Archive for the ‘Great Lakes’ Category

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Great Lakes Stories That Deserve More Attention

March 23, 2011

I wanted to note two blog posts on important Great Lakes issues that aren’t getting nearly enough play.

The first is a post on the St. Lawrence Seaway by Jennifer Caddick, the talented director of Save the River in New York. On the day of the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, she points out the many things the Seaway has brought us that aren’t cause for celebration: sea lamprey that swam through the canals, zebra and quagga mussels that were discharged in the ballast water of ocean-going vessels, air pollution from ships idling in ports, and the destruction of native wetlands by an industry that has demanded artificially uniform water levels.

The Seaway and the shipping industry has fought tooth and nail against changing any of these destructive practices. As Jennifer says,

“The Seaway agencies and shipping industry have systematically put themselves on the wrong side of environmental policy debates. For nearly 20 years, since the introduction of the zebra mussel, they resisted any rules to clean up ship ballast tanks to prevent further invasive species introductions…..Shippers and the Seaway are on record opposing the environmentally beneficial water levels plan (Plan B+) that our communities have been supporting for years. They’ve fought for (and unfortunately won) exemptions from federal rules to clean up ship smokestack emissions, making some of the Great Lakes ships among the dirtiest air polluters in the industry. And, the Seaway has unilaterally extended the shipping season on the St. Lawrence River, with no input from River communities, state or federal environmental and safety agencies, or elected officials. “

To add insult to injury, the Seaway now claims to be the most “environmentally responsible marine transportation systems in the world.” I wonder what they think an environmentally destructive system would look like?

The second post on Chicago’s sewage problems, from Jeff Alexander, sheds some light on an incredibly important funding priority for the Great Lakes that often gets lost in the budget debates. Jeff reports on a  Chicago Tribune story that reveals that Chicago has dumped over 19 billion gallons of raw sewage mixed with stormwater into the Great Lakes since 2007…despite a $3 billion investment in a “Deep Tunnel” project that was supposed to fix the problem.  And Chicago is just one of many older cities (Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and others) that discharge untreated sewage to the lakes when it rains.

So what is Congress’s solution to the sewage problem?

Spend less  money in fixing the sewers. That’s right, the budget bill passed by the House cut funding to sewer repair and modernization by two-thirds – a whopping 67%. That cut will not only add billions of gallons of raw sewage to the lakes; it will also cost the region jobs and economic growth…22,000 jobs, according to a Brookings Institution report (pdf).

As a country, we’re finding out that there aren’t many budget cuts that are easy to make. But some aren’t just hard, they’re bad–and will cost us much more money in near future. This is one of those bad cuts.

Polluting the lakes AND costing 22,000 jobs…. that’s a cut that will keep on hurting for many years.

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March 1 Dispatch from Washington

March 2, 2011

Like everybody else, I thought that any big news coming out of Washington’s Great Lakes Days this week would be about the Great Lakes restoration budget. And certainly that’s what most of the briefings and conversations are about.

But lost in the budget news are important new developments about (you guessed it) Asian carp. From a brief, low-key presentation to the Great Lakes Commission, we learned that Asian carp are much more likely to reproduce and have much more food to eat in the Great Lakes than scientists previously thought.

That means that if the invasive carp make it to the Great Lakes, they’re likely to spread fast and far and do even more damage than we’d feared.

Here’s what we heard. Dr. Leon Carl, director of the scientists at the Great Lakes/Midwest division of the USGS (that’s the US Geological Service, the science agency charged with doing much of the fisheries research on Asian carp), on Monday told the Commission that scientists had discovered two new problems:

  1. Asian carp larvae learn to swim vertically at younger ages than scientists had previously assumed. What that means is that the larvae don’t need to be suspended as long in turbulent water to survive and thrive…. which means that shorter river segments or even the coastal areas of the Great Lakes themselves can support Asian carp reproduction. That’s very disturbing news. Until now, scientists thought that Asian carp could only breed in a handful of long tributaries to the lakes, which would limit their ability to spread if they did get into the lakes. Now their capacity to breed and spread looks much greater.
  2. Asian carp eat Cladophora, a common algae that grows along much of the Great Lakes shoreline. That’s another stunner. Scientists had believed that there wasn’t enough food in much of the Great Lakes to support the voracious carp. Now it turns out that there’s plenty of food along much of the coastline to support the spread of the invasive fish.

After the briefing, Leon told me that these new findings make him deeply concerned. He’s right.

