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Halloween Land Carp Attack

Des Plaines, Illinois – A Des Plaines resident was dragged from her house and brutally chomped upon by a large Asian Carp on Halloween night.

“It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me,” said the frightened and wet resident. “I had heard the Jaws Theme playing in the back ground, but thought it was part of a child’s Halloween costume.”

Apparently, the unidentified young woman opened the door to the words trick-or-treat and then was pounced upon by the hefty Asian Carp. Experts speculate that the land carp escaped from the Des Plaines River during recent flooding.

“It was only a matter of time before this happened,” explained David Greene, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Michigan. “Climate change is going to give the land carp more of an advantage with harsh fast rains and increased flooding. These creatures adapt very quickly to their new ecosystems and it isn’t surprising that they’ve recently been able to transit land.”

Since this news broke, two more houses have been attacked. “The land carp came to my door on Sunday night, but I had heard about the Halloween attack from a neighbor at church,” said another female victim. “When I came to the door, he said he had a candygram for me, but I didn’t buy it. I said you’re that terrible land carp I’ve heard about aren’t you? I threatened to call the police and then he became very quiet. It was then that he told me he was only a catfish and I, sniff, I, well, I opened the door,” she said while she rubbed her bruised shoulder.

The Asian Carp grew bolder at the next house, according to the resident who said that she asked who it was and the fish responded, “Land Carp.” The resident opened the door as she had not read the newspaper all week, but she walked away with just a few bruises.

Police report that there have been several other sightings. The sizeable land carp was last seen heading for Lake Michigan.



What was the Great Lakes Congressional Delegation Thinking?

Those are some tough words, but they reflect what a lot of people are thinking after Great Lakes shippers sailed through a loophole that allows them to avoid complying with new air pollution standards. Navigating the way for them was our very own Congressional Delegation who evidently held meetings with the EPA and refused to talk publicily about the summits. We, the constituents, were able to get glimpses of the debate from a staffer who- in the press – alluded to cost-benefit analysis that would prove the shippers cause, but when we asked to see such studies they could not be unearthed (in fact, the EPA didn’t know to what the staffer was referring!). While our Great Lakes members of congress have a track record of being champions for our efforts and we recognize Washington requires compromises to be made, we hope they have not set a dangerous precedent for future restoration efforts by letting poison spewing dinosaurs off the hook. Bowing to the wishes of the shipping industry on air pollution control could reveal a harbinger just as tough negotiations for ballast water treatment are on the horizon.

“The Lakers are facing many hurdles in the upcoming years from air emissions to ballast regulations, and lower water levels associated with climate change. If they want to thrive in the future they need to not resist change but embrace it. If they don’t upgrade and they evade the air pollution standards will they call for exemptions from the ballast regulations?” asked Jen Nalbone, of Great Lakes United. Did our delegation unwittingly create a loophole so big that a school of Asian Carp could pummel through it?

Yes, I do realize that shipping isn’t what brought the carp to the doors of our Great Lakes, but if this is the start of a string of exemptions for ye old Lakers, the impact could easily be analogous to a 50-lb-of-leaping-fish-flesh-smack-upside-the-head. So, carp aside, for now anyway, 26 ships that sail the Great Lakes will not have to comply with the EPA standards and will be allowed to continue to hazardously pollute the air we breathe as well as the lakes. For the sake of profit and at a detriment to public health, 13 ships will get waivers from the EPA if they can prove they will go out of business by complying. Another 13 (the real dinos) got out of compliance all together – Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) suggested these ships boilers would “blow up” if they burned the cleaner fuel the EPA is requiring.

“Nobody was asking the ships to burn refined low sulfur fuel in steamship engines, that would be like trying to put batteries in a slide rule,” Nalbone retorts.

Some of our Great Lakes Lawmakers argued that without this amendment the Great Lakes region would be at an economic disadvantage.It is truly disappointing that certain Great Lakes lawmakers still haven’t embraced the widely accepted premise that cleaning up the Great Lakes is good for the economy – ala Brookings Report circa 2007. Case in point, the Great Lakes Interlake Steamship Company already replaced the engines on two of their steamships with more fuel efficient ones repowered their vessels in ways that exceed the EPA’s proposed regulations. And guess what, they didn’t go out of business instead they now have cleaner ships that perform more efficiently and will stay in business for years to come.

