the great lakes essay

Environment and Education

Are the great lakes connected, published june 10, 2019.

We tend to think of the Great Lakes as five separate bodies of freshwater. But all 5 Great Lakes are very intimately connected to each other. The lakes are all part of one big watershed . The watershed is an area of land that drains surface water down to a single point. In this case, that point is - you guessed it - The Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes Watershed

Have you ever wondered how big ships travel through the Great Lakes? Although the Great Lakes don’t physically touch one another, their waters all flow together in one big system. The Great Lakes are connected by close to 5,000 tributaries: a series of smaller lakes, rivers, streams, and straits flowing into larger bodies of water.

Water in the Great Lakes comes from thousands of streams and rivers covering a watershed area of approximately 520,587 square kilometres (or 201,000 square miles). The flow of water in the Great Lakes system move from one lake to another eastward, ultimately flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. Let’s track the journey of a water droplet from the furthest western point on Lake Superior.

Journey of a water droplet in the Great Lakes system

A single drop of water finds its way into Lake Superior either by rainfall or runoff. It takes more than two hundred years to make its way through the Great Lakes system and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Here’s a flow-by-flow:

• From Lake Superior, water drains into the St. Marys River and flows into Lake Huron
• Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are connected directly by the Straits of Mackinac
• Lake Huron waters flow into the St. Clair River, which drains into Lake St. Clair
• Lake St. Clair, in turn, drains into the Detroit River, and empties into Lake Erie
• At the end of Lake Erie, water flows into the Niagara River, dropping 52 meters (170 ft) as it flows over Niagara Falls and into Lake Ontario
• From Lake Ontario, water flows into the St. Lawrence River and ultimately runs out the Atlantic Ocean

Did You Know?

A droplet of water, at the end of its two century long journey, experiences a total elevation drop of approximately 182 meters (or 600 feet).

The Great Lakes’ connection to the ocean

We’ve now traced the path of a single drop of freshwater from Lake Superior all the way through the Great Lakes system and into the oceanic salt water of the Atlantic. The distance from the furthest port in Duluth, Minnesota to the Atlantic is 3,769 kilometres (2,342 miles).

A closed system

We’ve seen how water travels across the Great Lakes through an intricate, interconnecting series of tributaries small and large, modest and majestic.

But here’s a fact that may be surprising: The Great Lakes are an essentially closed system.

Outflows from the Great Lakes are very small in comparison to their total volume: each year, less than 1% of the volume of the water in the Great Lakes flows out the St. Lawrence River.

Compare this stat to that of an average lake, such as Lake Simcoe - where the total annual outflow is 900% the volume of water in the lake!

This means the Great Lakes are especially sensitive and vulnerable to certain risk factors, like pollution. Pollutants can (and do) travel from one lake to the next. They also tend to persist for long periods of time because water exits the Great Lakes at such a slow pace.

Perhaps what’s even more impressive than the flow of water through this complex interconnected system is how relatively little water actually leaves the Great Lakes Watershed each year. Great Lakes water is only replenished by 1% annually; the remaining 99% is a one-time gift from melting glaciers.

So when you’re out there on the water, take a moment to drink in the sheer size, depth, and power of the Great Lakes. Soak it all in and, as they say, go with the flow.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Lake — The Great Lakes system

The Great Lakes System

• Categories: Lake Natural Environment Niagara Falls

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Published: Oct 31, 2018

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/discussion-questions-for-the-death-and-life-of-the-great-lakes

Discussion questions for ‘The Death and Life of the Great Lakes’

Our April pick for the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club, “Now Read This” is Dan Egan’s “ The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. ” It’s an epic and wonderfully told story of history, science and reportage about the largest source of freshwater in the world, and the threat to America’s waterways. Become a member of the book club by joining our Facebook group , or by signing up to our newsletter . Learn more about the book club here .

Below are questions to help guide your discussions as you read the book over the next month. You can also submit your own questions for Dan Egan on our Facebook page, which he will answer on the NewsHour broadcast at the end of the month.

1. The five great lakes — Lake Erie, Superior, Michigan, Huron and Ontario — make up the world’s largest freshwater system. Some 40 million people live near their shores, and many of more of us depend on them for fresh drinking water, work or recreation. What’s been your own experience of the Great Lakes?