The likely damage from an Asian carp invasion has just skyrocketed, as has the urgency for taking action. So far, we’re lucky that the monster carp haven’t established breeding populations in the canals or Lake Michigan. But we can’t count on being lucky for much longer.

We need the Corps to construct a permanent barrier, and fast.

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The Budget and the Great Lakes

February 16, 2011

Before we get into the budget (and I have to warn you, this post is not for the mathematically faint of heart), I wanted to highlight several non-budget Great Lakes developments that NWF staff just published posts about:

Now for the budget.

On the surface the numbers are pretty straightforward: for this year (FY 11), the House Committee on Appropriations has proposed $225 million for Great Lakes restoration funding, as compared to $300 million in the President’s budget. And for next year (FY 12), the President has proposed $350 million for Great Lakes restoration funding and the House has yet to come out with its budget. But what does that mean?

Let’s look at it through a few different lenses:

Financial: As the Healing Our Waters Coalition points out in this week’s news release, the baseline for Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding is $475 million a year – the amount the Great Lakes received in FY 10 and the amount that the President pledged in annual funding as he launched the GLRI that year. Neither the President nor the House committee has hit that target, and the House is much farther away than the President.

But the math gets worse when you look at the other programs that matter for Great Lakes restoration, particularly funding for upgrading the region’s crumbling sewer and water infrastructure.  There, the House committee is proposing to reduce FY 11 funding (from FY 10 levels) for upgrading sewer systems by 67 percent – a reduction of roughly $494 million to the Great Lakes states. The President’s budget for FY 12 is a bit better, but still a significant drop: a 26% reduction from current levels, or approximately a $192 million cut for the Great Lakes states.

Political: The news here is a bit better. The Great Lakes Regional Initiative clearly has some powerful champions on both sides of the aisle and in the White House.  The House Appropriations Committee (controlled by the Republican caucus) could have slashed Great Lakes funding even more, but thanks to the popularity of Great Lakes restoration with both Republicans and Democrats and requests for continued funding by powerful members of both parties in the Great Lakes delegation, the committee held the line at $225 million for FY 11. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the Great Lakes states have enormous electoral importance in the upcoming 2012 elections, Likewise, in this atmosphere of draconian budget cuts, the President could have cut Great Lakes funding in his FY 12 budget below $300 million, but he chose to come in at $350 million. While low, that’s still a substantial commitment to the Great Lakes.

What this means is that support for Great Lakes restoration remains strong for both parties – and we may have a chance to increase the FY 11 and FY 12 numbers in the Senate (and even the House) before this is all over. We’ll need those increases not just for GLRI funding, but also for modernizing old sewer systems.

Economic: Undoubtedly, the budget cuts are going to cost the Great Lakes region jobs – tens of thousands of jobs. A Brookings Institution study (pdf) documented that for every dollar spent on Great Lakes restoration, the region receives between two and four dollars of economic value. So reducing Great Lakes restoration funding by $250 million results in a loss of economic value of between $500 million and $1 billion for the region. In terms of jobs, just considering the cuts the House proposes in funding for sewer repairs means loss of roughly 22,000 jobs for Great Lakes states (pdf).

Ecological: For the Great Lakes themselves, these budgets present some real challenges. There’s an enormous backlog of work to restore the Great Lakes – to clean up toxic hotspots, restore wetlands, stop invasive species, and repair crumbling sewers and drinking water systems. In FY 10 alone, approximately 1100 projects (out of 1,400) went unfunded. And in FY 11, NO projects have been funded because the budget is stalled, and under any scenario, far fewer projects will be funded this year…. Meaning that Great Lakes cleanup will be delayed, take longer, and ultimately cost more.

Unfortunately, there’s more bad news in the budget that has nothing to do with funding. The House proposal contains a number of riders to constrain EPA’s ability to do its job. One of them would stop EPA from being able to protect the nation’s wetlands. That will be particularly harmful for the Great Lakes. Wetlands not only serve as critical habitat for fish and wildlife; they also are incredibly effective filters for pollution – the kidneys of the Great Lakes.

Our region has lost over 50 percent of its wetlands already and under the GLRI will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to restore them. But we’re losing ground if existing wetlands are being destroyed faster than we can construct new ones. And that’s what will happen under the rider presently in the House budget proposal.

Bottom line: The hill we have to climb to bring back the health of the Great Lakes just got longer and steeper.

