunking.  They assume their flat round shapes over years of grinding, finding their ease in the wave rhythms, rolling rolling, rolling.  White caps bubble foam and the jade water is a dancing goddess in the middle distance between shore and horizon.

Children arrive to pick up fossils of ancient coral and to find stones to skip on a quiet day.  They chase sea gulls and try to become airborne by leaping and spreading their arms.  Cormorants and sooty terns rise and cleave the air.  The red cheeked kids leap in the early spring breezes, their knuckles chapped.  What do they care?

The bones of whales and sailors roll in the currents—some finding their way out to sea, some becoming, becoming, becoming a diatom’s shining, becoming the bones of an emerald shiner, becoming limestone shale in the loving exchange between the living and the living.  The islands of Lake Superior bear greenstones and jewel like snakes.  Sturgeon and trout spawn leaving pearls and coral in the crevices of rocks.  A moose stands chin deep in and island lake.  The islands of Lake Superior are quiet, remote and cold,  littered with bones.

Curled underground, water drawn up through squeaky pumps splashes into enamel buckets—water clear and cold and tasting of iron.  The iron flows through the veins of the moose and in the red cheeked children.

Loons quiver their greetings and as twilight falls, bullfrogs groan their love songs—they bellow all night long.  I lay awake listening to the water lapping the night and its creatures.

     

                                                                   --Barbara Spring

Pacific Salmon in the Great Lakes

                                               

   Pacific Salmon Spawning

Lattices of salmon ribs litter the banks of a stream. On cold autumn nights, frost flowers bloom reflecting star light. The stream babbles and unintelligible song as it rushes westward. It is the salmons’ place to be born, to spawn; it is their place to disintegrate and die. Salmon are anadromous fish, fish evolved to follow an elegant rhythm of always returning to their birth stream to spawn after maturing in a saltwater or sweet water seas.

For male and female salmon alike, the imprint of place is their obsession. As smolts they burst from their transparent eggs still wearing a yolk sac on their bulging bellies. Like their ancient ancestors who breathed glacial melt water through their gills, the newborns streak down stream to the freedom of the great inland sweet water seas known as the Great Lakes. In jade green waters they feed their voracious dream until their bodies grow heavy with it—until they resemble silver purses stuffed with treasure: slick coral beads and pearly white milt.

Summer sun dazzles down through the thermoclines—the layers of warm, cool, cold water—where it enters through the fishes’ pineal eyes—triangles on top of their heads—giving them sure knowledge of their place in the larger scheme of things. They bide their time drifting in schools, fanning their tails in repose, gorging on small fish. They dream of their place where clear water chortles over quartz and granite under shifting shadows of white pine and tamarack. It is their place and as their urgent need to return gathers force under a moon that grows heavy on the horizon, a moon the color of salmon eggs, a moon that must change to bone white, the salmon mill about in the harbor.

The fishes’ bellies grow heavy as the harvest moon. The dream becomes reality as celestial cues, the sun, the moon, the stars enter each cellule and each dancing atom of their bodies. Then they begin. The fish return to their stream and nothing will stop them: they ignore hunger, snares, treble hooks. On their silvery sides their lateral lines carry everything they need to know; their maps and compasses embedded in the circuitry of their bodies…the hereditary wisdom of their species carried in a network of circuits from pineal to tail. It is a sure knowledge of the west Michigan river system linked to the Great Lakes, or in other places, other river systems and other fresh or salt water oceans. It is also the wisdom of the constellations and the way their light glaces from silvery skinned fish, sparkling a wisdom older than mankind. To a salmon obsessed with its sense of place, failure means nothing. They defy high dams, leaping, leaping, leaping again and again until they hurl themselves over the top.

Home at last, the female hollows out a nest on the stream bed with her tail then cascades hundreds of coral bead like eggs into it. The male waits driving away his rivals with fierce charges. It is time. The male salmon releases a small galaxy of milt that will begin the life/death cycle again. Male and female have spent their silver purses in the stream. They are finished. In the next few days their flesh will fall away while they linger, easy prey for the raccoons, bears, ospreys and eagles. With their bones picked clean and their young curled in sleep on the stream bed, the transformation begins again. An osprey shadow glides over the shining stream. The sun rises as the moon glows faintly in the West.