2. In the book’s opening, Egan writes that more than any ordinary lake, each of the Great Lakes “can hold all the mysteries of an ocean, and then some.” He mentions that there are 6,000 shipwrecks, many of which have never been found, at the bottom of the Great Lakes. What other mysteries are you learning about as you read?

3. Egan also writes that the biggest threat to the Great Lakes at present “is our own ignorance,” and that it’s a “mirage” that humans and lakes have learned to get along. What surprises you about how humans have messed with the lakes, even after the passage of the major Clean Water Act of 1972?

4. Why is it not actually a good thing that the Great Lakes are as clear as they are?

5. A recurring theme in the book is the invasive species that have been brought to the lakes from ships arriving from ports all over the world. Today, the Great Lakes are home to 186 nonnative species — the worst being the zebra and quagga mussels . How and why are these species a problem?

6. Egan tells us that one of the most recognizable images of the perils facing the Great Lakes is “ the grotesque mug of an Asian carp ,” which was imported in the 1960s for government research on sewage treatment. This invasive species can grow up to 70 pounds and eat up to 20 percent of its weight in plankton a day, and is now making its way closer to Lake Michigan. What could happen if the Asian Carp do enter the Great Lakes?

7. Does this book introduce us to heroes and villains in the Great Lakes story? If so, who are they?

8. As the news is filled with stories of water shortages in California and water crises like the one still facing Flint, Michigan , how do the Great Lakes fit in?

9. Egan argues that if threats to the Great Lakes aren’t addressed, there will be huge implications for property owners, shipping, drinking water and sewage treatment. How could it affect you, if at all?

10. What does the book suggest can be done to protect the future of the Great Lakes? What do you think Egan is trying to tell us in the book’s final scene with his son?

Elizabeth Flock is an independent journalist who reports on justice and gender. She can be reached at [email protected]

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Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?

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This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

Driving north through California’s Tejon Pass on Interstate 5, you spill down out of the mountains onto a breathtaking expanse of farm fields like few others in the world. Rows of almond, pistachio and citrus trees stretch as far as the eye can see, dotted by fields of grapes. Truckloads of produce zoom by, heading for markets around the country.

The Central Valley of California supplies a quarter of the food on the nation’s dinner tables. But beneath this image of plenty and abundance, a crisis is brewing — an invisible one, under our feet — and it is not limited to California.

Coast to coast, our food producing regions, especially those stretching from the southern Great Plains across the sunny, dry Southwest, rely heavily and sometimes exclusively on groundwater for irrigation. And it’s disappearing — fast.

What happens to the nation’s food production if the groundwater runs out altogether? Unless we act now, we could soon reach a point where water must be piped from the wetter parts of the country, such as the Great Lakes, to drier, sunnier regions where the bulk of the nation’s food is produced. No one wants unsightly pipelines snaking across the country, draining Lake Michigan to feed the citrus groves of the Central Valley. But that future is drawing closer by the day, and at some point, we may look back on this moment and wish we’d acted differently.

For over a century, America’s farmers have overpumped groundwater, and now, as the world warms and the Southwest becomes drier, the situation is only growing more dire. Rivers are slowing to a trickle, water tables are falling, land is sinking, and wells are drying up. Each year, roughly 25,000 more farmers fallow their fields, putting both food and water security in the United States at risk.

States are aware there is a problem — many are trying to sustainably manage their groundwater. But it’s not clear how successful these efforts have been. My research team has found that groundwater depletion is accelerating in the Central Valley, in spite of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. In Arizona, groundwater is only managed in less than 20 percent of the state, leaving a free-for-all in the state’s unmanaged areas.

The United States has no plan for the disruptions that will befall our food systems as critical water supplies dwindle, causing the price of some foods to skyrocket and bringing us closer to the time when we may have to consider pipelines to replenish or replace depleted groundwater.

Some of the world’s largest countries are already forging ahead with these kinds of projects. China’s South-to-North Water Transfer Project and India’s National River Linking Project redirect volumes of water the size of Lake Mead to dry regions from wet ones each year. The United States could do the same.

But it’s not something we should be rushing toward. Americans, particularly those living in places like the Great Lakes region, have already shown that they have little stomach for infrastructure projects that would move their local water to remote locations, even if it is to produce the food they eat every day.

It’s not just the political climate that makes tapping water resources in the East such an undesirable prospect. We’ve built systems of canals to move water around California and the Colorado River basin, but constructing a transcontinental pipeline or river diversion, at the scale required to sustain U.S. agriculture, would be staggeringly more complex, expensive and environmentally disruptive.

