Scientists Say Great Lakes Are Cleansing Themselves

Reuters ^ | 10-03-2001 | Lesley Wroughton

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Did they forget about the TRILLIONS of zebra mussels that have made the great lakes their homes over the last 30 years? These things are natural filters, and filter large quantities of pollutants in relation to their size.

[Carry_Okie]

Nothing to do with zebra mussels eh?

[DouglasKC]

I live in a county in Michigan on the east side of Lake Michigan. We are by no means what you would consider an industrial county. Farmland makes up the majority with two or three big towns having manufacturers.

A few years back, the EPA measured air quality and tried to tell the county that our emissions were too high and we would have to institute the measures they said would fix it...i.e. emissions testing on automobiles, the whole nine yards. So they built these testing centers all over the county.

Governor Engler said bull crap, there ain't no pollution coming from there and refused to knuckle under. Now some of the centers are occupied by other businesses and some of them stand vacant.

This article would seem to explain partially why we tested so high. It just goes to show that the government bureacracy is full of crap.

[firebrand]

Jacques Cousteau
told you so

[Carry_Okie]

LOL! Ya beats me two it! Perhaps we should also add EXOTIC zebra mussels. The lakes are so clean that the fish are starving in some places. Natural water isn't clean.

[kahoutek]

Ya mean the sky ain't falling?

[riley1992]

Governor Engler said bull crap, there ain't no pollution coming from there and refused to knuckle under.

He has done some really strong things as Governor until the latter part of this last term. This was definitely one of the good things.

[NovemberCharlie]

...significant quantities of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and pesticides were being released into the atmosphere by the five Great Lakes -- Erie, Superior, Ontario, Michigan and Huron.

So is the EPA going to fine the Great Lakes for violating the Clean Water Act?

[Servant of the Nine]

And when the zebra mussel dies, the polution goes right back into solution.

[janus]

He estimated that about 30 percent to 40 percent of dioxins dropping into the lakes comes from local sources, but toxaphene, a now banned pesticide, was blowing in from the southern United States where it is used on cotton fields.

Looks like another attack on us Rednecks!

[sharktrager]

It's a lie! The fish are producing chemical weapons to try to eradicate humans! Their probably working with the squirrels.

[Cagey]

At least they didn't blame tobacco.

[Stand Watch Listen]

Zebra mussels seem to filter out much of minute particles of the food chain in that the fish chain populations are down in numbers.

Also Lake Michigan takes decades to 'cleanse'/rejuvenate itself because of a lack of flow.

[winodog]

The studies of the IADN on the Great Lakes show that Lake Ontario, the smallest of the five lakes, released almost two tons of PCBs into the air from 1992 and 1996 as well as significant amounts of dieldrin, a widely banned insecticide

Everyone and their mom knows the smallest lake is Lake Huron.Just remember the word homes and list em in order

[stboz]

A similar article appears in the latest issue of Battelle "Environmental Updates," in which it is related that Prince William Sound of Exxon Valdez fame has recovered just fine.

"Many scientists assumed that the Sound was essentially pristine before the spill and that any evidence of petroleum hydrocarbons in the environment or changes in biological communities could be attributed to the spill....

In fact, much of the hydrocarbons in offshore sediments were determined to be not from the spill, but instead from eroding shales and related natural oil seeps along the coast southeast of the Sound."

Folks, the enviros have been lying to us. Battelle has nothing to gain by saying the problem ain't what we thought.

The article concludes by saying,

"Although small amounts of weathered oil remain buried in sediments on a few beaches, the remaining oil is in locations and physical forms that pose no health risk to shoreline biological communities, fish, birds, and mammals. Plant and animal populations that use the shore have recovered from the effects of the oil spill."

[okie01]

"Everyone and their mom knows the smallest lake is Lake Huron."

Lake Huron is actually the second largest. And Ontario is the smallest. The proper acronym would be SHMEO.

Superior
Huron
Michigan
Erie
Ontario

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Good tip !

[Alberta's Child]

The legend lives on, from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumee.
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

"Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot.

[winodog]

Are you sure? I learned this a long time ago in geography and have told it too many times and never been corrected.