In northwest Indiana, life may just be a little more hopeful than it used to be. The Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA) project to remove contaminated sediment from portions of the Grand Calumet River and adjacent Roxana Marsh is done. Unlike before the cleanup, these waterways will now likely attract birds, aquatic life, and people.
“This river was lifeless,” said Cameron Davis, senior advisor on the Great Lakes to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “Today, because of this effort, you can see the Grand Cal working and fighting to come back to life, and with it, the community.”
A celebration and press event earlier this week to mark this moment brought together the many players and partners involved in the process. And, thanks to work done by Caitie McCoy, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) social scientist, local school children capped off their semester-long learning experience about the restoration project by planting native seedlings along the marsh’s shores.
“Legacy Act projects provide opportunities for residents to get involved in the river restoration process and learn about local water issues,” said McCoy. “As the Grand Cal project moved forward we have been ensuring that this includes local students too.”
McCoy and Nishaat Yunus, a fellow in the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO), worked closely with students in two northwest Indiana schools, engaging them in hands-on water monitoring activities and other learning opportunities.
At the Hammond Academy of Science and Technology they accompanied about 80 9th grade students from Amanda Miracle’s science classes on a field trip to the river. Students took water samples to monitor water quality in restored sites–the results were shared with EPA and GLLA project partners. The students have gone back to the river to view progress on the restoration project. They have also learned data analysis, data reporting, and used data to make project-level decisions.
At the East Chicago Lighthouse Charter School, about 50 4th grade students from Andrea Bock’s science classes grew native plants, provided by EPA. These plants were brought to Roxana Marsh to put in the ground as part of the celebration.McCoy and Yunus engaged students in key concepts associated with habitats and restoration projects. The children designed their own Roxana Marsh habitat by constructing a colorful classroom mural.
McCoy is working with IISG’s education team—RobinGoettel and Terri Hallesy—to package the classroom programming developed through these efforts, so it will be ready to apply at other GLLA sites, hopefully to work in conjunction with Sea Grant programs in other states.
http://hallesy
Altogether, more than 575,000 cubic yards of polluted sediment were removed from 2.5 miles of the Roxana Marsh and Grand Calumet River. The project’s $56 million costs were shared by U.S. EPA and the state of Indiana. But there are many players in this project—EPA GLNPO, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources cooperated in the cleanup.
At the project celebration, Rep. Pete Vislosky commented on the restoration project. “What we used to call an industrial ditch—for 100 years—will be a grand river and a tremendous asset for all of us and our nation.”
The report combines study and information of a wide range of factors in order to provide appropriate recommendations for planning the community’s use of water.
From the Metropolitan Planning Council’s website:
“
This report is the culmination of one year of cooperative work, from March 2011 through March 2012, between the Village of Lake Zurich and a project team led by Metropolitan Planning Council in partnership with the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. Through MPC’s Community Building Initiative, the team also convened a 13-member task force consisting of volunteer members with expertise in ecology, economics, engineering, law, planning, and utility management, to assist and advise the project team.”
The report not only provides information to water planners and local officials in Lake Zurich, but can be a model for other communities, laying out a variety of factors to consider and ways to meet the needs of customers while planning for the future.
The complete report is available for download at the link above.
IISG’s Caitie McCoy has been heavily involved in the Sheboygan River AOC project, helping to provide information to the community and to all of the agencies and individuals involved in the project.
The cleanup and remediation of the area is well underway, and a new publication answers the most common and important questions that community members have had about the project.
Available now for download, the pamphlet “A Cleaner, Deeper River Coming Soon!” addresses questions ranging from specific areas that will be dredged, disposal of the polluted materials that are removed, and positive impacts for wildlife and the community once the project is complete.
You can learn more about the work in Sheboygan on the project website.
Ensuring safety for visitors to Lake Michigan involves several factors, many departments and people, and a terrific amount of work. And still, unless good, accurate information reaches visitors and people who need it, potential problems can’t be avoided.
One such concern each summer season is the presence of
rip currents – a strong flow of water under the surface that carries away from the shore. Each year, swimmers and surfers in all major bodies of water can be endangered by the presence of these currents. That is why developing a more accurate and immediate way of warning beachgoers about rip currents is incredibly important, and why the National Weather Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, life guards at several beaches, and other organizations are partnering to develop and share information about rip currents.
From the Northwest Indiana Times:
“…the National Weather Service’s Chicago office in Romeoville, Ill., and the Northern Indiana office teamed up with beach operators to enhance predicting and warning of rip currents along Lake Michigan’s beaches in an effort to reduce drowning deaths.