They would require significant landscape changes and human displacement. And because water is so heavy, it is extremely expensive to transport. Building the necessary conveyances would require decades of planning, have major environmental consequences and cost taxpayers astronomical sums — easily tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, and far more when you take the human and environmental costs into account.

The United States can still avoid this outcome. If we want to sustain groundwater supplies for future generations, we will need reliable estimates of what’s available in key aquifers, how its quality changes with depth and how much can be safely pumped without risk of running dry. That means we must prioritize the systematic exploration and evaluation of what’s in the ground and make a plan to end or dramatically reduce groundwater depletion.

But we won’t be able to do that without a national water policy. The current patchwork of groundwater policies across the country isn’t enough. This is a national problem that only national coordination can solve.

Last December, President Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology called for testimony on the future of groundwater resources in this country, including the implications for its disappearance and possible strategies for mitigating depletion. (I was among the experts who testified before the panel.) More recently, the council requested public input on America’s groundwater challenges. This recent groundswell of awareness affords a rare opportunity to transform the way that groundwater is measured, monitored and managed.

The United States has kicked the can down the road for decades, but that road has finally reached a dead end. It is time for this nation to act to sustain both its food and water security for centuries to come.

Otherwise, we will be faced with the unpleasant prospect of the Great Lakes partially drained of their freshwater, which will be piped across country in a wasteful, expensive and unpopular project that could have been prevented, had we only acted quickly when we still could.

The post Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation? appeared first on New York Times .

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The Great Lakes: A Little Slice of the Sea

The oceanic nature of the great lakes.

(Note: An abridged version of this essay appeared in the Early Summer 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine )

“Those are some serious pieces of water.” Jon Turk, renowned expedition paddler and author

Deep in the heart of North America, surrounded by forest and field, there is an ocean.

A vast inland sea containing nearly a quarter of the world’s fresh water—enough to flood the lower 48 states to a depth of almost ten feet—the Great Lakes contain upwards of 35,000 islands, and their 10,000 miles of shore rival that of the US ocean coastlines.

Those who may be tempted to dismiss them as ‘mere lakes’—mild tempered, serene, and unruffled Golden Ponds—surely have not yet enjoyed the sublime pleasures and occasional terror of venturing out on the Great Lakes in their kayak or canoe.

Consider this sometimes perplexing and always intriguing marine environment …

Similarities: Freshwater Seas

As on the world’s seas, large weather systems can sweep in to whip the water to a violent fury, especially on the western Great Lakes of Superior and Michigan. Like tropical storms and hurricanes, which derive their power from the moist sea air, storms originating on the hot, dry northern plains can rush out over the lakes and unwary paddlers, increasing their ferocity with every mile. Due to their sheer size, the Great Lakes become far more agitated and wild than smaller, nearby inland lakes. Aside from the oceans proper, the Great Lakes have more extended miles of open water then any lake, reservoir, and many ocean bays. When I visited the Battle Island light, the northernmost Great Lakes lighthouse, in Rossport, Ontario, the keeper there recounted how a 1977 winter storm sent three-story waves rolling past the tower, while spray and chunks of ice broke the glass out. “There’s two hundred and fifty miles of fetch between here and Duluth,” he said. “So when the waves got here … well, they were pretty big …”

Like much of the west coast, known for its mild climate conducive to growing everything from fruits and vegetables to hops for beermaking, much of the shore regions surrounding the Great Lakes are renowned, too, for their productive orchards, vineyards, and other crops which benefit from the longer growing season of a maritime climate. But the Great Lakes reserve their greatest climatic influence on surrounding lands for winter, with record lake-effect snowfalls. When cold winter winds sweep across the northern Great Plains and out over the warmer water of the Great Lakes, they are able to carry away vast amounts of water vapor, which later freezes and falls as heavy snow on the area. Houghton, MI, on the Keweenaw Peninsula, often is buried under 200-300″ of Lake Superior snow each winter.

