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Significant Activities Report:
November 2002
Assessing the State of the Lakes
 SOLEC Plenary Session |
The fifth biennial State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC) was held in Cleveland, Ohio from October 16th to 18th. The theme for this year's conference was “Biological Integrity of the Great Lakes.”
In morning “plenary” sessions, scientists presented assessments of Great Lakes ecosystem components through data on over 40 indicators. Separate assessments of each Great Lake, the St. Clair River - Lake St. Clair - Detroit River ecosystem, and the St. Lawrence River were also presented. New indicators were presented and discussed for the categories of ground water, forests, agriculture, and societal response. Afternoon breakout sessions allowed lively in-depth discussions on interpreting the results of the various environmental indicators, as well as how the new proposed indicators would help in assessing the state of the Great Lakes ecosystem.
 A SOLEC Breakout Session |
 GLNPO’s Display “Fulfilling a Vision for the Great Lakes” |
A new feature introduced at this SOLEC was a “Managers' Conclave,” an opportunity for senior-level managers of environmental and natural resource agencies to meet to discuss the implications of the reported state of the Great Lakes.
Approximately 400 people attended SOLEC, representing U.S. and Canadian federal agencies, states, provinces, municipalities, industry, environmental groups, academia and private citizens. Products prepared for the conference included Implementing Indicators (a collection of 35 indicator reports), Implementing Indicators Addendum (8 additional indicator reports), Proposed Changes to the Great Lakes Indicator Suite, and Evaluating Biological Integrity in the Great Lakes Ecosystem. These documents are available upon request on a CDROM. The results of SOLEC will be used to prepare the State of the Great Lakes 2003 report, which is expected to be released mid-Summer, 2003.
GLNPO showed its new display, Fulfilling a Vision for the Great Lakes in the exhibits area of the conference and distributed nearly 300 of the new Great Lakes Watershed CDROMs and other brochures and posters. Meanwhile, at the Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy display, over 100 CDROMs containing the 2002 Annual Report and the 5-year Retrospective were distributed.
Contact: Paul Bertram, U.S. EPA - GLNPO (312) 353-0153
Innovative Sediment Treatment Technologies Featured
 Sediment Quality Assessment Symposium Graphic |
From October 16th to 18th, several members of GLNPO's Sediment Assessment and Remediation Team attended the “Sediment Quality Assessment 5” conference in Chicago, Illinois. This international conference is organized biennially by the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society. GLNPO was one of the sponsors of this year's event. Dr. Marc Tuchman co-moderated a conference session on “Sediments and Watershed Management.” Scott Cieniawski presented a paper on “Innovative Treatment Technologies for Contaminated Sediment in the Great Lakes: 3 Pilot-Scale Demonstrations,” co-authored with Dr. Tuchman. The paper detailed the results of the Cement Lock, Minergy Glass Furnace, and Electro-Chemical Remediation treatment technologies. Demaree Collier presented a poster exhibit on “Post-Remediation Sediment Assessment on the Raisin River, Monroe, Michigan,” co-authored with Mr. Cieniawski. The poster summarized the results of a survey that was carried out following the 1997 sediment cleanup at the Ford Motor Company outfall site on the Raisin River. The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of the remedial actions.
Contacts:
Marc Tuchman, U.S. EPA -
GLNPO (312) 353-1369
Scott Cieniawski, U.S.
EPA - GLNPO (312) 353-9184
Demaree Collier, U.S.
EPA - GLNPO (312) 886-0214
2002 Conservation and Native Landscaping Awards
 Tallgrass Prairie Restoration at NTN Bearing Manufacturing Corporation |
Underwriters Laboratories Inc. and American NTN Bearing Manufacturing Corporation were the corporate winners of the 2002 Conservation and Native Landscaping Award. This award, presented by the U.S. EPA and Chicago Wilderness, honors corporations that show leadership in caring for their corporate landscapes through the use of native plants. The awards were bestowed on November 20th, at the Chicago Wilderness Congress in Libertyville, Illinois at the Lake County Forest Preserve District’s Independence Grove Visitors Center. “Calumet is My Back Yard” won an honorable mention certificate for their natural landscaping efforts in Southeast Chicago.
