Reporter Charles Ruhigg spoke with Democracy Now! this morning about his current series on water issues in the US for the New York Times. In the interview he discusses the critical problems with our sources of water here in the US, including coal-fired power plants, farm runoff and violations of the Clean Water Act. It is well worth a read, especially here in Michigan, where we are smack in the middle of one of the world's largest sources of fresh water. Read the interview
here or catch up with Ruhigg's series
here.
Problems with contamination and runoff are not something that we will increasingly have to face in the coming years, as our traditions of irresponsible capitalism catch up with us. I know this is an issue close to the hearts of many people reading this blog as news of the Straits Steel plume (lying only 15 feet below the surface) has recently hit Ludington. I grew up in houses built directly over this plume so know that the fear, for me, is also very real.
So just in case you weren't aware of the importance of the Great Lakes
watershed, here are couple of fun facts from GLEAM to help reorient to its importance.
The Great Lakes hold about 6 quadrillion gallons of water, or about 95% of the United States’ fresh surface water and 20 percent of all the fresh surface water in the world. If the water in the Great Lakes was spread evenly over the continental U.S., it would cover the land with about 10 feet of water! From East to West, the Great Lakes stretch for nearly a thousand miles across the heartland of the United States and Canada. The watershed drains almost 200,000 square miles. Dubbed “the nation’s fourth seacoast”, the U.S. Great Lakes shoreline is over 4,500 miles long, longer than the U.S. East and Gulf coasts combined. The total Great Lakes shoreline is over 10,000 miles long, including 35,000 islands. The Great Lakes watershed is home to over 40 million people. Over 25 million people in the U.S. rely on the Lakes for their drinking water. The watershed contains 20% of all U.S. timberland and 20% of all U.S. manufacturing (58% of cars made in the U.S. and Canada are made in the basin). The Lakes support a $1 billion-plus recreational fishing industry.
Major U.S. cities in the Great Lakes watershed include Buffalo, New York; Erie, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Saginaw, and Grand Rapids Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Green Bay and Superior, Wisconsin; and Duluth, Minnesota. Natural Habitats in the Great Lakes watershed include: wetlands, sand dunes, islands, and alvars. Some of these are unique in all the world. There are an estimated 300,000 acres of Great Lakes basin coastal wetlands. Great Lakes sand dunes, which occur on all five lakes, comprise the largest collection of freshwater coastal dunes in the world. Great Lakes islands comprise the world's largest freshwater island system. There are about 35,000 Great Lakes islands. Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron is the world's largest freshwater island. Great Lakes alvars are naturally open areas of thin soil over limestone or marble bedrock which host a distinctive vegetation community. The Great Lakes contain 95% of the world's alvars. Alvars are home to hardy, globally rare plant and animal species - some of the stunted conifer trees are estimated to be 400 to 500 years old.
-from Great Lakes Watershed CD by Great Lakes Center for Environmental and Molecular Sciences(GLEAMS)
Last, for dessert, I fixed up the poor woman's version of punkin pie. Vanilla pudding + one small can of pumpkin + whipped cream = awesome. (Thanks Meghan!)
