Teach Me About the Great Lakes, the newsletter, January 2023
Welcome back, and happy new year! If you’re new, this newsletter is a companion to the Teach Me About the Great Lakes podcast, more or less, but it’s more of a personal project of mine as opposed to the collaborative TMATGL show. It’s also something I do on my own time, as opposed to the podcast which is a work/personal hybrid. This year, my goal is to publish the newsletter at least monthly, but I’ve said that before.
New episodes!
I will, of course, start this promotional newsletter with some promotion: after a rough year, we’re back to publishing new episodes on a quasi-regular basis. Here are a few that are worth highlighting:
TMATGL 90, “I Ask for Broader Shoulders”, released on December 18th. In this episode, Megan and I interviewed Heather Stirratt, Director of the International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Regional Office. In this episode, Megan and I learned about the IJC’s new Triennial Assessment of Progress report, which they released late last year. The IJC was formed as part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (we spoke with EPA GNLPO’s Chris Korleski about the agreement in an episode in 2022 ) and this triennial report is their assessment of the progress toward the goals of the Water Quality Agreement. The report has a nice history of the Agreement and the progress that has been made and makes three recommendations to continue to make progress on Great Lakes water quality (these are all taken directly from the TAP report):
The Commission recommends that the Parties collaborate with First Nations, Métis and Tribal governments as active partners in the Parties’ Agreement review process and in any subsequent processes to change or amend the Agreement.
The Commission recommends that the Parties, in collaboration with all levels of governments, regional watershed authorities and others as appropriate, develop common, basinwide and scalable climate resiliency goals with transparent and accountable performance metrics and assessment processes.
The Commission recommends the Parties support and actively participate in the Great Lakes Science Advisory Board’s collaborative process to develop a 10-year Great Lakes Science Plan.
What’s interesting, though, is that the IJC isn’t (and can’t be) responsible for implementing their recommendations; they need people and agencies to do it for them. So check out the report (the executive summary is only 3 pages long), listen to the episode, and get going!
TMATGL 91, “A Generational Opportunity”, released on January 2nd. Megan and I interviewed Mike Shriberg of GLERL and Michigan Sea Grant. We talk with Mike about a recent paper that he led, entitled “Leadership for the next generation of Great Lakes stewardship”. I thought the paper was inspiring, and our conversation delved into why this is a pivotal moment, whether it makes sense to be optimistic about the Great Lakes, and whether there are restaurants other than Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor.
Finally, our Ask Dr. Fish holiday special is available in video (here) and podcast (here) form. This one was fun, as always. We discussed Dr. Fish Katie O’Reilly’s famous #25DaysOfFishmas celebration, some surprising facts about eels, and using mackerel as currency in prison. In addition, we played a fun Feast of the Seven Fishes game and reported back on the first Ask Dr. Fish Challenge: celebrating Fishmas. I recorded a very silly song, which you can see my very silly video for right here:
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Our next Ask Dr. Fish will be in February (date TBD). In addition to talking about the latest fish news and taking listener questions, we’ll report back on the second Ask Dr. Fish Challenge, “try a new fish dish.” I’ll again try to do something over-the-top, assuming I can find the time.
What about the Lakies?
TMATGL super fans may have noticed that we didn’t release the Lakies in December. Believe us, we know! We’re having some scheduling difficulties, but hope to record the episode in January or February. Stay subscribed to the podcast and it’ll be there soon.
Book review: The Great Lakes Water Wars
As part of my goal to read more this year, I’m going to periodically review Great Lakes books as part of this newsletter. This month: The Great Lakes Water Wars by Peter Annin. I read the revised and updated edition, which was released in 2018. You can get it from Amazon right here (that’s an affiliate link) or from Bookshop.org right here.
Among the better Great Lakes books I’ve read, this is essentially the origin story of the Great Lakes Compact, which is the agreement between the Great Lakes States that describes how they will approve water diversions from the Great Lakes. In it, Annin quotes extensively from scientists, regulators, and resource managers who were part of the process, giving the work an immediacy and authority that otherwise might not be there.
The book is divided into three parts:
Part I: Hope and Hopelessness
This part gives the overall background to the book, including some basic information about the water resources in the Great Lakes, the tension between the large amount of water available in the Great Lakes and the small amount (perhaps around 1%) that gets recharged each year, and the need for use for humans vs sustaining the ecosystems. Annin also describes the Aral Sea diversion, which resulted in the near extinction of the third-largest inland body of water on the planet, while arguing that something along those lines is not likely to happen in the Great Lakes. Finally, he discusses the potential and actual effects of climate change on Great Lakes water levels: the extreme highs and lows and the opposite effects of decreasing ice coverage (more evaporation, lower water levels) and increasing precipitation (higher water levels). All of this is in service of the larger argument of this section: people in the Great Lakes are concerned about diversions because they’re concerned about water levels and the water meeting their current and future needs while maintaining a healthy Great Lakes ecosystem.
Part II: Battle Lines and Skirmishes
This part consists of a series of case studies of Great Lakes diversions, starting with the reversing of the Chicago River, and including the Long Lac and Ogoki diversions north of Lake Superior, Pleasant Prairie Wisconsin, Lowell, Indiana (the only community to ever have a diversion request denied), Mud Creek, Michigan, and Akron, Ohio. Annin uses these cases, each of which is fascinating and/or infuriating, to illustrate both the complexity of water use (e.g., in basin vs out-of-basin, communities that straddle the basin, consumptive uses, which aren’t recycled, vs other uses, etc.) and the challenge of developing adequate regulations to manage these different scenarios across eight states and two nations.
Part III: New Rules of Engagement
In part 3, Annin traces the development of the Great Lakes Compact, a process that was both complicated and impressive. He described how the different states, which had different perspectives on water use, came together to form an agreement. He didn’t use the terms associated with the academic trust literature (which is one of my primary research areas), but the negotiation was a textbook case of building trust in multiple dimensions to get the deal done.
Before the conclusion, Annin also presents the case of Waukesha, Wisconsin, which became the first test of the Great Lakes compact.
In all, this is a fantastic book worth reading and periodically revisiting. It is a natural companion to Death and Life in the Great Lakes, going into much more detail on the important topic of water availability.
Audience request
I want to read more to better understand the Great Lakes as an environmental, cultural, and economic treasure. What Great Lakes book should I read next? Leave a note in the comments or send an email to teachmeaboutthegreatlakes@gmail.com.
As always, thanks for reading, and keep greating those lakes!