Mercury content in water is a health hazard for people, animals, and delicate ecosystems, and preventing its release into the water supply is a major concern. A four-year study has found that there are effective and affordable methods currently available to reduce mercury levels in waste water released at a BP refinery near Lake Michigan.


From the Northwest Indiana Times: 

“Scientists from Purdue University Calumet and Argonne National Laboratories who examined the issue for more than four years released their findings in a community briefing at the Hammond campus Tuesday morning. 

In 2007, BP funded a $5 million grant to the Purdue University Water Institute and Argonne National Laboratories to research technologies that would help the company meet the 1.3 parts per trillion Clean Water Act standard for mercury.”

Read the complete article here. 

“Outside of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, news of this carp-control strategy barely registered with the U.S. public. But on March 6, it hit China and…microbloggers took to the minor news topic with gusto, using it to explore issues ranging from corrupt civil servants to U.S. sovereign debt…

Within a week, netizens posted more than 85,000 tweets, comments on tweets and re-tweets on the carp rampage. By Chinese microblogging standards, that’s actually quite modest. More popular topics can easily generate millions of posts. But such a large amount of commentary regarding an essentially American story is significant.”

IISG’s Lawn to Lake Program is focused on helping homeowners, landscapers, gardeners, and others adopt landscaping practices that reduce chemical runoff to local waterways, protecting and preserving those sources of water while maintaining thriving lawns and gardens.

There are a number of ways that everyone can keep local waterways clean while keeping their lawns green, and IISG has developed materials for homeowners, landscapers, and others to learn about how they can get involved.

“Don’t ‘P’ on your lawn” is a two-sided card (PDF) with healthy lawn tips and info on safe landscaping practices. The title is aimed at getting homeowners to watch out for phosphorus in their fertilizers, because phosphorus can lead to excessive algal blooms in waterways.

IISG Environmental Social Scientist Caitie McCoy has been spending a lot of time working with communities, government, Sea Grant programs, and affiliated local and regional organizations to help clean up Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs). Recently she had the opportunity to spend some time visiting with students at two schools in northwest Indiana– sharing a number of interesting water facts with them, as well as getting them to participate hands-on in gathering data and learning about local water issues. Caitie shared some of her experiences and described the help that she’s had along the way.

“Nishaat Yunus, ORISE Fellow for the Great Lakes National Program Office, and I have been working quite vigorously over the last month with the help of others to create educational programming for students in the Grand Calumet AOC. We’re working with Robin Goettel and Terri Hallesy to package the programming so it will be ready to apply at other Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA) sites, hopefully to work in conjunction with Sea Grants in other states.

We visited two schools this week. On Wednesday we went to Hammond Academy of Science and Technology, where we had the chance to talk to and work with about 80 9th grade students from Amanda Miracle’s science classes. We went on a field trip to the Grand Calumet River and took water samples from stretches of the river that have been remediated under GLLA. Anne Remek from Indiana Department of Environmental Management helped lead the field trip. The purpose of the sampling was to monitor water quality; the results will be shared with our EPA and GLLA project partners (IDNR, IDEM, & USFWS). During the 2nd half of the day, students used a water testing kit with 12 analytes (copper, dissolved oxygen, nitrates, etc) to see what the water quality readings were and understand what they meant. We plan to take another field trip to the Grand Calumet River at some point to check out the restoration project and its progress. We will visit the classes at least twice more to do lessons on data analysis, data reporting, and using data to make project-level decisions.

Thursday we headed to East Chicago Lighthouse Charter School, where we got to speak to and teach about 50 4th grade students from Andrea Bock’s science classes. The students are currently growing native plants provided by EPA in their classroom, and they’ve started sprouting! Nishaat and I will be visiting again and taking a field trip to Roxana Marsh when the plants are more fully grown, and students will get to plant the natives that they have been growing on the site. We also had a chance to give an interactive presentation and activity on habitats, and we will visit the classes at least twice more to talk about the cleanup at Roxana Marsh and how to design a habitat.”

If you are an aquaculturist who subscribes to the saying, “waste not, want not,” you might want to look into the new farming practice of aquaponics, which combines the soil-less growing technique of hydroponics with aquaculture.

“Aquaponics is great because you are integrating fish production with plant production,” said Kwamena Quagrainie, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant aquaculture marketing specialist. “You are also making maximum use of limited resources.”

Specifically, the system uses the nutrients that are emitted from fish to nourish plants, creating a habitat that is self-sustainable and eliminating waste. As a result, aquaponics does not require a large amount of space.

“This technique is a great avenue for achieving green infrastructure in urban areas. It can be practiced by individuals or communities for food production,” said Quagrainie. “You could set up an aquaponic system in your own garage or your basement if you wanted to.”

Quagrainie’s interest in aquaponics began a couple years back when he began hearing about it from local producers. He visited AquaRanch Industries, located in Flanagan, Illinois, to learn more about the aquaponic process.

Since 2006, Quagrainie has held aquaponic workshops each year to spotlight the benefits of this process and explain how to set up your own system. Attendees also learn about costs and marketing, as well as visit an aquaponics facility. The next workshop will likely be in the spring. Through Purdue Extension, Quagrainie also developed a video that provides an overview of aquaponics.

“We are trying to target people who are really interested in getting into aquaponics,” Quagrainie said. “We want to reach people who are thinking about sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint.”