“Mr. Obey didn’t do the industry any favors in the long run. He could have really helped this ancient fleet modernize, instead of letting them languish in the mid-20th century. He could have chosen to pursue a modified timeline for implementation and financial assistance to those ships that will need to make the transition to newer, more fuel efficient engines. Now those aged ships are no less dirty, and no more competitive and tomorrow we will still be breathing polluted air,” Nalbone said.

Attaching this rider to the Interior spending bill wasn’t just unpopular with many in the environmental and Great Lakes community, it wasn’t popular with our delegation’s colleagues either.

Clearly, this deal left a bad taste in the mouth of California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) who chairs the Senate Interior Appropriations Committee who said, “It’s not something I necessarily desire.” While shepherding the $32.1 billion Interior Bill in the US Senate on Thursday, that was approved by a vote of 77-21, she paused to once again express her distaste for the loophole saying “this was language included at the insistence of the House. Frankly, it was not my preference to include this language.”

Previously, when the deal was first brokered, House Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) a lead author of the bill said that giving this pass to the Great Lakes ships will raise the issue for other ships as well – large ships that produce high levels of sulfur pollution. “The language could disallow us to effectively deal with those problems, not just around the Great Lakes, but around our country and dealing with foreign-flagged ships as well.” Concerns were also raised about the deal undermining the coordinate bi-national strategy to protect human health – in the US-Canada emissions control area.

In an attempt to address these problems, Sen. Feinstein told her colleagues, Thursday, that they crafted the compromise so that no other state or US seaboard community’s air quality would be negatively impacted. Great for them, but not so much for us, but then, public health has always tended to take a back seat to industry in our region.

When this deal was outted, Rep. Obey declared that he takes “a back seat to no one” when it comes to protecting the Great Lakes and all other environmental areas. That was true, until this past week. Let’s hope he and the rest of our delegation can recover their restoration compass and gravitas among their colleagues so that this little loophole doesn’t grow into a terribly large tare. Future progress for restoration and clean air and water could be at stake.



Great Lakes Restoration 2009 Conference Presentations

We are please to make available the presentations (as Adobe Acrobat PDF files) from the Healing Our Waters® – Great Lakes Coalition 5th Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference.
 

Thursday, September 10

Fulfilling The Promise – The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

Protecting and Restoring Lake Superior

“Great Waters” – A National Approach to Restoration

 

Friday, September 11

Implementing Great Lakes Restoration

Geographic Priorities

Sustain Our Great Lakes Program

  • Sustain Our Great Lakes, Todd Hogrefe, Assistant Director, Central Partnership Office, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Global Warming Adaptation And The Great Lakes

Linking Great Lakes With Economic Recovery

Clean Water Restoration Act

The Future Of Water Management In The Great Lakes

Developing The Healing Our Waters Restoration Implementation

 

Saturday, September 12

Recognizing A Global Resource

Restoration Implementation At The State Level



Great Lakes Restoration Initiative On The Move

The conference committee released the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative with the Energy and Water Bill last night and it includes the entire $475 million that the US President and the US House requested. Woo Hoo! This is a big victory for the Great Lakes!

The money is just one half of the equation when it comes to Great Lakes restoration – we still have a lot of regulatory and policy issues to contend with, but finally we have the nation’s first real investment in this fresh water resource.

Now that the legislation is out of conference it will go to the floors of both houses for a vote. If it passes both chambers then it will wing its way to the White House for President Obama’s signiture. These are exciting times for our region and we are on our way to real progress!



A Deal Has Been Struck; Obey Saves Great Lakes Ships From Compliance with Pollution Regs

After weeks of wrangling between Great Lakes lawmakers and the EPA, late Monday night House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wisc.) won a hard fought deal that will provide an exemption from air pollution standards for 13 ancient Great Lakes ships.

When Great Lakes Shippers realized that the $32 billion natural resources bill that is the source of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget included regulations that would force them to stop using dirty fuel within the next few years they went to their congressmen. Behind closed doors, Obey, James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and other Great Lakes lawmakers met with the EPA to hammer out an exception for the oldest ships working the Great Lakes. Shippers argued the regulations would force them out of business and that the public health concern wasn’t great enough to trump economics. Gee, we haven’t heard that before!

These Great Lakes lawmakers who have been known for supporting environmental restoration efforts concerning the lakes were so tight lipped about this process that even POLITICO was not able to acquire the details of the deal. But it is clear that 13 of the Great Lakes Ships are eligible for waivers from the EPA if they can show that they will be driven out of business and the other 13 – well, Congress will be in charge and not the EPA.