Flower Pot Island on Lake Superior

Barbara Spring reads from The Dynamic Great Lakes

LowerGreatLakes  Click the link to hear me read from my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes

Nuclear Power Plants on the Great Lakes

Here is an excerpt from my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes:
Plutonium, the most toxic substance known, is a by-product of
nuclear power plants. It is extremely hazardous because of its high
radioactivity: for half of its quantity to decay, it takes 24,360 years.
Our aging Nuclear Power Plants on the Great Lakes presently have
nowhere to store plutonium except on their property.
On the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant property on the shore of
Lake Michigan near South Haven, eight 100 ton casks stand on a
concrete slab only 150 feet from the waters of Lake Michigan.
The 16½ foot high casks are eleven feet in diameter and weigh
100 tons. They consist of a steel basket encased in 29 inches of
concrete and stand on a concrete slab. Palisades may eventually have
25 casks. Plutonium is so toxic that it could mean an end to life as
we know it in the Great Lakes region. Low-level radionuclides like
tritium escape into the ecosystem from these plants and like other
toxins, radioactivity magnifies through food chains. The nuclear
power plants are aging and must be phased out. Their radioactive
wastes pose an urgent problem that will have to be solved soon. No
one has solved the problem of how to store plutonium safely.

 photo of Palisades showing storage casks.

Palisades plans to shut this plant down in October of 2018.

Donald Cook Plant water usage  Click the links

Donald_C._Cook_Nuclear_Generating_Station

Lake Huron's Whitefish

By Ian Wendrow

Lake Huron whitefish are suffering from ecosystem changes caused by invasive quagga and zebra mussels, according to a new study.

“It’s the same decline in whitefish as has been found previously in the other Great Lakes where the mussels become established,” Jenilee Gobin, a co-author of the report from

Trent University in Ontario, explained in an email.

Other emerging research shows the source of food for the whitefish in these locations

has changed because of the mussels.

Gobin and her team proved that Lake Huron is going through what researchers have been seeing in the other Great Lakes for years: invasive species like the zebra and quagga mussels working in tandem with other key events to contribute to a decline in profitable fish species, including whitefish.

“Our study represents the first that we are aware of to build a life history simulation model that explicitly addresses how the ecosystem changes have impacted harvest of a Great Lakes population of lake whitefish,” Gobin said.

These ecosystem changes have been ongoing for several decades. The study found that whitefish growth and recruitment in Lake Huron may have been reduced by up to 50 percent since the 1990s.

The study doesn’t say that the mussels are the only culprits. The invasive spiny water flea holds a portion of the blame for Lake Huron’s recent environmental mutations, according to the study.

But much of it ties back to the mussels, starting with the near-complete disappearance of alewives in 2003, said David Fielder, a fisheries biologist at the Michigan Department of Natural Resource’s Alpena Fisheries Research Center.

Alewives are small fish that are an important food source for larger fish such as Chinook salmon or lake whitefish within Lake Huron.

Those fish suffered when the mussels ate up the diporeia, a tiny macroinvertebrate that was an important source of food for the alewives that these larger fish ate.

Diporeia populations diminished significantly with the arrival of the mussels. Both the mussels and the diporeia are filter feeders, which most fishery researchers argue led to a competition for food between the two.

The mussels won that competition.

Another mussel-related food chain alteration may have harmed recruitment, or the number of new whitefish added to the population each year, Fielder said.

“Some other recent research has illustrated that part of the food web changes has included less nearshore productivity, at least in the form of zooplankton,” he said.

Zooplankton are microscopic organisms that are food for newly hatched fish. However, zooplankton have to eat as well. Their food is phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that feed through photosynthesis like plants.

“We used to see nice blooms of zooplankton in the spring just as fish were hatching, but they have disappeared in recent years, Fielder said. Researchers theorize that the phytoplankton that zooplankton eat have been filtered out by the abundant mussels.

“So without ample spring zooplankton, newly hatched whitefish quickly starve and never produce much of a year class,” he said.

The Ontario study acknowledges Fielder’s assessment in their research, while also pointing a finger at the predacious spiny water flea as another reason for zooplankton decline, thus further limiting food supply for larval fish.

In spite of these observed changes, not all fish sellers and anglers see the situation the same way.

“Whitefish produce lots of eggs and their survival rate is high,” said Mike Donlan, a fourth-generation fishmonger and general manager at Donlan’s Fish and Seafood in Flint, Michigan.

Donlan doesn’t exclusively stock from Lake Huron, his supply comes from all over the Great Lakes. Like most other species of fish, supply changes year to year, Donlan said. This year has been a trying year when it came to whitefish.

“There hasn’t been as much availability as prior years. For instance this year it was a real, real hot summer,” he said.