In addition to modeling to predict rip currents, forecasters now have the help of lifeguards at beaches at Indiana Dunes State Park in Chesterton, Washington Park in Michigan City, Warren Dunes State Park in Sawyer, Mich., and Silver Beach County Park in St. Joseph, Mich. The lifeguards report water conditions twice daily and can see the rip currents in the water from their guard stands.”
Read the complete article
here, and find information about rip currents and beach conditions at the
Great Lakes Beach Hazards from NOAA. And most importantly, stay safe and have fun this summer at all of the Great Lakes.
With the Lake Michigan lakefront now open to swimmers for the season, the Chicago Park District will be using a new system to monitor bacteria level and ensure a safe swimming environment for visitors.
From The Chicago Tribune:
“Chicago’s new elaborate system of buoys and statistical models will monitor 16 of the city’s 24 beaches, and Park District officials are seeking grant money from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to expand the system to cover all beaches by next summer.
The model will predict the levels of harmful bacteria at each beach using data on the location of sources of contamination, like colonies of sea gulls or sewer outlets; the motion of waves that can disturb bacteria growing in the sand; lake-current speeds; water temperature; and sunlight.”
Read more about the city’s new system for monitoring Lake Michigan
here.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is working to remove Asian Carp from several Illinois waterways, even those not connected to the Great Lakes.
From the Traverse City Record-Eagle:
“The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee plans to spend $12 million this year on efforts to stop the voracious eaters from reaching Lake Michigan, where scientists fear they could out-compete native fish for food and wreak havoc on the Great Lakes fishing industry. Plans include sampling urban fishing ponds, surveying fish markets for live fish and random electrofishing and netting along a network of canals that connect Lake Michigan to the Illinois River.
McCloud said the DNR will visit bait shops and fish markets to make sure there are no live carp, and will sample around 20 lagoons. He said anyone who nets an Asian carp should get it out of the water and make sure it’s dead. He also asks that they take a photo of the fish and call the DNR.”
These efforts are all part of the larger goal of protecting Illinois waterways, and Lake Michigan in particular, from the threat posed by Asian Carp.
Read the complete article
here.
The
World Wildlife Fund has recently released a map that contrasts the most intensively fished areas of the world’s oceans between 1950 and 2006. The resulting graphic clearly illustrates the startling growth in fishing, and helps to demonstrate the potential for severely depleted fish populations worldwide.
From The Washington Post:
“Between 1950 and 2006, the WWF report notes, the world’s annual fishing haul more than quadrupled, from 19 million tons to 87 million tons. New technology — from deep-sea trawling to long-lining — has helped the fishing industry harvest areas that were once inaccessible. But the growth of intensive fishing also means that larger and larger swaths of the ocean are in danger of being depleted.”
The article includes a number of links that provide additional information, including a link to the complete report from World Wildlife Fund in PDF form.
Community members, stakeholders, and several agencies have been involved in an extensive cleanup project in Muskegon Lake for the last few years, and just this month they celebrated the project’s completion.
The Great Lakes Legacy Act project began with the development of a master plan and secured funding, with the goal of cleaning and restoring the lake’s natural habitats. By doing so, fish and wildlife populations can be restored, and the lake will be cleaner and safer for recreational use as well.
Caitie McCoy, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s environmental social scientist, has been heavily involved in several remediation and community outreach projects, including outreach for the EPA during the entire Muskegon Lake cleanup and restoratio
n.
Caitie wrote to update us on the great progress that they’ve made restoring the lake. “The project
removed 43,000 cubic yards of sediment contaminated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and mercury from Muskegon Lake, which flows into Lake Michigan. It also included habitat restoration in the area.”
Caitie was onsite for the project completion, and worked with John Karl from Wisconsin Sea Grant to compile video footage. That footage will be part of a video being produced about Great Lakes Legacy Act cleanup projects including Muskegon Lake. Check back here to the blog later this year when we’ll have the video posted.
(Pictured above is Dennis Kirksey of Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership, a landowner in the area who played a large role in helping the project reach completion.)
A proposed water trail along Lake Michigan’s shoreline would improve access to 450 miles of the lakeshore, making it easier for recreationists to enjoy the water.
“The trail will eventually run from the Wisconsin-Illinois border north to the tip of the Door County Peninsula and south along the Green Bay shoreline to the city of Green Bay.
The Lake Michigan Water Trail was selected as one of the top 100 state projects as part of President Barack Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors program that encourages increasing outdoor recreation opportunities close to home.”
The project involves several agencies and could provide expanded opportunities for businesses near the lakeshore.
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