This is the first year the awards program is recognizing corporate natural landscaping efforts. Park District and Municipal 2002 Conservation and Native Landscaping Award winners will be announced in early December and awarded in January 2003, at the Illinois Association of Park District annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois.
Contact:
Danielle Green U.S. EPA
- GLNPO (312) 886-7594
New Journal Publications
Several journal publications were published by GLNPO staffers or
about GLNPO-sponsored work:
“Environmental and Socioeconomic Indicators of Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem Health” was published as a chapter in the book entitled Managing for Healthy Ecosystems by Lewis Publishers. This chapter briefly reviews the SOLEC context for environmental indicators, chronicles the SOLEC process for selecting indicators, presents the Great Lakes suite of 80 indicators, and provides examples of indicator information that has been reported through the SOLEC process. (The full reference is: Bertram, Paul, Harvey Shear, Nancy Stadler-Salt and Paul Horvatin. 2003. Environmental and Socioeconomic Indicators of Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem Health, in D.J. Rapport, et al., eds., Managing for Healthy Ecosystems, Lewis Publishers, New York., pp 703-720.)
Contact:
Paul Bertram,
U.S. EPA - GLNPO (312) 353-0153
“Quantifying Uncertainty: Are We There Yet?” was accepted for publication in the journal, Quality Assurance: Good Practice, Regulation, and Law, Volume 9, Issue 3-4. The paper focuses on techniques used for quantifying uncertainty utilized in the Lake Michigan Mass Balance Project. It was originally presented at EPA's 21st Annual Conference on Managing Environmental Quality Systems held in April 2002.
Contact: Lou Blume, U.S. EPA - GLNPO (312) 353-2317
A featured article, “The Great Lakes' Integrated Atmospheric
Deposition Network: The United States and Canada Continue an
Effective Partnership That Measures Nonpoint Source Pollution,” was
published in the September 1st issue of Environmental Science and
Technology. The article, authored by Stephanie S. Buehler and Ronald
A. Hites of Indiana University, describes the
IADN air monitoring
network and presents recent findings from IADN. The IADN network is
operated cooperatively by GLNPO and Environment Canada to measure
pollutants coming into the Great Lakes from the air from wet (rain
and snow) deposition, dry (dust) deposition, and absorption of gas
pollutants into the water. IADN has been in operation since 1990.
The article can be found on the Internet at:
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/esthag-a/36/i17/pdf/902hites.pdf
Contacts:
Melissa Hulting, U.S.
EPA - GLNPO (312) 886-2265
Todd Nettesheim, U.S.
EPA - GLNPO (312) 353-9153
Birds on the Move
 Bird Migration Image on NEXRAD Weather Radar During Clear Weather (Intense image near center of radar station is due to ground clutter, reflections further out are migrating birds). |
Funded by a GLNPO grant, the University of Vermont recently completed a project to establish migratory songbirds as biological indicators of nearshore habitat quality. Researchers assessed stopover length and energetic condition change in migratory songbirds during stopover on the south shore of Lake Ontario, and identified areas where migratory birds concentrate during migration in the Lake Ontario basin. Over 35,000 birds of 120 species were captured, tagged, and released during research at two field stations near Rochester, New York. Radar technology was utilized to evaluate entire landscapes and pinpoint the areas where large numbers of birds concentrated during migration in 2000 and 2001. NEXRAD weather surveillance radar images were examined to detect migratory bird movements as flocks of birds climbed into the sky at the onset of nocturnal migration. The study provides evidence that nearshore habitats in the Great Lakes basin not only host large numbers of migrating birds during stopover periods, but that these sites may also provide the resources necessary for the birds to refuel for the next stage of their migratory journey. Therefore, conservation efforts need to target these nearshore areas, especially because these areas are under a great deal of development pressure.
Contact: Karen Rodriguez, U.S. EPA - GLNPO (312) 353-2690