Here is the extra sneaky part, by attaching this exemption for the shippers onto a must-pass bill it is a shoe in to go through – most likely by the end of this week. In other words, there is no way to stop this from happening at this point. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has indicated that she will accept the scheme because her ports and her public in California will not be negatively impacted as those ships will have to comply with the EPA’s air standards.

“It’s not something I necessarily desire,” said Sen. Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, told E&E news. Feinstein also told the news service that Michigan Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin asked her to support the rider. At least the bill that contains the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative money is out of conference and on its way to the floor, ironic that it was held up by Great Lakes Shippers looking for a loophole to pollute.



Climate Change, National Parks and Water Infrastructure are on Congress’ Agenda

The National Parks are threatened by climate change – from contracting glaciers to flooded revered wetlands – management of our nation’s park lands will become increasingly difficult. After a significant panel found that the National Parks Service lacks the research capacity to develop a way to deal with the changes to our climate, a US Senate panel has decided to hold a hearing on the issue this week.

The US Senate Energy and Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday afternoon at 2pm in the Dirksen Building. The President of the Wildlife Management Institute will testify focusing on the importance of national parks as a research lab where ecosystems are still intact and can be monitored for changes.

The House will also be considering the ravages of climate change – this time with an emphasis on water management. Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on water and those that manage the resource for us are trying to calculate how to address expected problems. A report by the US Geological Survey, Army Corps of Engineers, Reclamation and NOAA explored strategies to improve water management under the expected affects of climate change. This report is among the reasons why a US House panel will hold a hearing tomorrow morning in the Longworth Building.

The Water and Power Subcommittee wants to know if federal agencies are collecting the correct information on water resources. They want to ensure that the right data is making it into the hands of water managers and is available to the public.



Speak up for the Great Lakes

Calling all Great Lakes advocates: We want you in Cleveland this Thursday (Oct. 29).

That’s when President Obama’s Oceans Policy Task Force will hold its only meeting in the Great Lakes region. The meeting will be held from 4-7 p,m, at the Downtown Marriott in Cleveland.

This is the only chance for people in this region to provide comment on the Task Force’s interim report, which you can read here.

The president formed the Ocean Policy Task Force in June to develop: A national policy that ensures the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources; a framework for agency coordination in implementing the policy; a set of priority actions that will help advance the policy; and a framework for coordinated coastal and ocean spatial planning.

That’s an ultra-wonky way of saying the president wants federal agencies to get their collective acts together to better protect and restore our nation’s oceans and the Great Lakes.

We want to make sure the task force understands all the hard work that has been done to restore the Great Lakes and how much more needs to be done. In other words, we don’t want the task force to treat the Great Lakes like a redheaded stepchild in a family of blondes.

The Great Lakes are every bit as important as the oceans are to the United States, ecologically and economically. But the lakes also have unique issues and needs.

We need people to tell the task force that the Great Lakes — which collectively contain the world’s largest freshwater ocean — are unique and deserve special recognition and treatment in the national oceans policy.



Clean Water Act Revamp?

After what is likely to become an award winning series on the failure of the Clean Water Act to meet its goals, the New York Times produced an editorial calling for some significant changes to the nearly 40-year-old act.

The editorial calls on the Environmental Protection Agency to better police the states. The states have the primary role to issue permits and enforce the law, but many appear to fail to take their job seriously. For instance, as one commenter writes, cities and towns are rarely held accountable for dumping tons of sewage into the Great Lakes and their tributaries. “Milwaukee for instance, dumps billions of gallons of sewer (sic) annually into Lake Michigan. Why? Because only private individuals and businesses are pursued by the EPA. Municipalities nearly always get a warning to do “something”, but are never in any danger of being forced to change. So the biggest water pollution problem facing our nation will continue while we crush the guy who accidentally dumps 100 gallons of pollution from his farm into a nearby river,” writes Guy Thompto, of Cedarburg, Wisc.

The Editorial then proposes that lawmakers close the loopholes that allow pollution from large animal feeding operations and power plants. “What utilities put into the air is regulated. Not so the toxics — arsenic, lead, cadmium — they discharge into the water. The agency was supposed to have set limits on these pollutants in the 1980s, and never has. That’s disgraceful,” the New York Times states.

Another reader points out that willing polluters are much more likely to spend money on lawyers and lobbyists to avoid complying with the law arguing that compliance will ruin their business. Jack Teague of Alabama argues that we need a paradigm shift and perhaps this NYT series will begin to create a new mindset, he writes: “Until the American mindset changes to value public health above, or at least equal to, unfettered capitalism, any reinvigorated efforts at the Clean Water Act will be short-lived.” Another thing we old Rust Belters know a thing or two about – how quickly profits subsume any care for public health.