In hotter temperatures, whitefish and other species will migratei nto deeper water where it’s cooler, which puts them out of range of most commercial fishing boats.

“Sometimes the fish are not where the fishermen want them to be,” Donlan said.

Looking long term, however, Donlan says he’s unconcerned by the findings in the study

“We haven’t heard of anything mentioned that there’s an alert that we’re gonna run out of white fish in the Great Lakes.”

Jerry and David Serafin, the owners of Pinconning, Michigan’s, Serafin Fishery, daid they are incredulous about a whitefish decline in Lake Huron.

“They’re in better shape than they were a few years ago,” Jerry Serafin said.

DNR fishery researchers took some of Serafin’s whitefish to assess the health of the population last fall. According to what they told Serafin, his whitefish had significantly higher fat content than 10, 15 years ago.

David Serafin says he is more concerned about the planting of lake trout and the ever- growing walleye population.

“My concern with the whitefish is that the DNR want to plant herring in Lake Huron to feed the walleyes,” David Serafin said.

“Well walleyes eat whitefish, they eat anything. They’re cannibals, they eat each other, and these things are so overpopulated that we catch a lot of whitefish but there’s gonna come a time when the population goes down,” he said.

While the causes of and proposed solutions to these fishery population changes remain varied, Gobin said he’s certain on one point:

“What is clear is that we need to continue to study and monitor these valuable populations to ensure that there is good quality data on which to base management decisions and that we are harvesting within the safe biological limits that are appropriate for the present set of environmental conditions.”

Coping With Climate Change

Climate Change: Coping Strategies  click the link. 

 The time is over due for Climate Change.  It is a global problem especially for the U.S. China and Europe--the countries that contribute to it the most.

Between Sweetwater and Sand a book of poems by Barbara Spring

Between Sweetwater and Sand

A book of poems to honor Mother Earth.

Canada's Stand Against Bottled Water.

Nestle depleting ground water  Canada is taking a stand against Nestle and their bottled water.  In Michigan water drawn from aquifers and sending it out of the watershed bottle by bottle is affecting streams and ultimately, the Great Lakes.  Nestle is sucking the water that belongs to watersheds for their own gain  at the loss for all of us.

The Great Lakes Rock

The Great Lakes Rock

From the round surf-polished rocks of Lake Superior’s shore to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan, I have roamed and picked up stones: agates, pudding stones and some bearing copper or fossils.  And I hiked the alvars on the Door Peninsula and Ontario’s Bruce with their layered limestone shores bearing fossils of ancient salt seas.   Lake Huron’s green waters pour into Lake St. Clair and its silty marshes and then to Lake Erie teeming with birds and fish. The waters pick up speed in the Niagara River to take a tremendous plunge over Niagara Falls.  The rock underlying the falls will wear away in time I am told, but not in my life time.  Lake Ontario’s flat shores have good soil for vineyards and farm lands.  Sailors and sports fishers enjoy Lake Ontario’s riches and the lake flows out through the St. Lawrence River with a myriad rocky islands. 

pictured are layers of limestone on Wisconsin's Door Peninsula. This formation is called an alvar.

Oil and Water Do Not Mix

Oil pipeline under straits of Mackinac  click the link for a new documentary about Enbridge's old pipeline that is endangering the freshwater of the Great Lakes.

Catwalk Coming Down Soon

The Grand Haven Pier needs to be repaired and so the catwalk will come down so the repairs may be done.  Many people enjoy walking the pier but the uneven cement makes it hazardous.  I tripped once when I was not paying attention.

Today the waves are high so it is best to stay off of the pier.  Many unwitting tourists have been washed into the river or the lake.

Never Too Young to do a Good Deed

ENVIRONMENT 

Cub Scouts prompt new environmental law in Spring Lake Township

MARIE HAVENGA • TODAY AT 2:00 PM

mhavenga@grandhaventribune.com

SPRING LAKE TWP. — What's the best way to celebrate after getting important environmental legislation ratified into law? Eating ice cream, of course.The young scouts had attended a Township Board meeting in May to request it consider such a ban because coal tar — an asphalt resurfacing agent — is a known carcinogen and is harsh on local waterways.

Cub Scout Den 7 leader Cheryl Kallio took her troop to the Front Porch after Monday's Spring Lake Township Board meeting, where leaders enacted a new coal tar ban that the scouts championed.

“I feel like I'm making the community a little better,” said Cub Scout Cameron Braidwood, 9, after the board's unanimous vote Monday night to approve the ban.

The board stepped down from the meeting table and shook hands with the scouts after the decision.