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Public in Traverse City asks Corps to declare war on Asian carp

January 28, 2011

The Traverse City public meeting on Asian carp I talked about in yesterday’s post was quite an event.  NWF’s Jeff Alexander and Marc Smith were both at the hearing. Check out Jeff Alexander’s blog post and the AP story on the Traverse City hearing.

The crowd was large and frustrated with the delays by the Army Corps of Engineers. As NWF’s Marc Smith said at the meeting, “We just don’t see why it should take five years from start to finish. There’s just a lack of urgency on the part of the Corps.”

One resident said the Corps should battle the carp with same urgency that we’d fight a war.

The Corps may be getting the message; they told the audience at the meeting that they’d be taking some actions right away. But the Corps didn’t promise to speed the completion of the study needed to build a permanent barrier.

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Slow Progress on Asian Carp

January 27, 2011

Asian carp news didn’t take a break over the holidays.

The last month has seen an important marshaling of forces against the march of Asian carp toward the Great Lakes. Consider:

• The leading experts in eDNA testing published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal that should finally put to rest any doubt that Asian carp are (or have been) where the eDNA says they are. The paper should add a little starch to the backbone of the Army Corps of Engineers when it comes to them taking action quickly to stop any further invasions by the carp. It should also enable all the federal and state agencies to stand up to the carp-deniers in the Chicago shipping industry.

• Michigan’s new Attorney General Bill Schuette is pursuing an appeal in federal court to force the Army Corps of Engineers to take rapid action on a permanent barrier in the Chicago canals to stop the carp.  Stay tuned as the Seventh Circuit hears the case.

• Frustrated by the slow pace of the Army Corps of Engineers, two independent bodies are doing their own in-depth feasibility study of how and where to erect a permanent barrier to separate Lake Michigan from Asian-carp infested rivers in the Mississippi River Basin. The Great Lakes Commission and the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Cities Initiative will complete the $2 million study by January, 2012. One of the primary purposes of the report is to jumpstart the Corps’ own feasibility study, which the Corps claims will take over five years. That time frame is simply unacceptable. By that time the Great Lakes may be the Great Carp Ponds. The Corps needs to use the completed GLC/GLSLC study to finish its work much faster.

• In October, a group of prestigious scientists from the U.S. and Canada began a rigorous risk assessment to describe the likely impacts that Asian carp will have on the Great Lakes. The risk assessment will hopefully explode the other myths being propagated by some among the Chicago shippers that (a) Asian carp will not travel through the Chicago canals in numbers great enough to achieve breeding populations; and (b) even if they did, the carp would not thrive in the Great Lakes or their tributaries. Although both of these claims are demonstrably false, some continue to make them. I expect that the risk assessment, once completed, will bury them once and for all.

• Leaving the Chicago canals for a moment, citizens all over the region are attending public meetings and calling for the Corps to close the other pathways that Asian carp might take to the lakes. The Corps last month released a preliminary draft of its Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS). The draft (called “Other Pathways Preliminary Risk Characterization”) identified 18 potential pathways (outside the Chicago area) where the risk of the carp reaching the lakes is “acute,” “high,” or “medium.”

The draft study identified another 13 potential pathways where the risk is described as low. The report identified three particularly worrisome areas:

“One location was singled out as the greatest concern, the Eagle Marsh site in Fort Wayne, IN. Interim and long-term risk reduction measures were deemed necessary to mitigate potentially imminent risk of Asian carp reaching Lake Erie through the aquatic pathway that develops at this location during a significant storm event.

“The Long Lake connection to the Ohio and Erie Canal in Summit County, OH south of Akron, OH, and the Libby Branch of the Swan River large wetlands complex in Itasca and Aitkin County, MN are also identified as High Risk locations for ANS interbasin transfer.”

The report recommends additional study prior to taking action for all the sites except Eagle Marsh. That’s the site where the headwaters of the Maumee River, the largest tributary to Lake Erie, pass within a mile of tributaries to the Wabash River, which already is carp-infested. Concern about flooding that could connect the two streams via Eagle Marsh prompted the Indiana DNR to erect an emergency fence through the marsh.

The Corps is now in the midst of gathering public testimony as part of the NEPA review of the GLMRIS “Other Pathways” study at meetings in 12 cities (today in Traverse City, next week in Cincinnati, and March 8th for meeting in Ann Arbor that was rescheduled due to weather). And wherever the Corps is, so is NWF. Our very own Jeff Alexander has been blogging from the hearings; check out Jeff’s posts.

