Issues Affecting the Great Lakes

Some of the challenges we will cover by speaking with scientists, environmentalists, business people and others living and working along the Great Lakes:

Line 5

Line 5 is the only oil pipeline that runs underneath any of the Great Lakes. The pipeline is actually two 20-inch-diameter pipes that run along the lake bottom for five miles beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The pipeline was built in 1953 with an intended useful life of 50 years. It is now owned by Enbridge Energy Partners, a Calgary, Alberta-based pipeline company. Line 5 carries crude oil from Alberta to Sarnia, Ontario—it carries Canadian oil from Canada to a Canadian refinery, threatening both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron along the way. The Straits of Mackinac feature not only some of the most pristine waters in the Great Lakes; they also feature powerful currents that flow in both directions between the two lakes at different depths and in unpredictable ways. As a consequence, there is no way to contain an oil spill from Line 5. The only question now is whether Line 5 will be decommissioned before or after the spill.

Invasive Species

• Invasive Species: Sea lamprey, alewife, zebra mussels, Asian carp, and more than 180 other non-native plants and animals

• Efforts to keep Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes

• History of invasive species and our efforts to control their populations while reducing the harm they do to the Great Lakes

Wetlands and Native Species

• Saving the Native Species: Coaster brook trout, American eel, lake sturgeon, piping plover and other species

• Shoreline and wetlands: development to close to and in wetlands, agriculture encroachment into wetlands, shoreline redevelopment, replacing beaches with housing and cement or rocks

Algae Blooms and Pollution

• Agricultural and Urban Runoff: farm chemicals from fertilizer runoff, manure runoff, lawn fertilizer runoff, street runoff, old sewer systems all contribute to pollution and destructive algae blooms

• Water Withdrawals

• Industrial Pollution: PCBs, plastics, mercury, plastic micro beads, coal dust, petrochemical spills, city wastewater, and toxic pollutants from a myriad of industries