“They're excited to see an issue that they brought forth turned into law,” Kallio said. “They really did their due diligence and did a lot of research. (Township Supervisor) John Nash talked to experts around the nation to gather information. They came to the conclusion it's an important issue for Spring Lake Township. I'm very appreciative the decision-makers took the kids so seriously and researched the issue.”

Nash said he spent about 25 hours researching coal tar. He said what really struck him was that the entire state of Minnesota bans it.

“The water that runs off asphalt sealed with coal tar accumulates at the bottom of rivers and lakes and causes significant problems,” Nash said. “I didn't like that at all. There's now a product that's equally as good and about the same price. Home Depot and several other stores won't even sell coal tar because they're concerned about the liability.”

Nash said he's proud of the scouts for bringing the issue to the board.

“It's something we weren't aware of,” he said. “You hope they get the experience that you can get involved and you can make a difference. Spring Lake Township really tries to be a leader. If it's the right thing to do, we don't mind being first.”

The ban will take effect Jan. 1, 2017.

Township Manager Gordon Gallagher said education is the next step.

“This ordinance will be as much about education as it is regulation,” he explained.

Nash said he plans to visit stores that still sell coal tar, inform the managers about the new ban and encourage them not to sell it.

“If it's a matter of doing that much or nothing at all, I'm going to do 

Reviews of my non-fiction book: The Dynamic Great Lakes

The Dynamic Great Lakes is widely available at Amazon.com, bn.com and many other bookstores such as the Bookman in Grand Haven

Barbara Spring 

Photos, maps, up to date information and a book about changes in the five Great Lakes and their connecting waters.

The Dynamic Great Lakes: a book about changes in the five Great Lakes
Entertaining yet Informative
Elle Andre-Warner, Book Reviewer, Thunder Bay Post
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
I've lived beside the waters of Lake Superior most of my life, but it wasn't until I read this book that I've really begun to understand and appreciate Lake Superior and the Great Lakes. The book is only 118 pages but it covers everything you need to know about the Great Lakes: how they were formed, the individual physical characteristics of each lake; their changes over time; the problems that affect them and the possible solutions. And the message that humans can positively affect their environment is strong: think globally and act locally. Entertaining, yet informative -- "The Dynamic Great Lakes" is a must read for anyone living near the Great Lakes.
 
Unraveling the Mysteries
Norman Goldman
Bookideas Many of us know very little about the five Great Lakes other than perhaps being able to name them. As Barbara Spring states in her introduction to her outstanding primer The Dynamic Great Lakes they are "a flowing river of seas left behind by Ice Age glaciers and are nearly twenty percent of the world's supply of fresh surface water; the world's greatest freshwater system." The ecosystem of this great body of water is very complex and unfortunately due to pollution and the fallout of modern industry and agriculture they have gone through a gradual transformation.
One of the unique characteristics of this compact book is that it is written in a language devoid of esoteric explanations. The eight chapters of the book reflect the author's teaching and journalistic aptitudes in knowing how to unravel the mystery of the Great Lakes and the many painful dangers it has faced and continues to face.
Each of the five Lakes is introduced with a brief synopsis of important elements distinguishing one from the other such as: elevation, length, breadth, average depth, maximum depth, volume, water area, retention time, population and outlet. From this point of departure the author deals with the various changes that have taken place as well as the various major issues affecting the Lakes. There are also brief descriptions of the various animal life found in each of the Lakes and how they have been affected by pollution and the appearance of harmful species, such as the Lamprey Eel.
However, we are also reminded throughout the reading of the book that "people power" can have an effect and if we band together and make our voices heard we could exert influence in reversing some of the harmful trends that have caused ecological disaster. For example we are apprised of the situation that occurred in relation to Lake Erie. In 1969 a tributary river of Lake Erie, the Cuyahoga, caught on fire due to being heavily coated with oil and debris. As a result, the Federal Water Quality Administration launched a one and half billion dollar municipal sewage treatment program for the Erie Basin which included the five surrounding states: Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.
The conclusion of the book most appropriately reminds us that: "we are all challenged to use our knowledge, creativity and common sense to keep the Great Lakes great. Can you think of ways to think globally and act locally?" We are also warned " life on earth is only possible as long as our limited life support system works.