This is good stuff, but we have lots more marshaling to do. We need to keep the pressure on the Corps to get the study done faster and then to start work on the ground toward a permanent barrier. To speed the Corps’ study we should demand that it use the Great Lakes Commission/Cities Initiative report that will be published in 12 months. Reinventing the wheel is rarely a good idea, and here it would be particularly harmful.

The public meetings are a great way to make our voices heard. Let’s get out there and tell the Corps to get moving.

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Army Corps: Cracking open the door for Asian carp

November 30, 2010

Last week I attended the “Michigan Asian Carp Prevention Workshop” put on by the state’s Office of the Great Lakes. It was a really solid event with excellent presentations and new information.

The workshop highlighted the significant recent progress on Asian carp, including the:

Unfortunately, even as some progress is being made, the Army Corps of Engineers are opening the door for Asian carp.The Corps seems determined to resist serious consideration of hydrological separation in the Chicago waterway system.

The latest obstacle to shutting the door on Asian carp is the way the Corps is setting up its feasibility study for preventing the movement of Asian carp and other invasive species between the Mississippi River basin and the Great Lakes. Congress passed a law ordering the Corps to conduct that study (called GLMRIS – the Great Lakes Mississippi River – Study). The law (the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, Pub. L. 110-114, §3061(d))  says,

(d) FEASIBILITY STUDY.-The Secretary, in consultation with appropriate Federal, State, local, and nongovernmental entities, shall conduct, at Federal expense, a feasibility study of the range of options and technologies available to prevent the spread of aquatic nuisance species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and other aquatic pathways.(emphasis added)

But the study that Congress ordered is not the study the Corps wants to conduct. In the Great Lakes Mississippi River study plan and in public presentations, the Corps says it will assess the feasibility of measures “that could be applied to prevent or reduce the risk of ANS transfer between Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.” But “reducing the risk” can be pretty minimal – like doing more electrofishing. It certainly isn’t prevention, and it certainly isn’t what Congress ordered.

When I asked the Corps staff at the workshop why they were not following Congress’s explicit orders (and the law) on the study, the staff said that no mechanism can be 100 percent effective in preventing introductions, so they wanted to “lower expectations.” That’s why they added “or reduce the risk” to the purpose of the study.

That’s a pretty significant lowering of expectations – almost to zero. I asked why they didn’t at least say the study purpose was “prevent to the maximum extent possible.” The Corps said they hadn’t thought of that!

Here’s what’s at stake:

Congress has ordered the Corps to evaluate the feasibility of measures that will actually prevent the introduction of Asian carp into the Great Lakes. That assessment would include economic and social factors as well as ecological ones, and it could be that the Corps concludes that some prevention measures are not feasible, or that some measures are more feasible than others.

But the Corps isn’t even willing to live by those rules. Instead, the Corps wants to assess the feasibility of measures that do NOT prevent the introduction of Asian carp… but only reduce the risk of introduction. Virtually any measure can be said to reduce the risk in some way. So the Corps might be assessing the economic and social costs of doing more electrofishing, or more commercial fishing, or improving the operations of the electric fences – all well and good, but none designed to prevent the introduction of Asian carp into the lakes.

And the Corps plans to unfairly compare “risk reducing” measures and their costs to the costs of measures that really prevent the introduction of carp – like hydrological separation. Which ones do you think the Corps will conclude are more feasible? I can answer that question now; we don’t have to spend millions of dollars and wait 5 years for that bad news.

The Corps should obey the law. And we all should hold them to it. Let’s ask the new Asian carp director, John Goss to do just that. Email him at John_R_Goss@ceq.eop.gov.

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News on invasives from the back and front doors

November 3, 2010

This week brings two new reports on invasive species. The first is the October 25 edition of the New Yorker Magazine, where Reporter At Large Ian Frazier travels up the Mississippi, the Illinois, and the DesPlaines  Rivers and then through the Chicago canals – the back door of the Great Lakes – to see firsthand what’s happening with Asian carp. You can read an abstract of his story, but really doesn’t come close to doing justice to his excellent reporting.

From descriptions of the fish to the fisherman, from following the trail of slime the carp leaves to the people who would like to sell them for food, from the Redneck Fishing Tournament to the intricacies of the Chicago canal system, Frazier really captures the people, the waterways, and the fish in impressive fashion. His interview with Notre Dame researcher David Lodge, whose eDNA monitoring sounded the alarm on the carp’s proximity to Lake Michigan almost a year ago, is can’t-miss reading. A quick excerpt here:

“I know you can’t not laugh when you see the silver carp jumping all over the place, but it’s really not funny. It’s a tragic thing, and people are wrong to trivialize it. We should focus on these fish’s potential environmental and economic impact. In the Great Lakes – just as we’re seeing now in South Louisiana – the environment is the economy. Look at how the degrading of Lake Erie in the sixties and seventies contributed to the decline of Detroit and Cleveland and Buffalo. To people who say this is a question of jobs versus the environment, I say it’s not either-or.”

