Our Great Lakes: Dangers Ahead

The goal of this blog is to inspire love and respect for the Great Lakes as a place and an extraordinary natural resource. I am an advocate for protection of the Great Lakes.

How we protect them, who protects them, and what is needed for protection are all complex questions. But the bottom line is that the Great Lakes are a prime example of the type of resource that requires federal government support for protection.

This is true for many reasons:

• Geography: They straddle international and interstate borders.  
• Scale: They have a surface area of over 94,000 square miles and stretch over 1,200 miles west to east, not including the St Lawrence River. 
• Trade: The maritime shipping industry on the lakes drives $36B in economic activity annually.
• Industry: The fishery is worth more than $7B annually to Canada and the United States
• Drinking Water: They provide a natural resource required for survival to over 40 million people.

Today I am sharing some of the risks the Great Lakes now face due to federal budget cuts initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency.

A return of uncontrolled sea lamprey growth. One of the very first cuts made by DOGE would be almost comical, if it weren’t so awful. Dating back to the middle of the 20th century, the Great Lakes have faced a challenge from these invasive vampire-like creatures. I’ve alluded to it before: You really don’t want to even look at them. They prey on and suck blood from native fish and, if uncontrolled, could decimate the Great Lakes fishery. And no one wants to be swimming with these things. The story of bringing them under control was a testament to science and service provided by federal government agencies. It is detailed in Dan Egan’s book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. All of this progress stands at risk with the elimination of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s sea lamprey control unit.

Delays or termination of the US Army Corps of Engineers Brandon Road dam project designed to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. This one is painful to report since last September I shared the news that this project had been funded. The term Asian carp refers to several invasive carp species that are capable of destroying native aquatic ecosystems and creating danger for recreational water activity. The project is not cancelled yet, but Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has put it on hold until the state receives confirmation that the federal share of the project will stand. Otherwise, Illinois and Michigan are left in a precarious position of possibly being left with a bill they simply cannot pay for this $1B project. 

Cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, notably lawyers, reduce the ability of the agency to act against the most serious polluters. After the Cuyahoga River caught fire at the mouth of Lake Erie in 1969, the US government passed the Clean Water Act in 1972. Enforcement of the act led to a crackdown on the industrial polluters along the shores of Lake Erie and all Great Lakes. Much of this enforcement was done by the EPA through legal channels. Lake Erie experienced rehabilitation, but it took decades. What took decades to repair could take only months to a few years to unravel if polluters are not held accountable. 

Cuts to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, including teams that monitor the toxic algal blooms and water quality, put safe drinking water in question. In 2014, 400,000 Toledo-area residents faced multiple days without drinking water due to toxic algae getting into the drinking water system. As I’ve shared in prior posts, toxic algae is increasingly a problem in the Great Lakes due to warming temperatures and fertilizer run-off from agricultural land. The blooms harm lake ecosystems and can cause liver problems and kidney damage in humans if exposed. It’s a challenge that requires oversight to prevent real tragedy.   

As I’ve shared in many past posts, the Great Lakes are an incredible natural resource but they are also ecologically fragile. 

I’m usually a huge fan of kintsugi – the Japanese art form of repairing broken pottery. Often these repairs are done with gold, silver, or platinum creating, essentially, a new vessel. When I think of ways in which our world is broken, there is solace in the idea of finding shards and putting them back together. Something new and beautiful can come from imperfection.

However, I fear this frame doesn’t work for the Great Lakes. If we break them, there won’t be a way to mend them or the lives of millions in the region with gold, silver or platinum.

If you want to read more, see this March article from The Guardian.