Like Silent Spring
Jonathan David Masters 

My first impression of Ms Spring’s book was that here was a woman who was on a labor of love. Her enthusiasm for her subject is contagious. She gives the reader an overall history of the Great Lakes, a few secondary level ecology and geology lessons and then a brief history of each of the five lakes. She then sums up by identifying the major problems and elegantly expresses what she sees as possible solutions.
The general theme of her book is that we have and are continuing to make mistakes with regards to how we’ve handle these lakes in the past and that while some of these mistakes are irreversible (the extinction of species), others can be corrected through the democratic process.
The author is not a doomsday prophet, to the contrary, I found her book full of hope and promise ‘IF’ we (you and I) the ordinary citizen will care enough to become informed and get involved.
Worth a reading if for no other reason then that the writing is masterfully done and the many facts you’ll learn about these ever changing bodies of water are copious and engaging. Reminded me a little of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

A Journey Through Time
Rodney Hsu
Fishing With Rod
Although living in coastal BC, the complexity of the Great Lakes has often made me curious. After attending a lecture in 2000 regarding this subject, I was eager to find out more about the history of this body of water. In the recent month, I have been reading through Barbara Spring's new book The Dynamic Great Lakes and learned a tremendous amount of history and facts.
The Great Lakes are made of several large bodies of water that were formed during glaciation in eastern North America. These bodies of water include Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It is the largest freshwater system on this planet that are interconnected by waterways and rivers. These lakes are so large that they behave like a small ocean. 
Barbara Spring is a resident of the Great Lakes and she has observed and done extensive researches on this complex ecosystem. She is an artist who sees the beauty of the Great Lakes, and a very vocal activitist who is determined to fight against pollution and other threats to preserve this beauty.
As the name implies, The Dynamic Great Lakes describes the changes that these lakes undergo overtime. Reading through this book is like taking a journey through time. Spring introduces you to the major historical events that took place at each lake and the unique characteristics that they possess today. It is a biology lesson and a history lesson that is taught through storytelling by a knowledgeable local. Unlike most scientific publications, one does not have to be a diehard biologist to understand the scientific concepts that are written by Spring. She has written in a language that readers of all ages and education levels can appreciate it.
Spring also addresses the major issues that have been taking place in the Great Lakes during the past few decades. She stresses the devastation of pollutants such as DDT and dioxin have caused in the Great Lakes. She also inspired me by giving examples of how these effects can be reversed when residents are determined to make a difference.
To an angler, this book can be a helpful guide if one wants to understand the dynamic system of a lake. I also enjoyed reading through many biological facts of fish species that were brought up throughout the book. Although my background in limnology is fairly broad, I found that the amount of knowledge that I have gained after reading this book was plentiful. If you are looking for a book that can help you grow as an angler, a scientist or an environmentalist, pick up The Great Dynamic Lakes now.

Great Lakes Hold Surprising Information Peter Wild
U. S. Water News Co -Published by The Freshwater Society
Are dinosaurs cruising the benthic depths of the Great Lakes even while we go about our daily tasks? Not exactly. Yet sturgeon, fish weighing up to 300 pounds and similarly plated with armor,are nosing around down there. Occasionally you can see the monsters appear, making their spawning runs up rivers and surfacing like submarines in the pools beneath waterfalls... The five Great Lakes, holding nearly twenty percent of the earth's fresh water, are quite young. Gouged out by glaciers, they assumed their present shapes a mere 3,000 years ago. For that, they are a dynamic shifting system, still changing and exhibiting surprising differences. Lake Ontario, for example, the easternmost, although smallest of the bodies, holds more water than Lake Erie, its shallower nearby sister. Here's a handy primer for all such things, from the interaction of phytoplankton and calcium carbonate that gives a white cast to these inland oceans come August and helps clean the water to the charming ice volcanoes spouting chilly "lava" in the winter. This is intriguing stuff for adults, but the straightforward presentation also lends itself to use in schools, beginning about the sixth grade and up. And yes, we get the latest news on the zebra mussel, the tube nose goby, and other threats to the natural scheme of things. Also good news; how since the banning of DDT in the 1970's, the bald eagles have come back. The price is reasonable enough, but you can save two dollars by ordering The Dynamic Great Lakes from 1-301-695-1707 
Important New Information


Fascinating and Informative

Libbey, Gumballpoetry Bookstore
This is a fascinating and informative read about the ever-changing Great Lakes. It's packed with in-depth history and ecology. Do you know about the disastrous Zebra Mussel invasion? Or how about the Whiting Effect, the few weeks of summer when the surface water of the Lakes turns milky white? Is that good or bad? Read it to find out, and to find out what you can do to help the Great Lakes.
 