Then there’s a fascinating story addressing the front door of invasive species, the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Northwest Indiana Times reports consternation by the shipping industry that a New York law may force them to stop discharging invasive species-laden ballast water into the Great Lakes.  Steven Fisher, executive director of the American Great Lakes Ports Association, told a business forum in Indiana that ocean-going vessels would stop coming to Burns Harbor because New York prohibits vessels from traveling through New York waters – which they must do to traverse the Seaway — unless they can meet protective discharge standards for their ballast water. This threat comes soon after the Canadian government registered a protest about the same law because of its potential impacts on Canadian ports.

As I posted four months ago, the New York law is designed to do exactly what the shippers and Canada complain of: stop ballast water discharges of invasives ANYWHERE in the Great Lakes. New York understands that what happens in Lake Superior or Lake Michigan or Lake Huron doesn’t stay there; it moves through the system into New York waters. That’s why New York expanded its law to cover any ship travelling through its waters and not just any ship discharging in its ports.

What’s sparked all this concern? The shipping industry finally realizes that the New York law is real, it’s on the books, and the courts have upheld it. So now the shippers are putting on a full court press to reverse the law by other means.

These kind of head-in-the-sand reactions reinforce the image of the shipping industry as the major source of damage to the Great Lakes. If they keep this up, they’ll also be known as job killers, as invasive species are harming the tourism and recreation industries that are the economic anchor to many communities in the region. This view is well articulated by Jennifer Caddick, director of Save the River, in a letter she wrote to New York State Senator Darrel J. Aubertine about his opposition to the New York law.

Here’s the irony: New York hasn’t even begun to enforce this law. The standards are supposed to go into effect in 2012, but New York has not found a way to make sure that ships passing through its waters comply with the law. The Coast Guard has said it won’t enforce the law on New York’s behalf, and the Seaway Authority is not likely to step up because they oppose the law.  And New York does not have the authority to stop ships in the Seaway and board them, so the state can’t determine whether ships have the required treatment technology.

Between the shipping industry’s full court press and New York’s enforcement quandary, we still have a lot of work to do to close the Great Lakes’ front door to invasive species.

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Enough!

October 7, 2010

In the debate over the nation’s energy future, concern over an oil-fouled Great Lakes could tip the balance here.

We learned today of yet another oil spill, this time in Lake Huron and fouling about 300 yards of beach at the state park in Cheboygan, Michigan. We don’t yet know the source or even if it’s been completely stopped. Below is a news release from NWF’s Beth Wallace, who is coordinating NWF’s Great Lakes oil spill responses (and who would have thought we would need to do that every few weeks??). Coming on the heels of the Enbridge pipeline rupture, which spewed 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River and its tributaries, isn’t it time to put our foot down and say, “Enough!!”?

Oil is a hazardous material. It’s toxic to people, to plants, to wildlife… to just about all living things. Yet right now we are forced to use it, to ship it, to pipe it, to keep our vehicles moving and our economy running. Even when shipping and piping it is hurting us, even when importing it brings us war and terrorism, even when the emissions it produces are warming the planet and mortgaging our children’s future.

What’s so frustrating is that there are much, much cleaner energy alternatives that would significantly reduce our reliance on oil. Solar, wind, geothermal energy; electric (and high mileage) vehicles; energy efficient (and money-saving) appliances; public transportation. We’re not going to stop using oil any time soon. But right away we can reduce oil consumption, reduce transport, reduce imports – and doing so will make our nation safer and healthier. Moving to clean energy would also bring Michigan some much–needed jobs in the process.

This latest spill is a wakeup call. Enough!

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Asian Carp, Oil Spill and Great Lakes Restoration Highlights

September 9, 2010

I’m back after an August hiatus, and there’s lots happening. Here are a few items:

Asian carp: the breaking news is that the Obama Administration has created a new position, Asian carp director, in the Council of Environmental Quality, and filled it with none other than our own John Goss, the former executive director of the Indiana Wildlife Federation. I’m very excited about this. I’ve known John for years and he’s passionate about the Great Lakes and very good at getting things done, a combination we really need in that job. He’s got his work cut out for him because the position doesn’t come with new legal authority, just the power to persuade and cajole and coordinate. But that’s what John does best, so I have high hopes. And we look forward to working with him. Check our NWF’s news release on the Asian Carp Tsar announcement.

