Stories tagged water
Lake Superior Day: Swimmers enjoy the waters of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota's Canal Park.
Courtesy Mark RyanHow do you celebrate one of the largest pools of freshwater on Earth? By participating in the annual Lake Superior Day, that’s how! This Sunday, July 20, is Lake Superior Day, a day of celebrations for the world’s largest and cleanest freshwater lake.
Towns and communities lining the shores of Superior in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and the Canadian province of Ontario are planning all sorts of events in tribute to the greatest of the Great Lakes.
Picnics, beach clean-ups, library displays, kite flying, concerts, hikes, an essay contest, and government proclamations are all part of the day’s celebration to bring attention to this huge body of water that holds 10 percent of Earth’s fresh water. Events are planned all around the lake. For example, games and activities promoting water conservation will take place in Red Rock, Ontario. A family picnic is scheduled at Silver Harbour in Thunder Bay, Canada. Afternoon events will take place on Barker’s Island Festival Park in the city of Superior, Wisconsin, and scientists and lake area experts will be on hand at the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center at Canal Park in Duluth with information about the lake’s natural history, regional culture, and invasive aquatic species.
The annual event takes place on the third Sunday of July, and is sponsored by the Lake Superior Binational Forum, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Environment Canada. So, if you're anywhere near Gichigami this coming Sunday, join in the festivities, or just go jump in the lake!
Tags : A massive algae bloom is choking China’s Yellow Sea and threatening some Olympic events. Many Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the Sea. Rich in nutrients, the sewage makes the algae grow like crazy. The problem goes beyond the inconvenience to boaters. The growing algae changes the near-shore habitat. And when all this algae dies, the bacteria that decays it sucks oxygen out of the water, killing fish and creating a dead zone.
Grickle grackle: grickle grackle grickle grackle grickle grackle grickle grackle grickle grackle.
Courtesy Kevin ColeThe age of the crustaceans is upon us, and, like the elves before us, it is time for we chordates to fade into legend. Though some of us may linger in this fallen world, much that was good will have been lost. The air will be full of, like, clicking, and eyestalks will be all the rage, and everything will smell like ammonia.
And, oh yes, there will be tentacles. And before you get all sassy about crustaceans not having tentacles, shut your word-holes and open your listen-orifices—I ent just talking about crustaceans. In this damp, horrifying future, the crustaceans will be accompanied by their nightmare 6th cousins: the mollusks.
It’s the presence of mollusca that is most frightening to me. I can not imagine a crustacean that couldn’t be handled with a claw hammer, but mollusks…they’re something else entirely. Huge, clever brains, instant biological camouflage, boneless bodies, marine gigantism, beaks…
As ocean temperatures rise with global climate change, many marine populations are predicted to shift dramatically from fish to crabs, lobsters, and squid.
Fish populations have also been observed switching from cold water to warm water species, away from bottom feeders, and trending towards smaller species.
The whole thing, it’s thought, is primarily the result of a change in where in the ocean plankton is being consumed; small, warm-water species of fish are eating the plankton (itty bitty sea life) higher up in the water column, so less plankton settles down for bottom feeding fish. As the bottom feeders die off, invertebrates like mollusks and crustaceans move in.
Warming oceans are probably the main cause here, but researchers say that over fishing could be a contributor as well. As larger fish become less common due to fishing, there are fewer predators for small fish, which eat off the plankton high in the water table…
Prepare for the worst. Remember: claw hammers for crustacea, marshmallow skewers for mollusca, and an acceptance of inevitable death by pinchers for the rest of us.
Water, water everywhere, and not enough to drink: Making water more freely available actually makes it more scarce
Courtesy Today is a good day
Or just mis-managing what we have? Blogger Fabius Maximus argues for the latter. He claims that most water "shortages" are actually the result of political forces: in poor countries, corruption and mismanagement; in wealthy countries, politically popular price supports.
Which gives me yet another opportunity to discuss the dismal science of economics and the law of unintended consequences.
Y'see, water is essential to human life. Therefore, governments try to provide clean, safe water to their citizens. And, being all egalitarian and everything, Western democracies want to make water equally available to all. So they provide it free, or at an extremely low price, so that everyone can afford it.
(Of course, nothing is "free" -- the water service is subsidized by taxes.)
Unfortunately, this leads to a little something known as the ragedy of the commons. If a resource is free, then there's nothing to prevent people from using way too much of it, or even wasting it. Thus, free-or-low-cost water leads to farmers growing rice in the California desert, or developers building water-intensive golf courses, or simply home owners tending lush lawns in climates not suited for them.
Now, I have nothing against rice, or golf, or lawns, even. (My own lawn, I'm a little less than fond of, but that's another story.) The point is, making water freely available to everyone to drink and bathe also makes it freely available for a wide variety of more wasteful uses, which leads to some of the shortages we see today.
As the Mississippi flood waters recede, a new threat is rising. Public health officials in Iowa are warning people about the health risks associated with cleaning up their water-damaged homes, farms and buildings. Bacteria thrives in the water, and could lead to a number of diseases, and can contaminate well water. Water-logged buildings are a haven for mold, which can cause serious problems for allergy and asthma sufferers.
