Lake Superior is famous for the ferocity of its winter winds and storms, and a new study suggests that, if anything, there are bigger storms to come.

As the world’s largest lake warms, it is kicking up stronger winds. The extra-blustery weather on Lake Superior is causing faster currents, and possibly changing the ecology of the lake and the distribution of local air pollution.

So says a new study of Lake Superior — the world’s largest lake by surface area, containing 10 percent of the unfrozen freshwater on the planet — published this week in Nature Geoscience.

Faster currents, stronger winds, one of the world’s more treacherous bodies of water could be even more so in days to come. Be prepared for even worse consequences, something on the order of a revival of “The Wreck of the Edmund Firtzgerald“.

Here in the Upper Midwest, one of the more notorious invasive species is the flying carp, and for residents of the Great Lakes, the enemy is at the gates.

The decade-old battle to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes may be over.

New research shows the super-sized fish likely have made it past the $9 million electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal

Now the only thing left standing between the fish and Lake Michigan is a heavily used navigational lock at Navy Pier.

Dave Dempsey at Planetsave quotes an official who points out that no actual carp body has yet been found beyond the barrior. Once that happens, of course, it’s pretty much too late.

Last-ditch efforts to stop the carp could include poisoning the entire canal. That’s an extreme measure, and there’s already reason to wonder if it could be done fast enough.

So the EPA proposes a new standard for emissions from ships on the Great Lakes, and before the new rules even take effect, the owners of thirteen Great Lakes freighters already got their boats exempted.

Thirteen Great Lakes steamships would be exempted from tougher federal air-quality standards under a provision tacked on to a government spending bill by a leading Democratic lawmaker, a move that has prompted protests from environmentalists.

The provision affecting older Great Lakes freighters that haul cargoes such as limestone, coal and cement has been the object of weeks of negotiations between the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. The issue has contributed to a delay in approving the $32 billion spending bill to which it is now attached, which would fund the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental programs at the Interior Department.

Under the deal worked out with (Representative David) Obey, 13 steamships would be exempted from a new EPA rule that would limit sulfur emissions from ships within 200 miles of U.S. coasts, including the Great Lakes. Without the exemption, the vessels would likely have to be scrapped, their owners said, driving up shipping costs.

Heaven forbid they do anything radical like investing in new ships. That really would create jobs, but it would mean putting off profit-taking for a few years. That couldn’t have anything to do with their desire to keep using the old freighters, of course.

There’s a classic conservation versus profits controversy erupting over emissions standards for shipping on the Great Lakes.

Now, an Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would compel the vessels to burn cleaner fuel and upgrade their engines has sparked a furious behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign that has come to a head this week, pitting congressional Democrats against a Democratic administration as lawmakers allied with Midwestern and Alaskan shippers pressure the EPA to back down and protect jobs.

The benefits to clean air and water from tighter standards is readily apparent.

Large vessels rank second only to power plants as to the health risk their air pollution poses, and the EPA estimates the proposal will produce more health benefits than those it has applied to off-road vehicles, diesel trucks and other sources.

The shippers and boat owners aren’t too shy about ststung their case, either.

Great Lakes shipping industry officials say the cost of the new fuel and the engine overhauls needed to burn it would undermine their competitive edge and shift commodity transport to rail and truck.

Lake Carriers’ Association President James H.I. Weakley said the rule would cost U.S. and Canadian ships an extra $210 million a year for fuel. Out of a U.S. fleet of 65, he predicted that 13 steamships with 429 mariners would be scrapped and that 13 ships with old diesel engines might face premature retirement.

He’s basically arguing that they can’t compete if the cost of pollution is added on to their bottom line. If rail and truck, whose emissions are regulated, are that much cheaper, let’s ship more by rail and truck, and save the4 wear and tear on the Great Lakes.

Setting up a council or committee to handle a problem can be a good or bad thing, depending on the seriousness of the people involved. But at the very least, this proposal for a National Ocean Council would be a way to tackle a major problem in a big way, instead of having responsibilities split up between different organizations.

The White House is offering for public comment a new plan to better govern and protect the nation’s ocean waters, coasts and the Great Lakes. Under the plan, a new interagency National Ocean Council would be created to coordinate ocean-related issues across the federal government and implement a new National Ocean Policy.

Under the proposal, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Science and Technology Policy would lead an interagency National Ocean Council. “Such a governance structure, combined with sustained high-level staff involvement, would ensure that these areas are a priority throughout the federal government,” the report states.

The bad news is we’ve heard it before.

During the Bush administration, two comprehensive reports on sustainable ocean management were issued. One, mandated by Congress and released in 2004 by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy headed by Admiral James Watkins, contained 212 recommendations. http://oceancommission.gov/

The other, “America’s Living Oceans,” released in 2003, was the product of the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts’ Oceans Commission chaired by Leon Panetta, who now serves as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Both reports essentially said America’s oceans are in crisis and the stakes could not be higher. However, both reports remained on the shelf.

Obama administration officials say this time things will be different.