On the flip side, the Administration (via the Corps) is actively fighting a lawsuit brought by the states to shut the canals. The hearing is going on this week; stay tuned for the outcome.

Kalamazoo River oil spill: The good news is that the leak was stopped within days, the oil seems to be contained and it never reached Lake Michigan. The bad news is that the spill occurred in an area that was flooded due to heavy rain events the days prior. At the spill site, 5 acres of wetlands were heavily saturated in tar oil; around 30 miles of river banks were coated with oil; and surrounding wildlife has been significantly impacted and will continue to be impacted until all oil is completely removed from the river banks.  Issues continue to arise around worker safety and residential rights. The spill happened in Congressman Mark Shauer’s district, and the committee he sits on (House Transportation and Infrastructure) is holding a hearing on it in Washington next week, September 15. NWF’s response coordinator, Beth Wallace, and I have been invited to testify before on the committee. More on that soon.

Great Lakes restoration: The first grants are out! EPA made the grant announcements this week in Green Bay and Toledo. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson personally made the announcements, four grants in Ohio totaling $1.9 million, and seven in Wisconsin at $5.2 million. These are the first wave of what’s expected in the next few weeks to be 270 projects and $160 million in grants from EPA.

Not to be outdone, the Healing Our Waters –Great Lakes Coalition announced our own Great Lakes restoration grants, 13 of them totaling $190,000. These grants are seed money to enable small organizations to go after the larger government grants.

There’s more, of course, but this post is long enough. Next week, I’ll be in Washington doing double duty: visiting Congressional offices as part of a HOW fly-in, and tracking the Kalamazoo River Oil spill hearings. I’ll post when I have more news.

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Dammit, It’s Happening Here

July 27, 2010

Oil spill in the Kalamazoo River | Photo from the National Wildlife Federation

We just heard that at least 877,000 gallons of oil has leaked from an oil pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Marshall, Michigan.  

The oil has moved 16 miles downstream and has already killed fish; the fumes have forced some people to evacuate; wildlife is getting coated with oil; shorelines are getting fouled; and containment efforts have been hampered by the high flows in the river because of all the rain. A federal-state response team has swung into action. 

Meanwhile, the company owning the pipeline, Enbridge, Inc., couldn’t initially be reached for comment, other than to a message saying that it hoped it had not caused any “inconvenience” to the community. Since then the company has issued an apology. 

We just released the statement below. We’ll provide updates as we learn more.  

Pipeline Spews 845,000 Gallons of Oil into Michigan Waters, Threatening Great Lakes 

National Wildlife Federation: ‘Michigan has become another casualty to our country’s addiction to oil and dirty fuels.’ 

ANN ARBOR, MICH. (July 27, 2010)—A major oil spill has dumped a reported 845,000 gallons of oil into a creek that feeds into the Kalamazoo River, sparking a state of emergency in Kalamazoo County and sparking fears will not be able to contain the massive spill before it reaches Lake Michigan. 

Commenting on the oil spill, Danielle Korpalski, Midwest regional outreach coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation, said: 

“We never thought it would happen here. When people throughout Michigan responded to the Gulf oil spill with an outpouring of money, concern, and support for those who live on the Gulf, we never thought we would share that awful feeling of watching a massive oil slick flowing through our waters, coating our wildlife, killing fish, and fouling our coastline. We never thought we’d see evacuations in Michigan because of the fumes from an oil spill. And we never thought we’d see almost a million gallons of oil poised to flow into the Great Lakes. 

“But today, that’s exactly what we’re seeing. 

“Michigan has become another casualty to our country’s addiction to oil and dirty fuels. 

“This massive oil spill is a wake-up call that our nation’s energy policies are failing. 

“From the Gulf Coast to the Midwest, people are paying a steep price for a national energy policy that is addicted to dirty and dangerous fossil fuels—and the results can be seen in our backyards, in our communities and in our nation’s cherished waters and wild places. 

“This oil spill is only the latest evidence that the nation needs to move toward cleaner, safer sources of energy. It’s time to head in a new direction—one which holds the opportunity to make the energy technologies of the future while creating jobs, strengthening our national security, and improving our environment.”

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