An Engaging Guide

The Midwest Book Review, Vol. 12, No. 3
Wisconsin
Written out of appreciation for a most marvelous natural ecosystem, The Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring is an excellently written, insightfully presented, and engaging guide to the true natures of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Chapters cover how the Great Lakes were formed, their physical characteristics and the history of their changes, problems that affect them today and offered solutions and more. An important contribution to our understanding of the Great Lakes system, The Dynamic Great Lakes is a wondrous and informative read, recommended for school and community library environmental studies reading lists and reference collections.
North America’s Great Lakes
 
NancyMarie, Myshelf.com
(3/21/2002)
Anyone interested in learning more about one of North America’s greatest natural resources will benefit from this book.


Stan Lievense, retired fish biologist, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Every library should have this book.
A Treasure
 
Ron Mader Planeta.com Interesting collection of essays about the Great Lakes, formed by Ice Age glaciers and now polluted by toxins. The author writes: "The Great Lakes system is a treasure. Understanding their natural processes and understanding the dynamics of what we do is essential to these life-giving waters.

Great Lakes Boating
For anyone with the curiosity as to what lies beneath the sweet water seas, Barbara Spring has written a book to alleviate this thirst for further knowledge with her book, The Dynamic Great Lakes. From how the lakes were formed to the pressing problems confronting the watersheds today, she documents the changes lake by lake.
The book is a convenient reference to keep on board or to read up on during the winter to increase your ability to take out-of-town clients on lake shore tours. Be able to explain why the water has its warm spots during the summer, and learn why it takes 99 years for pollutants to circulate out of the southern end of Lake Michigan.

Arctic Grayling

Michigan’s Arctic Grayling Poised for a Long-Awaited Comeback

Plans under way to reintroduce the species of fish that hasn’t swum in state’s rivers in nearly 100 years

ENLARGE

An Arctic grayling in Montana, one of only two states in the lower 48 to ever natively have the fish. Montana is now fighting to protect its dwindling wild populations. PHOTO: JIM MOGEN/U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

By 

BECKIE STRUM

Updated June 19, 2016 3:02 p.m. ET

13 COMMENTS

Grayling, Mich., a fishing hub in the woods of central Michigan, is named for a historic fish that hasn’t swum its rivers in nearly a century.

But now the fish are getting a second chance at a comeback.

Avid fly fishers from Grayling have had to travel thousands of miles to catch the species, which used to flourish in their own backyards, said Steve Sendek, a retired fisheries biologist from the town.

“I’ve fished for grayling in British Columbia and Alaska,” Mr. Sendek said. “They’re a wonderful fish.”

Arctic grayling, a cousin of the trout in the salmonid family, like cold, clear stable waterways, the kind you find in the idyllic backwoods of Michigan. In the 1800s, however, settlers began to overfish and introduced nonnative species of trout, which competed for food and space. A growing logging industry also disrupted and destroyed hundreds of miles of grayling habitat.

“All of those came together in a perfect storm to push the grayling off the map in Michigan,” Mr. Sendek said.

The state’s Department of Natural Resources announced this month that plans were under way for a yearslong effort to reintroduce the species to the Manistee River, which passes through town. It is a joint project between the state, researchers at Michigan Technological University and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians—all of whom want to see Michigan’s historic fish species returned to its native environment, said Todd Grischke, assistant chief of the fisheries division at Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources.

Michigan was one of only two states in the lower 48 to ever have native grayling—Montana is now fighting to protect its dwindling wild populations.

“They talk about carloads of grayling fish, well-train carloads in 1800s, being shipped off because they were that plentiful,” Mr. Grischke said.

This isn’t the first attempt to restock grayling in Michigan’s rivers, Mr. Grischke said. Biologists raised grayling in hatcheries in the 1980s and 1990s, and then tried to introduce them into the wild as yearlings. But the delicate 1-year-old fish didn’t survive the transition.

This time, the graylings will begin life in the rivers as eggs in incubators. The special containers will protect them from harm until they are big enough to survive on their own. “These incubators offer, I don’t want to say risk-free, but it offers a competitive advantage so that they can grow into mature adults,” Mr. Grischke said.

Researchers at Michigan Tech are exploring an area about 70 miles down river from Grayling to reintroduce the fish, Mr. Grischke said.

The first round of fry, hatched eggs, could be in the water by 2018. But it might be as many as 10 years before adults are fully established in the Manistee River, he said.

“This is an old-fashioned place and visitors ask about the grayling,” said Robert Tomlinson, who owns a local fishing lodge and chairs the local visitors board. “It could be amazing to bring it back.”

From the Wall Street Journal