The signs are all pointing towards this being one of those long tough Minnesota Winters. It’s nearly 15 below, the wind chill is pushing minus 30, and my ambition extends no further than coming up with reasons I shouldn’t have to go out and shovel this morning. (Maybe there will be a sudden, sidewalk-focused heating phenomenon. it happens.)

In the meantime, enjoy this hypnotic video of Winter storm waves on Lake Superior. There’s beauty in cold and ice and snow, sometimes you just don’t want to be out in it.

Good news just popped up on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s webpage. The water level in Lake Superior is up eight inches from last year. Of course, last year was the lowest the lake had been since 1926, so water levels are still low, but definitely better. Credit a wet fall and cold snowy winter.

Boaters of all kinds will be happy about this. Last summer water levels were low enough to cause some problems.

“It’ll be easier to get the boats into the right slips,” said Joel Johnson, manager of Lakehead Boat Basin in Duluth, which was forced to dredge its marina on Park Point last summer for the first time in 20 years.

If any one animal is the symbol for the lake country of northern Minnesota, it’s the loon. Travel in the area and you’ll see loons in paintings, loons on t-shirts, and carved wooden loons in gift shops. In recent years, loons have been dying in great numbers around Lake Michigan, and in poarts of Pennsylvanis and New York. Now there’s reason to believe the die-off is about to hit Minnesota.

The culprit is a form of botulism that grows at the bottom of lakes and then works its way into the food-chain through being ingested by quagga mussels.

Remember quagga mussels? They’re another invasive species making its way through the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountains. This is a prime example of the kinds of unforeseen problems that can occur when an invasive species is introduced into a new environment. One year you’re looking at what seems to be a nuisance more than anytrhing else, a decade later your favorite bird is dying in large numbers from a threat they never should have been exposed to, and no one is sure how to solve the problem.

The fight to keep a fish virus out of Lake Superior took a new turn today when the Superintendent of Isle Royale national Park issued an executive order forbidding commercial vessels from dumping ballast water in the park boundaries.

Read through the Star-Tribune article and you learn that this isn’t a big deal for the ships, they generally dump their ballast water in port rather than enroute. What the order does help with is keeping public opinion aware of the issue, the more people concerned about it, the more likely something gets done. And notice once again that this is not a case of the agencies lie the EPA, Minnesota DNR and port authorities doing their job, instead it’s an individual acting in special conditions, who happens to have authority to act within certain boundaries. In general, the agencies charged with handling these kinds of problems would rather not deal with it.

A Minnesota environmental group is suing the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in order to prevent ships from dumping ballast water in Lake Superior. The stated reason id to prevent the spread of a fish virus that so far has been kept out of the lake.

The virus is a “direct threat to Minnesota’s important natural resources” and constitutes an “impending water pollution crisis,” according to the complaint, because it kills fish by severe hemorrhaging that results in organ failure.

The virus has been found in all of the Great Lakes except Lake Superior and has killed large numbers of more than a dozen species, including walleye, muskellunge, smallmouth bass, northern pike, yellow perch and black crappies. The suit contends that in addition to the Great Lakes, many of Minnesota’s interior lakes and waters are at risk if the virus spreads.

MPCA Commissioner Brad Moore says that the state prefers that the problem be handled on a national level, but given the EPA’s past record on this issue, they better not wait too long to take care of the problem themselves, or Minnesota’s lakes, fish, and fishermen are all going to suffer for it.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune had a couple interesting outdoors stories today. First, the bad news. Water levels in Lake Superior are at their lowest in eighty years. That’s tough for boaters, fishermen, and marina owners, and anyone whose livelihood is dependent on the lake.

There’s good news for hunters, though. The ruffed grouse population has bounced back and is at its highest numbers in nearly a decade. Something for hunters to look forward to in the fall.