It looks like ice on Mars: NASA scientists think the bright chunks must be ice.
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M UniversityA few days ago on Mars, the robotic scoop on NASA’s Phoenix Lander uncovered some white, dice-sized chunks of material in a trench it was digging. Today, some of those same bright chunks are nowhere to be seen leading NASA scientists to think they were ice that has since evaporated.
"These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice,” said Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."
Check out the official ASU Phoenix site for some cool (pun intended) photos and more information about the mission.
LINKS
More info on NASA site
As Midwest flooding and rising demand for ethanol pushes the price of corn ever higher, Cornell researcher Norman Uphoff is developing a new way to grow rice. His method produces more grain to feed more people; uses less water; and releases less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
Map of Lake Ontario: Planned route and estimated shipwreck area (in yellow) of the HMS Ontario. (After NOAA, Kennard and Scoville diagrams)
Courtesy Mark RyanA long-sought 18th century British warship has finally been discovered on the bottom of one of the Great Lakes bordering Canada and the United States. The HMS Ontario, a Royal Navy sloop that patrolled Lake Ontario during the American Revolutionary War, was sailing to Oswego, New York from Fort Niagara when it sank in a violent storm on October 31, 1780, taking with it all on board.
The shipwreck was discovered a couple weeks ago, sitting in mud under about 500 feet of water off the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville, two shipwreck enthusiasts who share credit for the discovery, used side-sonar and an unmanned submersible device to locate the wreck. The two men have been searching together for the HMS Ontario for more than three years. And now that they’ve found it, they’re keeping the location secret, at least for the time being. They’ll only say that it’s in deep water somewhere between Rochester and Niagara.
"It's a British war grave and we want to make sure it remains undisturbed,” said Kennard, a veteran diver who has found over 200 wrecks. Despite the HMS Ontario’s age and present location, it would still be considered property of the British Admiralty.
The HMS Ontario was constructed in the spring of 1780 on Carleton Island
at the lake’s east end where it flows into the St. Lawrence River. The 80-foot sloop was fitted with two masts and 22 cannons and used mainly to ferry soldiers and supplies back and forth across the lake during the summer of 1780. Some historians speculate the warship never fired any of its cannons. When she sank, the Ontario took with her 88 souls - at least according to official records. Letters from an individual living at Fort Niagara at the time claim there were also 30 unlisted American prisoners on the ship who also died in the tragedy.
Debris from the HMS Ontario washed up on shore about 30 miles east of Fort Niagara, and the ship’s sails were found adrift a few days after the storm. Months later, six bodies were recovered about 12 miles east of the Niagara River, and that was the last evidence of the sinking anyone saw. That is, until Kennard and Scoville located Ontario’s final resting place two week ago.
The discovery has been called a miracle of archaeology, and may be the oldest Great Lake’s shipwreck ever found.
"It's the oldest confirmed shipwreck in the lakes," Scoville said. "And very few warships went down." He added that it’s definitely the most intact warship ever discovered.
The ship’s condition surprised even its seasoned explorers. Kennard said the 228-year-old wreck might have gone down more gently in the storm than previously thought, because it doesn’t appear to be very battered. Two crow’s nests remain on both masts, and eight cannons still line the deck. One anchor is attached to the side of the ship, while another rests on the lake bottom. Some of the windows in the quarter galleries are even intact, despite tremendous underwater pressures. They also contribute the high level of preservation to the lake’s cold temperatures and lack of light and oxygen.
Here's some video of the historic wreck.
More than 4700 shipwrecks litter the bottom of the Great Lakes, 500 of them in Lake Ontario. But for Kennard and Scoville any future discoveries they make are going to be hard to match their discovery of the HMS Ontario.
"This is the Holy Grail of Great Lakes wrecks," Kennard said. "There's nothing more significant than this one."
LINKS
Shipwreck World story
Naval Operations in the Americian Revolutionary War
HMS Ontario shipwreck photos at the LA Times
Story in Tononto Star
Return of the native: For the first time since the 1930s, a leatherback sea turtle has nested on Padre Island, Texas.
Courtesy NOAA
For the first time in 70 years, biologists have confirmed that a leatherback sea turtle has nested in Texas. Though they did not see the animal itself, the researchers found its unmistakable tracks and a freshly-dug nest.
The leatherback, the largest reptile in the world, is endangered worldwide. Many drown when caught in fishermen’s nets. Poachers steal their eggs. Development encroaches on the sandy beaches the turtles need for their nests. The return of at least one turtle to Padre Island, Texas is hopeful sign that the species may be making a slow comeback.
You can learn more about leatherbacks turtles here and here.
We’ve talked a couple of times before about using corn to produce ethanol, and how this increases the demand for corn and thus the price. Well, now there’s more bad news: the recent flooding in the Midwest is wiping out some farmers’ fields, reducing this year’s corn crop and pushing prices to an all-time high.
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