Let’s hold them to it. There are public hearings coming up:
Providence, Rhode Island on September 24; in Honolulu, Hawaii on September 29; and later in Cleveland, Ohio; and New Orleans, Louisiana. If you can go, attend. The report this is all being built around can be found online here, and it’s open now for public comment.

They’re talking water this week in Duluth.

Advocates for a massive Great Lakes cleanup gather in Duluth this week energized by increased support in Washington.

Nearly 250 activists, scientists and government officials will gather today through Saturday at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center for the fifth annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference. A plan in Washington includes $475 million in the 2010 federal budget for Great Lakes efforts — including cleaning up toxic pollution hotspots, stemming the invasion of exotic species, stopping sewage overflows, and restoring and protecting habitat along the shores of the Great Lakes.

The U.S. House already has approved the Obama administration’s plan. The Senate is expected to begin considering the issue this month, said Jordan Lubetkin, spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office.

“It passed the [Senate] Appropriations Committee at $400 million. But we’re optimistic we’ll still get the full $475 million after conference committee,’’ he said.

President Obama pledged support for the Great Lakes during his campaign, and it looks like they’re actually coming through. $400 million is a good start, but it’s only a start towards cleaning up and protecting North America’s largest bodies of fresh water. It does, however, provide reason for optimism and gives everyone at the conference something to talk about.

Here in Minnesota the topic of water quality has more to do with our streams, wetlands, and those ten thousand and more lakes we like to talk about. Perhaps this conference on the Great Lakes, plus the Nobel Conference on water in Saint Peter next month will help inspire our local politicians to seriously address the problem in our own state. That would be an outcome worth celebrating.

During his campaign, President Obama promised to support the clean-up and protection of the Great Lakes. Today it’s looking like that’s one campaign promise he intends to keep.

Cameron Davis, CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes and former co-chair of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition has been named President Obama’s point man on all things Great Lakes.

Davis will be responsible for advising the EPA and ensuring and overseeing Great Lakes restoration. During the campaign for President, Obama pledged to provide $5 billion for Great Lakes restoration and a Czar to oversee and coordinate the program. Since becoming President, Obama has set aside $475 million for a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in his budget and made restoration a priority.

In a world where fresh clean water is going to become an increasingly valuable commodity, the Great Lakes are a resource that it may not be possible to put a price on. It’s good to see that both the state and federal governments are beginning to put the kind of emphasis on protecting the Great lakes as they deserve.

Things have a way of balancing out. For example, if the federal government spends years ignoring a problem like the introduction of invasive species in the Great Lakes by way of ship ballast water, it shouldn’t come as to great a shock when states like New York start taking action themselves.

The New York State Supreme Court has upheld the state’s authority to require large ships dumping ballast water in state waters to meet a stricter standard than that of the federal government.

Ballast water is carried in unladen ships to provide stability. At the ships’ destination, cargo is loaded and the ballast water, carrying stowaway organisms, is pumped out. Untreated vessel ballast discharges have introduced more than 180 aquatic invasive species into the Great Lakes. Lake Erie and Lake Ontario border western New York.

The court rejected the arguments of a coalition of large shipping interests that claimed the state had illegally placed further restrictions on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nationwide discharge permit for these vessels.

Like California and greenhouse gas emissions, the Great Lakes states are moving farther than the federal government would like to go. Maybe that’s because they’re the one swho most directly live with the consequences of those problems, whether they be polluted skies of lakes filled with strange, alien creatures.

More evidence that the EPA will no longer be putting corporate interests first.

In one of her first actions as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson has ordered the Great Lakes office of EPA to stop negotiations with the Dow Chemical company — begun in the last days of the Bush administration — over controversial dioxin cleanup in the Saginaw Bay watershed.

The move is being celebrated by Michigan environmental groups that have appealed to the new administration to intervene in a process they say could shuffle the cleanup of a serious public health hazard into a non-regulatory process favored by the company.

The Dow dioxin mess was the reason Mary Dade resigned as Midwest Regional EPA Director, alleging that she was forced out after pressure was put on by Dow. That’s the way it worked under the Bush Administration, signs are good so far that corporations will no longer be calling all the shots at the EPA.

More evidence that there’s a new attitude at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency says the Obama administration will reconsider rules that critics say do too little to prevent cargo ships from dumping invasive species into the nation’s waterways.

The EPA in December released a general permit for cargo vessels entering the Great Lakes or other U.S. waters from overseas that includes rules for 26 types of discharges, such as ballast, oily bilge water and “gray water” from showers and sinks.

Breaking with the Bush administration, EPA head Lisa Jackson said Tuesday the permit “doesn’t begin to address some of the concerns that are out there.”

The dumping of ballast water in the Great Lakes is the leading source of invasive species making their way into the lakes. Under Bush, the EPA first fought against regulating ballast water at all, then finally adopted the rule that the new administrator referred to as not beginning to address the “concerns out there”. The change in attitude that statement represents can hardly be exaggerated. Instead of seeing a pollution-causing industry practice as a problem to be either ignored or left up to the industry to deal with, the new EPA administrator sees problems as concerns that need to be faced up to and dealt with. With that approach, the EPA just might start doing the job it was set up to do. Wouldn’t that be fine.