“Aquaponics is a fairly new technique,” said Myles Harston, who runs AquaRanch Industries and assists Quagrainie with the workshops. “But it makes sense. The plants feed the fish, the fish feed the plants, and the plants clean up the water for the fish. You can continually reuse water with very little turnover or waste.”

Harston added that an aquaponic facility is very similar to a garden; and the produce grown through this process is very fresh. “Hydroponic tomatoes are not great tasting. They have a kind of sterile taste,” he said. “But an aquaponic tomato tastes just as good as a garden-grown tomato.”

Even though aquaponics is not widely practiced yet, the word has been spreading. A new company in Chicago called 312 Aquaponics opened its doors last year. Brian Watkins, one of the co-founders, said he was partially inspired after attending a seminar by Harston. “When I first started looking into aquaponics, I was really blown away. I kept thinking that this can be very important for the future,” Watkins said.

This year, anglers and boaters who attended the “Let’s Go Fishing Show” in Collinsville, Illinois from January 6–8 got a chance to do more than buy new fishing gear and check out the latest boats. Two IISG specialists joined forces to provide information about ways they can help protect rivers and lakes.

Laura Kammin, pollution prevention program specialist, and Sarah Zack, aquatic invasive species specialist, co-hosted a booth to highlight some of the problems facing our waters—improper disposal of unwanted medicines and aquatic invasive species. They explained to nearly 240 show attendees how to find local medicine collection programs or how to safely dispose of unwanted medicines if programs are not available in their area. In addition, showgoers were able to explore IISG’s display of aquatic invasive species information, including preserved specimens and Asian carp mounts. More than 360 boaters and anglers were informed of the Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers!™ campaign, which explains what steps to take to prevent the transport of invasive species.

Show attendees were very impressed with the IISG booth. Several people shared how glad they were to see this information made available. One visitor even went so far as to say that the IISG booth was the best booth he’d seen, and that it was the most important booth at the show. Laura and Sarah will team up again at the “Rockford Boat, Vacation, and Fishing Expo” from February 17–19.

For more information on how you can safely dispose of medicine contact Laura Kammin. For more information about aquatic invasive species and the Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers!™ campaign contact Sarah Zack or visit www.protectyourwaters.net.

The Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant AIS outreach team is part of the Illinois Natural History Survey Lake Michigan Biological Station in Zion.

The Sheboygan River in Wisconsin is a priority Area of Concern (AOC) for cleanup, restoration, and remediation according to the EPA. IISG’s Caitie McCoy has been working directly with communities in all of the Great Lakes areas, and attended a meeting in late January in Sheboygan to discuss the river cleanup project with the people who rely on and care for the river.

Caitie has been actively involved with the Sheboygan AOC since April of last year, when she began a case study on the river in order to understand community concerns and perspectives on the river, the needs of the community, and potential benefits and challenges of a remediation and restoration plan. The case study allowed Caitie and IISG intern Ada Morgan to develop a full understanding of the area, as well as grow beneficial relationships within the community to assist in planning the project.

The January meeting in Sheboygan, hosted by several partners in the project, as well as the project team and the USEPA, provided another networking opportunity and another chance for Caitie to work directly with the project team and the community on ensuring the best plan and path for the project.

Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant has a special collaboration with the USEPA Great Lakes National Program Office, which allows Caitie to be involved in AOCs throughout the Great Lakes area, and to interact with the respective communities to benefit the projects and the people. Through collaborations like this, Caitie has the opportunity to work with other Sea Grant programs, including the Wisconsin Sea Grant. They will be working together to complete a video that will offer boaters, residents, and others important details on how a remediated Sheboygan river can benefit them.

For more information on current AOCs and the organizations that are working together to clean up these sites, contact Caitie McCoy, and visit the USEPA webpage for further details.

IISG’s Molly Woloszyn organized a workshop for several Chicago-area teachers recently, and wrote us to share news of the event.
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On January 31st, I had the opportunity to help organize and present at a workshop for several Chicago Public School teachers titled “Climate Change: What Is It and What Does It Mean for Illinois?” The workshop attendees all lead after school conservation clubs for 6th-12th graders through the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3), a program of the Chicago Department of Transportation.

C3 project coordinator Kristen Pratt invited me to speak to the teachers about the basics of climate science and climate change. I did this workshop in collaboration with the Illinois State Climatologist, Dr. Jim Angel, who enriched the workshop by sharing his abundant knowledge on the climate of Illinois, as well as projections for the future of Illinois’ climate.

After receiving feedback from the teachers, I was thrilled to hear that they learned a lot about climate science and climate change, a topic that is very important to them and especially relevant nowadays. Many teachers said they found it valuable to learn what is happening with the climate in Illinois and more specifically in Chicago.

The topics I spoke to the teachers about included climate variability, the natural controls of climate and climate change, the influence humans can have on Earth’s climate system, the greenhouse effect, and the main sources for greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and Chicago.

Not only were the teachers enthusiastic to learn about the topic, they were also eager to share the information with their students, which I think is one of the best results from the workshop.

The mission of the C3 Student Clubs Program is to recruit, train, and support a network of teachers and students to improve the quality of life in their schools and neighborhoods through environmental service projects that protect water, clean air, restore land, and save energy.

Sea Grant’s  bighead and silver carp WATCH card is new and improved. In addition to the fresh design, we’ve changed the card to highlight the term “Asian carp” to match what people are hearing in the media, added pictures of the juvenile fish in comparison with a native shad, and included the national STOP Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS) phone number.

Click here for more information: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/99765