Like the world’s oceans, the Great Lakes offer a water highway for vessels ranging in size from sea kayaks to thousand-foot-long bulk freighters. Hundreds of millions of net tons of cargo are moved on the Lakes each year, primarily grain and stone, as well as iron ore and coal used in the steel industry. These “Lakers” are capable of carrying the equivalent of 3,000 tractor-trailers, yet often must navigate through narrow and confined channels and locks, sometimes with only a few feet to spare on each side. There is something a bit incongruous about glancing up from your foredeck to see a cargo ship from Sweden sidle up to a dock in Milwaukee to unload wind turbine parts deep in the American heartland, nearly 2,000 miles from the nearest ocean, then take on a load of grain bound for Jordan or coal for South Korea. Combat ships built in Marinette, WI, make their first open-water cruises on Lake Michigan for acceptance trials before delivery to the US Navy. Great Lakes paddlers venturing onto open waters or making crossings to offshore islands are wise to keep an alert eye and ear open for these majestic freighters and other ships.

Of course, the same storms that threaten kayakers can plague even these large vessels, and the Great Lakes account for nearly a quarter of all US shipwrecks. The first ship to sail the Great Lakes, La Salle’s Le Griffon, was almost inevitably the first to sink, presumed lost in a Lake Michigan storm while on her maiden voyage in 1679. But even as recently as 1975, modern ships like the famed SS Edmund Fitzgerald have been overwhelmed by conditions too great even for them, and nearly 8,000 ships have sunk and now sleep on the cold bottom of the Great Lakes.

To aid in navigating these often treacherous waters, the first inland lighthouse was built on Lake Erie in 1818, in Buffalo, NY, and was eventually followed by over 200 others throughout the Great Lakes.

The doubtful may not consider the Great Lakes to be ‘real’ oceans or seas, but don’t tell that to the US Coast Guard, who, since the 1700’s, has been responsible for safety and security on the 6,700 miles of America’s “third coast” bordering the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway. Based in Cleveland, OH, and maintaining sector stations throughout the region, the Ninth Coast Guard District operates vessels ranging from 45-foot patrol boats to 400-foot cutters and helicopters, performing everything from search-and-rescue operations to annual ice-breaking duties. Whether paddling your own kayak or piloting a thousand-foot Laker, when your day turns ugly on the Great Lakes, the US Coast Guard answers your call.

Differences: Oceanic Lakes

While the Great Lakes certainly share many traits with the world’s saltwater seas, they are also quite different from them.

Only Lake Superior, the largest, boasts any sort of measurable lunar tide (less than two inches), but all the Great Lakes can experience seiches, a storm-surge-like oscillation of water caused by wind or atmospheric pressure variations. Most seiches are nearly imperceptible, but some can be quite large and sudden. In 1929, a seiche with 20-foot waves came ashore near Grand Haven, MI and swept ten beachgoers from the pier there. Eight fishermen were swept to their deaths in 1954 when a ten-foot surge came over the Chicago breakwater, and a 1995 seiche on Lake Superior raised and then lowered the water by over three feet, leaving small boats in Duluth’s harbor dangling from their mooring lines.

Though I’ve personally never witnessed such a seiche, I have seen storm-driven water levels rise by a couple of feet, threatening to snatch our kayaks from the beach. A ranger in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore related how three kayak-campers were stranded on Outer Island when a mysterious rise in water levels claimed their unsecured boats one night, and savvy Great Lakes paddlers pull their kayaks far above the typical high-water mark and tie them to trees at night.

The very composition of freshwater lends it some distinctly different behaviors from seawater. Evaporate a cubic foot of seawater (about 64 pounds) and you’ll be left with 2.2 pounds of salt, while fresh water yields none. Great Lakes water is simply less dense: ocean freighters actually sink about six inches upon entering the fresh water of the St. Lawrence Seaway. For paddlers, this lighter density creates slightly steeper, sharper waves more easily whipped up by the wind. Rather than the gently rolling swells typical on the ocean, Great Lakes waves tend to stack up into taller, short-period waves with steeper vertical faces and breaking crests.

Also of interest to kayak-campers is the fact that, unlike the ocean, the fresh water of the Great Lakes requires only a simple backpacking purifier in order to be consumed. So, paddlers are able to collect drinking and cooking water along their routes, rather than packing fresh water.

While the world’s oceans see a wide range of surface water temperatures, mainly because they span from the polar regions to the middle latitudes, the variation within any given place is actually quite narrow. In the Atlantic, for example, the area of maximum temperature variation is in the equatorial region, where temperatures vary by as little as 12-15°F. Lake Superior, by contrast, varies by at least twice that amount throughout the year, from frozen solid ice to about 55°F, although I have personally swum in 70°F bathwater when August winds push warm surface water into confined, shallow bays. Beachgoers and paddlers enjoy the white-sugar sand beaches and Bahama-blue waters of Lake Michigan while, just a few hours away, kayak-campers share their northern Lake Superior island campsites with delicate alpine and arctic plants and wild caribou, normally found only in tundra regions.

