Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 10, Number 2 • March-April 2002
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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John Ritzenthaler
Audubon Ohio
We should all be aware of this project spanning the Great Lakes. The goal of the Great Lakes Environmental Indicators (GLEI) Project is to develop a set of species and chemicals that can serve as environmental indicators to assess the condition of Great Lakes coastal wetlands and coastal margins. Coastal margin conditions are influenced by land uses in the Great Lakes watershed. The indicators identified by this project will allow Great Lakes managers to guide development of monitoring programs to measure change, and to identify areas in need of restoration or conservation.
To accomplish this goal, cooperating scientists will concurrently sample amphibians, fish, invertebrates (“bugs”) , vegetation, algae, and analyze water quality at the same locations in coastal wetlands and coastal margins of the U.S. Great Lakes shoreline from Duluth, Minnesota, to Watertown, New York.
In addition to researchers at The Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) of the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), the project will include experts from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, Minnesota Sea Grant, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University (New York), University of Windsor-Canada, John Carroll University (Ohio), and the University of Michigan. Scientists from the U.S. EPA Mid-Continent Ecology Division in Duluth and research station in Grosse Isle, Michigan, are also major cooperators on the project.
Study sites for this massive project will span the 200,000-square-mile Basin. Research will be broken into five major components: water quality and diatoms (group of microscopic algae); fish and macroinvertebrates (aquatic insects, crustaceans, and worms); wetland vegetation; birds and amphibians; and chemical contaminants.
Visit the project website at http://glei.nrri.umn.edu/.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) Division of Surface Water (DSW) has developed Draft Clean Water Act Section 401 Certifications for recently published Nationwide Permits. The proposed regional conditions applicable in all Corps Districts within Ohio may be viewed at http://www.lrh.usace.army.mil/or/permits/prop_reg_con.html. (Federal Register, January 15, 2002, www.usace.army.mil/inet/functions/cw/cecwo/reg/citizen.htm).
Ohio EPA held a public information session and public hearing relative to the draft certifications and issues of lower water quality on April 24, 2002. Anyone wishing to be on Ohio EPA’s interested parties mailing list for these proposals should contact them at Ohio EPA-DSW, Attention: Permits Processing Unit, P.O. Box 1049, Columbus, Ohio, 43216.
John Ritzenthaler |