Report: Don't kid yourself - toxins persist in the Great Lakes (DDT and PCBs)

M Live.com ^ | December 7, 2005 | Sarah Kellogg

[Lakeshark]

I'm not suggesting we start polluting the lakes, but I am pretty sure they are in really good shape, far better than the average person thinks because of the enviro-disinformation campaign. The harder ones are the shallower ones like Eerie.

I'm a Great Lakes lover......they are magnificent and wonderful bodies of water.

[GreenFreeper]

actually a great deal of the water quality improvement is due to another exotic, the zebra muscle. The water clarity is the highest ever recorded in Lake Michigan.

[Lakeshark]

They are causing their own pretty serious problems......but you are right about them improving water clarity.

[GreenFreeper]

They are causing their own pretty serious problems......but you are right about them improving water clarity.

Yes they are and control measures have lost momentum due to their benefits as other issues have become more important. It all reminds me of a simpsons episode in which Bart released the Bolivian tree lizards...then they over took the town so they relased snakes that ate them. When the snake got out of control they release gorillas that ate the snakes...etc.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Nothing better than a Lake Superior trout from the Brule, fresh caught, gutted and gilled, on the charcoal grill. Gimme a Leiney's."

I've fished there. It is awesome! DH caught I nice one, I got skunked because I was just learning to flycast, but I still caught a Leinies out of the cooler, LOL! Thanks for the nice memory. :)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Gimme a Steelhead, a plate of wild rice and a cold one from Big Eddy Spring.

[absolootezer0]

bah.. just start drilling the great lakes, and charge the oil companies with keeping the lakes clean.

[Carry_Okie]

I'm not going to link to junk science because that's what that site is, junk.

Every one of those references is peer-reviewed, unlike your BS.

[lizma]

far better than the average person thinks because of the enviro-disinformation campaign.

I live in Maryland now. A few years ago a federal report was released that said though not perfect, the Chesapeake Bay was doing better. Few months later another report is released that make the Bay sound like a poisoned sludge pond.

Who released the second report? Follow the money....The Chesapeake Bay Foundation. If the Bay is clean, or at least, if people think it's clean, the Foundation basically goes out of business. Can't have that now, can we?

[gleneagle]

DDT is NOT toxic to humans.

[GreenFreeper]

Every one of those references is peer-reviewed, unlike your BS.

So now peer review means its authoritative? LMAO. Then why all the criticism of articles I have posted in the past? So do the handful (many badly misinterpreted I might add) peer-reviewed articles cited on junkscience outweigh the THOUSANDS of peer-reviewed articles that contradict what junkscience is saying?

Your hypocrisy is blatant. Sound science is only that which fulfills your worldview- everything else is a big conspiracy.

[GreenFreeper]

DDT is NOT toxic to humans.

Thats a strong statement considering things like chocholate are toxic to humans in large enough doses. While I do not think DDT is as dangerous as once thought, I certainly would like to keep exposure to a minimum.

[proud_yank]

When I was a kid the smell of dead fish in the Detroit River was so bad that people who came there to fish for the first time would vomit.

It is MUCH, MUCH BETTER NOW!Trust Mikey on this one.

I agree with you. Also, the question that this article leaves unanswered is 'Which Lakes, and where'?

I used to live near Superior (Houghton, MI), and when sea kayaking I never had any issue drinking straight from the lake when I got thirsty. Erie and Ontario had problems from both US and CND manufacturing, but have cleaned up considerably due to the zebra muscles. I'm not saying that they are perfect, just that they have improved.

There was a govt superfund-site near Lake Linden, MI by where I used to live. (there was a HUGE copper mining industry there in the late 18, early 1900's. Some pics on my profile of an old CU smelter on water that leads to Superior) Fish were found with odd growths, it was thought from heavy metals and rock tailing piles that were in the water, from to the mining that once existed. That was found not to be the cause, something genetic if I remember correctly. The only thing that happened was sod was laid over a couple hundred yards of stamp sand beach "just in case" it could help. Good use of taxpayer $$, I just wonder what the pricetag was.

I tend to take the 'Great Lakes are dying' articles with a grain of salt. The area where I lived in MI is now very clean. Streams that once had no fish from pollution, now have brook trout. I saw eagles regularly when I kayaked on Superior, my dad told me when he was in school there in the 70's that he never saw any.

[Mikey_1962]

Lake, Splake, and Walleye, fesh out of the lake, skinned (not scaled) battered and fried immediately are all great....

People who have never had FRESH fish don't know what we are talikng about.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You can say that again.

[Simo Hayha]

We also get 200+" of liberal-repellent each winter but the pesky critters still keep coming around, a northern twist on the damn-Yankee syndrome common to the South.

Miss Kito OTOH worked well in Alaska where Jacques Costeau had to turn around on the Yukon and beat ell out of there. Geneticists are hard at work on a misquito model that will eventually repel all of the coalition of the quivering--a term I picked up from Michelle Malkin.

But don't tell anyone...nicely ambiguous.