Due to their freshwater nature, the Great Lakes offer a unique marine environment. The Lakes are not inhabited by the extremely diverse variety of fish, marine mammals, crustaceans, and other life typically found in and around the sea. But in addition to the native lake trout, herring, whitefish, muskellunge, pike, bass, walleye, and perch, several species of Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic coast salmon and trout have been introduced for sport fishing. Feathered residents include the bald eagle, Canada goose, loons, various ducks, mergansers, cormorants, pelicans, trumpeter swans, the ubiquitous seagull, and many others. If the Great Lakes are home to any sea monsters, it surely must be the ancient lake sturgeon. A veritable living fossil, little changed in 200 million years, this prehistoric creature can live to be a century old, and grow to over ten feet and 200 pounds.

Lake or Ocean?

Ultimately, the question is perhaps irrelevant. For all their similarities and differences from oceans and inland lakes, some characteristics of the Great Lakes simply defy such classification.

In the end, a kayaker or other visitor may be wise to instead humbly accept the Great Lakes on their own terms: a singularly beautiful and utterly unique place we like to call the “Fresh Coast”.

Bring your paddle.

What do you think? Leave a question or comment below!

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The great lakes

Updated 15 May 2023

Subject Nature ,  Americas

Downloads 36

Category Environment ,  World

Topic Lake ,  Canada ,  Water

The great lakes span around 94,000 kilometers across the United States and Canada. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior are the five lakes. The big lakes are linked by smaller lakes, straits, and rivers. The great lakes create the world's greatest freshwater system when combined. The deepest lake is Lake Superior, and the shallowest is Lake Erie. Lake Superior is the largest as well, followed by Lake Michigan (Nix 56). There are about 35,000 in the Great Lakes, albeit the majority are inhospitable and small. Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron is the largest. Due to the Great Lakes' huge area, which includes storms and hazards, numerous shipwrecks have happened. The Great Lakes have undergone innumerable changes mostly attributed to human activities. Following many adverse environmental impacts caused by humans such as pollutions, over 140 federal programs have been initiated for the Great Lakes with an aim for ecological restoration and management. Canada, tribal nations, and 8 U.S. states have joined the initiative to protect and clean up the Great Lakes.

Great lakes map and Images

Physically: why are these regions important for farming, Example: states like Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio how they benefit from these regions.

The regions around the Great Lakes are essential for farming due to the favorable weather and agricultural lands. During the inhabitance of the early settlers, meat production and dairy were the dominant agriculture products. Notably, with developments, urban populations emerged. This led to a demand for specialty crops including tobacco, fruits, and vegetables. Currently, primary crops are hay, corn, and soybeans (Ronald 24).

The Great Lakes plays a role in moderating seasonal temperatures by absorbing heat and cooling air in summer. The lakes protect the surrounding regions against frost during the transitional weather and facilitate cool temperatures in the summertime. Buffering the weather by Great Lakes has led to the "fruit belts" which has benefited neighboring regions. For example, apple and cherry orchards in Western Michigan and central Ontario are as a result of the fruit belts (Nix 58). The phenomenon also facilitates wineries to flourish in various regions around New York and Prince Edward County of Ontario. Michigan has also benefited from the phenomenon as it has promoted successful wineries. These moderating effects are localized. They only help the surrounding physical locations and within the Great lakes.

Environmentally: How they are change nowadays than use to be before.

The environmental aspects of the Great Lakes and the surrounding areas have greatly changed from how they were initially. The change has been fueled by industrialization and commercial operations, which have spurred many harmful environmental impacts. For instance, commercial fishing, which started in 1820, has been steadily increasing, with approximately 65 million pounds of fish being harvested from the Great Lakes annually (Ronald 27). Over-fishing has led to habitat destruction and pollution.

Before the industrialization and urbanization, the Great Lakes had a natural lake ecology and were surrounded by various forest ecoregions. However, urbanization and agriculture have led to extensive logging and deforestation thereby changing the relationship between the forest ecoregions and the lake ecology. Lake Erie has been affected the worst with only about 21 percent shore remaining forested. This has resulted in many environmental effects, including extinction of about 13 wildlife species. Many more wildlife species have also been listed as threatened or endangered. The forests have been moderating water temperatures and providing shade in fish spawning grounds (Nix 59). Logging has removed this adjacent tree cover thereby affecting spawning of fish. Cutting down the trees has also led to soil destabilization. This has led to massive washing of soil volumes sto stream beds causing frequent flooding and siltation of gravel beds.

