A Great Time to Visit Vernal Pools

The heavy rains in the second week of March have brought out woodfrogs, salamanders, and other amphibians to migrate to vernal pools and other wetlands. Across Ohio lots of small animals can be seen crossing roads and heading for vernal pools.

Salamanders and wood frogs migrate from their wintering sites in the uplands to vernal pools for breeding when the conditions are right. The ideal conditions are thawed ground, air temperature in the 40's, rain, little wind, and darkness. Early migrations such as this past week often are light in numbers of animals. More and larger migrations are yet to come.

If you go out on a rainy night to observe migrations, do be careful. Drivers will have trouble seeing "salamander people" on the road. Resist the urge to stop traffic to save amphibians. Don't become a statistic. If you find a location with significant roadkill, work with local authorities for road closings in future years. Once mole salamanders and wood frogs reach their vernal pool, breeding activities commence.

Visit this web site for more information, suggestions of books parents and children can check out from local libraries, and other ideas for finding science in cool vernal pools.

Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.

By Charles Duhigg and Janet Roberts – New York Times – February 28, 2010 Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising. Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.

Find My Cleanup

Great Lakes United is pleased to announce the launch of a new website!

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www.findmycleanup.org

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Find My Cleanup is a community resource that will help connect people to the watershed cleanups happening in their neighborhoods.

Visit www.findmycleanup.org today and submit your clean up event or find out if there is a cleanup taking place in your region.
This is a new resource and we would appreciate your help in making it as useful as possible. Please Forward this email to a friend and encourage them to tell us about the cleanups happening in their region!

The site is developed and maintained by Great Lakes United, an international coalition to protect and restore the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River ecosystem.

For more information about our work, or to become a member, visit www.glu.org.

EPA Launches Web Forum on How to Best Protect America’s Waters

Contact Ernesta Jones - EPA News Release – March 17, 2010
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking  public input on how the agency can better protect and improve the  health of our waters.  For a two- week period, EPA is holding a Web  discussion forum on how the nation can better manage some of the most  significant water pollution problems facing our nation. The feedback  received on the online forum will help shape the discussion at EPA’s  upcoming conference in April, Coming Together for Clean Water, where we  will engage approximately 100 executive and local level water leads on  the agency’s clean water agenda.  "We look forward to reviewing the ideas and feedback from the public,”

said Peter S. Silva, assistant administrator EPA’s Office of Water.  “This online discussion is for anyone who wants to share their best solutions for restoring healthy waters and creating sustainable  communities across the country."  EPA wants to receive input from water professionals, advocates, and anyone interested in water quality issues about best solutions—from  planning, scientific tools, low impact development, to green  infrastructure and beyond—in controlling water pollution and how  resources can be better focused to improve these efforts.

To join the discussion: http://blog.epa.gov/waterforum/

Clean Water for All: County Leaders Speak Out for Clean Water

The Conservation Leaders Network recently released a new report, “Clean Water for All: County Leaders Speak Out for Clean Water.” “This report tells the local stories of water pollution and destruction and the resulting harm and expense to communities. These stories remind us that to protect our local water supplies, property, infrastructure, and economies, we must look upstream to the many miles of trickling head-water and intermittently flowing streams and acres of wetlands that do most of the real work of storing and cleansing our waters. As these stories show us, we disregard at our peril these “non-navigable” workhorses of our watersheds. Unless we restore our commitment to their protection, their pollution and destruction over time will leave us with very costly reparations – and in some cases irreversible harm to our water resources.”

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Don't Forget About Lake Erie (IJC Public Meeting in Toledo)

From Kristy Meyer at the Ohio Environmental Council

I wanted to make sure that you were all aware about a public meeting that the International Joint Commission will be holding on March 25^th at 7:00 pm at the University of Toledo, Lake Erie Center.  They will be talking about the Upper Great Lakes Water Levels.  Apparently, the study was undertaken because of concern about falling lake levels in the upper Great Lakes.  There are some folks that are pushing hard to further control the amount of water that Lake Erie and Lake Ontario receive.  It seemed to me that we should all be very interested in this study, particularly because they are talking about holding back water, which would impact Lake Erie and the amount of water within our Great Lake for wildlife, drinking water, manufacturing, agriculture, recreational opportunities, etc.  Below is a link to a press release about these hearings. 

Here is why you should attend:

The report Impacts on Upper Great Lakes Water Levels: St. Clair River concludes the first phase of a study of the upper Great Lakes. It examines the physical changes in the St. Clair River since 1962 and recommends that measures to remediate the increased conveyance, or water carrying capacity, of the river not be undertaken at this time. It also recommends that mitigation measures in the St. Clair River be examined as part of the comprehensive assessment of the future effects of climate change in the second phase of the study.
The IJC will consider the views of the public on the recommendations of its Study Board before it reports to the governments of Canada and the United States on matters related to the St. Clair River and their impacts on upper Great Lakes water levels.