Great Lakes Updates

"The presence of the foam itself is a violation of the permit," acknowledged Maureen Wren, the spokesperson of CWM, last week. In October, Riverkeeper reported that CWM was issuing acrid foam into the river. The DEC maintains that the substance was created by a high volume of wastewater dropping down a long vertical pipe. Just air bubbles, really. Hmm. Read the Buffalo News story here.

On Friday, Nov. 2, Bush followed through with his threat and vetoed a bill calling for $23 billion in water projects, including coastal restoration in Louisiana and $2 billion for Florida Everglades restoration, mentioned in yesterday's blog. Overwhelming support for the bill in Congress, however, will probably override the veto of a bill Bush calls "fiscally irresponsible." Who needs wetlands anyway? Click here for the full article.

In Minneapolis, after twelve years of studies, the EPA is finally removing soil from four neighborhoods contaminated by arsenic from a nearby pesticide plant that operated in the 1960's. Minneapolis residents are upset that cleanup has taken so long to begin after agencies discovered dangerous levels of arsenic in the early 1990's. The contaminated soil is scooped up, wrapped in a plastic liner and deposited in a landfill. (Unfortunately, who's to say that the arsenic burritos won't eventually leak into the landfill, which in turn leaks into local waterways and groundwater?) Click here for the article.

Is Lake Superior the canary in the coal mine for climate change? Superior, the largest, coldest, and cleanest of the Great Lakes, has lost 50 percent of its ice cover in the last 100 years and warmed by 2 degrees a decade since the 1980's. Less ice cover also allows more evaporation, which we've seen in falling lake levels. Read the article by clicking here.