The species found in the Great Lakes have increased more sthan they were initially. However, most of these new species have been associated with adverse or undesirable traits. The development of Erie Canal and Welland Canal led to an influx of parasitic lamprey populations, which caused the reduction of trout populations. Zebra mussel and quagga mussel, which were discovered in slate 1980, have brought competition with native mussels, reduced spawning grounds and available food. The round goby has been considered to spawn several times in a season. It also preys on bottom-feeding fish. Various exotic and invasive species have also been accidentally introduced into the Great Lakes (Grover and Krantzberg 335). Examples of the exotic species include water flea and fishhook water flea. Invasive species include sea lamprey (Grover and Krantzberg 335). These species have adversely affected the zooplankton population and damaged the lake trout population in the Great Lakes.

History: things like 🡪 transportation uses , trade and business

The historical use of the Great Lakes is mostly documented since explorers and settlers started engaging in activities that entailed using the Great Lakes. The primary transportation uses commenced in 1825. This comprised of shipping practices to carry freight east and settlers west through the Erie Canal. In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed (Ronald 28). This seaway allowed vessels from the ocean to access the Great Lakes. In the current era, more than 200 million tons of cargo pass are transported through the Great Lakes. Grain, iron ore and coal art include the principal cargoes. The Great Lakes were also the primary transportation means for the immigrants during the settlement. The Illinois and Michigan Canals, which were opened in 1848, boosted the transportation by enabling direct access to Mississippi River from the Great Lakes. This transportation of people to settle and cargo shipping business has been credited to form many large cities.

Transport, agriculture, trade, and business coexist together. Before the European settlement, the indigenous native inhabitants living around the Great Lakes did not trade with outside nations. After European settlements during the seventeenth century, trade emerged with fur being the main commodity. The business was primarily undertaken among countries such as English, French and Dutch merchants (Nix 60). The discovery of fabled Northwest Passage to Asia led to an increased competition which later sparkled war between France, Netherlands, and Britain. The opening of Erie Canal in 1825 boosted public venture into business between the region and the Atlantic seaboard. Following intensive research, new agricultural techniques and machinery were introduced. Vast terrain of farmlands was developed with wheat and corn as the primary produce.

The Great Lakes enabled transportation of agricultural products to various places such as Ohio and New York. Rivers connecting the Great Lakes provided a good connection between major places, such as the Ohio River, thereby enabling transportation of agricultural products from Indiana, Southern Ohio and Illinois to New Orleans. The enhanced transport and new developments facilitated mining, especially the soft metals of lead, copper, and zinc. Timber business also snowballed due to the increased demand for lumber needed for new settlements (Nix 61). Notably, to facilitate better agricultural methods for a better trade, many innovations were developed which are today globally recognized as an influential breakthrough in building construction, technology, and transportation. The major innovations include the automobile manufacture, John Deere’s steel plow, Dart’s Elevator and Cyrus McCormick’s reaper.

Economics effect

The Great Lakes have been of immense economic effects to the surrounding communities and the nation at large. An investigation from the University of Michigan supported by the Michigan Sea Grant demonstrated that more than 1.5 million occupations are associated with the Great Lakes, creating $62 billion in compensation every year (Health Lakes Organisation 18).

The Great Lakes are the foundation of one of the world's biggest provincial economies. For instance, the businesses and people in the Great Lakes account for around 28 percent of U.S. GDP, as per the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The states in the Great Lakes bowl, as indicated by Fortune Magazine, are home to 38 percent of the Fortune 500 organizations. The Great Lakes in more than 1.5 million fishers every year, who are the establishment of a $7 billion game and recreational fishery that has created 58,291 employment, as indicated by the American Sportfishing Association (Health Lakes Organisation 21). An examination done by the Great Lakes Commission found that there are 4.3 million enrolled pontoons in the eight-state locale. Spending on drifting and sailing exercises produced $16 billion out of 2003, straightforwardly supporting 107,000 employment.