The New York Times editorial recommends fixing the Clean Water Act to include direct discharges from large point sources. The law should be rewritten to give higher priority to toxins that flow into our waters via farms, suburban lawns and city streets.

Paul Freedman of the Water Environment Federation writes on his blog that the majority of our dirty damaged waters is caused by nonpoint sources of pollution but our regulatory system fails to address these problems. As we well know in the Great Lakes region the ancient state of our infrastructure needs not just repair but in many places wholesale replacement.

The point is that the Clean Water Act is getting old and may need a bit more of a facelift to deal with more modern issues that are vexing our waters. Such a review would also allow us to include green innovations as solutions that didn’t exist in the early ‘70s. Freedman writes, “Basically today we have a regulatory tool kit that is designed to address problems that no longer exist and doesn’t give us the tools to address our new problems and potential solutions. And we don’t have integrated water programs that allow us to focus on high-priority needs and practical effective solutions. These problems will become even more challenging with population growth and climate change.”

Finally, the New York Times editorial calls for more funding for understaffed state agencies and better data collection across the board, but increasing enforcement efforts, improving the law and increasing financial aid is a lot to think about – seems some are asking if the Clean Water Restoration Act will be enough?



Clock is ticking on Asian carp timebomb lurking near Lake Michigan

Asian carp are knocking on the door of Lake Michigan and something needs to be done — STAT! — to keep these food-hogging, flying monsters from invading the Great Lakes.

In a recent post, we reported that the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, along with the Alliance for the Great Lakes and Great Lakes United, called on the federal government to take emergency action to keep the Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan and, ultimately, all the Great Lakes.

If you still doubt the severity of the threat these fish pose to Great Lakes fisheries and boaters, check out this video of flying Asian carp in the Illinois River. Fast forward to the 2:45 mark of the video — that’s when the real fireworks start.

If we are to keep the horrific scene in the video from being repeated in rivers around the Great Lakes basin, government agencies need to move quickly to keep Asian carp from sneaking into Lake Michigan.

You can do your part by contacting the U.S. Army  Corps of Engineers and urging the agency to immediately create a barrier to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

You can also contact officials at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources asking them to immediately create a barrier to keep these swimming monsters out of the Great Lakes.



The Plot to Help Great Lakes Ships Dis-Obey Air Pollution Standards Thickens: Jim Oberstar Meets with EPA

Last week we reported that some Great Lakes lawmakers were listening to the pleas of Great Lakes shippers who want to avoid complying with a law that would prohibit ships from burning high-sulfur fuel within 200 miles of a coast by 2012 to protect public health.

While we were writing, Great Lakes Congressmen were meeting with EPA officials at the request of Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., according to his spokesman John Schadl. The concern, Schadl told the Green Bay Press Gazette, was over “costs versus benefits. Is it worth it to significantly damage an entire industry on the Great Lakes with a program that wouldn’t have any appreciable benefit to air quality?”

The EPA published a briefing paper in June that said burning high-sulfur fuel and the nitrogen oxide emissions from ships is expected to double by the year 2030. The paper states that breathing this pollution increases illness, hospitalization and premature death. Frank O’Donnell’s Clean Air Watch group has estimated that forcing Great Lakes ships to comply with the EPA standards would save the lives of 450 people a year in our region. Clean Air Watch’s blog also reports that Murphy Oil – a company in Wisconsin Rep. David Obey’s (D) district that provides the sludgy, “asphalt-like” bunker fuel to Great Lakes ships – contacted Obey’s office about the EPA standards.

Splashing more fuel upon this growing fire, the Canadian Embassy weighed in last week in support of the Great Lakes shippers asking the EPA to back off. The Canadians are arguing that the costs of compliance will be too high and force some companies to stop using iconic steamers that travel the lakes carrying lots of commodities.

Since HOW’s concern is for the health of the Great Lakes and the people who live in our eight state region, we would like to see what the lawmakers and diplomats are basing this argument upon. If there has been some sort of cost benefit analysis that shows that the cost of compliance outweighs the benefit to public’s and environment’s health then please share it with us to clear the air, so to speak. Without this kind of transparency it looks to us like our lawmakers are putting profits ahead of our restoration goals and the public’s good.

Congress expects to reach a resolution with the EPA this week. There is still a danger that a rider could be attached to an energy and water appropriations bill that would block this proposed rule.