In Indiana, more than 50, 000 jobs are related to the Great Lakes. In 2014, 53 projects worth $53 were funded by the initiative involved with the Great Lakes. The wildlife recreation industry related to the Great Lakes totals approximately $1.7 billion. In Illinois, 85 projects worth $75 million have been started through the Great Lakes initiative. The wildlife recreation industry also totals $3.8 billion annually as a result of the Great Lakes. Although only a small area of Illinois is touched by the Great Lakes, it creates more than 350, 000 jobs. In Ohio, 146 projects totaling to $84 million have been funded by the lakes initiative and more than 150, 000 jobs are also connected to the Great Lakes. In Minnesota, more than 20, 000 jobs are connected to the Great Lakes, and 72 projects worth $22.9 have been funded by the Great Lakes initiative. The Great Lakes have created 12, 000 jobs in New York, 173, 000 jobs in Wisconsin, 800, 000 jobs in Michigan and 25, 000 jobs in Pennsylvania (Health Lakes Organisation 21).

Name Origins

Michigan Lake started forming more than one billion years ago when the Mid-Continental Rift was created following the ripping apart of two tectonic plates. It was discovered around 1634 by French Explorer Samuel de Champlain on a mission to find the ‘Northwest Passage”. The lake’s name is derived from the Ojibwa Indian word “mishigami” meaning a large lake (Zimmermann 34). The origin of Lake Huron hails from French explorers, who named it with regard to the Huron people living in the region. Champlain, a European, who called it Lac de St. Louis back in 1632, first named Lake Ontario. About three decades afterward, it was renamed Lacus Ontarius by Creuxius, a Jesuit historian, meaning ‘beautiful lake.' The name Lake Erie emanates from the word Erielhonan, which is a term from the Iroquois language meaning “long tail.” The name was formed from the inhabitants of the southern shore who referred themselves as “people of the long tail cat,” Lake Superior was named by the French as Lac Superieur meaning "the upper lake." The original inhabitants’ used to call the lake "Kitchi-gummi" which means "great water." Jesuit had also named it Lac Tracy, but Lake Superior became the widely known name.

The Great Lakes have a history that stretches centuries ago. Historically, the Great Lakes have been used for transportation and trade purposes. The Great Lakes benefits the surrounding communities through the provision of favorable weather by moderating seasonal temperatures. Many environmental changes have occurred leading to changes in the Great Lakes ecology. These include logging and introduction of invasive and exotic species with undesirable traits. Initiatives are however underway to ensure that the Great Lakes are cleaned and protected from pollution and over-fishing. The great concern given to the Great Lakes emanates from the fact that they are a source of direct and indirect employment to millions of Americans. Their contribution to the economy is also immense.

Ronald. Great Lakes Archaeology. New York: Academic Press, 2011.

Grover and Krantzberg. Great Lakes. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2012. Print.

Health Lakes Organisation. "Economic Benefits." Healing Our Waters Coalition, 2017. Web. 17 Oct. 2017.

Nix. "Are The Great Lakes Connected?." History.com, 2017. Web. 17 Oct. 2017.

Zimmermann. "Lake Michigan Facts." Live Science. 2017. Web. 17 Oct. 2017.

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Great Lakes Review

Writing and photography from the Great Lakes region

Narrative Map

The Great Lakes region is home to country and coastline, cities and hitching posts, sea glass and Petoskey stones, sex trafficking and opioids. Regionally, it is a rainforest of diversity capable of transcending its natural geography through the written word.

If you want to sample that diversity through our Narrative Map Project, here’s how. First, read from the selection of short narrative map essays. Each essay is written about a place in the Great Lakes region.

Then, when you find an essay you like, take a walk with it. Locate on the Google map (see below) the place discussed in the essay. Learn more about that location. Learn about the people and history there. Perhaps you’ll find a new place to vacation or a new inspiration for a poem or piece of fiction. Or just learn a little more about the Great Lakes and take it with you.

Narrative Map Pieces

Going to the Lake

I’ve learned that Shetek means pelican in Ojibwe, just as I’ve learned that “going to the lake” for many Minnesotans involves a drive north, a…

Summer Harbor

Even from 35,000 feet, I can spot it, the sandy sweep of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore, then a little dimple carved into the giant expanse…

County Line and Lakeshore: Where Ozaukee, Sheboygan, and Lake Michigan Meet

I look for them—my ancestors. I drive seventeen miles west along the county line between Ozaukee and Sheboygan Counties, to where they had their farm,…

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Great Lakes, great memories: Michiganders escape to the shores to find beauty, adventure, peace

An overcast sky is rarely enough to keep Michiganders from enjoying the beaches of their Great Lakes.

As sunlight poked its way through silver clouds in mid-June, the McKinney children chased each other in the sand, scaling rocks that surround South Pierhead Lighthouse in South Haven.

"For us, the lake brings our family together, we’re a blended family with six kids," said their mother, Jasmine Reynolds. "All of them are so different, but the lake allows us all to bond and enjoy our differences while building memories we all can share."

Building Great Lakes memories are a staple of Michigan life. The waters help define our borders and our character. This photo essay, created by USA TODAY Network - Michigan photographers Alyssa Keown, Matthew Dae Smith, Robert Killips, Brian Wells and John Heider is a visual love letter to our salt-less wonders.

Lake Michigan

"Peace, tranquility, fun, great memories - those words immediately come to mind when asked what the lake means to me," says Jennafer VandeVegte of Kentwood. She and her husband were married at their family lake house on Scenic Drive overlooking Lake Michigan in North Muskegon 20 years ago. There's so many memories here," the Pennsylvania native says. "The lake is a great escape, it's a place to relax and recharge, and take in the full beauty Michigan has to offer."

Lake Superior

The beauty of Lake Superior draws in people from all over. People who want toswim, play, boat or just take in the vistas while walking along its pristine beaches. Shannon Morrison of Waterberry, Vermont,  her traveling companion Leia, a rescued mixed breed, took  a summer camping trip, visiting all of the Great Lakes with Superior being the last one.

On any given day during the warmer months, a plethora of different boats can be seen heading to and from Lake Huron on the St. Clair River in Port Huron. Fishermen can be seen on the blue waters of the lake from the time the sun rises until long after it sets. On a windy day, sailboats with their colorful spinnakers dot the horizon.

The Rodney Dangerfield of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie gets no respect. Or at least not as much respect or awe as the other three large bodies of water that border the Mitten.

That's just fine with Erie's devotees. It's the blue collar boy of the Great Lakes: hard-working, basic, gets the job done. It's appropriately a quick drive from Detroit and its suburbs.

 At William C. Sterling State Park near Monroe, visitors can enjoy a day of a sandy beach shaded by giant cottonwood trees, swim in the lake's gently lapping waves along its shore and then fire up a grill for some brats.

Ah, pure Michigan summer.

USA Today Network – Michigan photographers Alyssa Keown, Matthew Dae Smith, Robert Killips, Brian Wells and John Heider contributed to this story.

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

60 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-7

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Key Figures

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

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Discussion Questions

Throughout the book, Egan interweaves stories of personal connections to the Great Lakes and/or fishing—including his own memories. What purpose do these personal anecdotes serve in the book? Use three to four examples to support your argument.

The title of the book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes includes the words “death” and “life.” Why was it important for Egan to include both of these words when titling his book? Use specific examples to support your argument.

Egan frequently includes descriptions of the characters he interviews, such as physical appearance, dress and unusual behavior or mannerisms. What purpose do these extra details serve in the book? Use examples to support your argument. 

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The Great Lakes Company Report

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External Factors Analysis

Porter’s five forces model, reference list.

There were alarming statistics about leaded gasoline. It was said to have a lot of effects on people and society as a whole. This is as far as their health is concerned. For instance, it caused blood pressure and other health risks to adults and on the other hand, affected their body systems.

Children were also greatly affected. This can be explained from the fact that they absorb large amounts of ingested lead in their bodies. Also, children in developing countries ended up having low intelligence.

In other countries like Egypt, it caused a lot of heart attacks and in extreme cases premature deaths. As a result of this, there was a lot of international attention and pressure. Many experts started advocating for lead to be phased and in the process reduce lead poisoning.

On the other hand, it was also meant to reduce human exposure to lead. This will force the company to devise better ways of involving all stakeholders to come up with a long term solution. On the other hand, the company will continually be blamed for any health complications.

Technologically, many cars in developing countries are still using leaded gasoline. This means that they have not embraced technology well to come up with better ways of eliminating lead as an additive. As much as this is being advocated for, the demand for leaded gasoline is still high.

Also, Great Lakes did not anticipate that it will have to deal with this issue in any way because of such complexities. This can be explained from the fact that other developing countries don’t have refineries to produce unleaded gas. On the other hand, most cars don’t have catalytic converters.

Leaded gasoline has been said to have a lot of environmental effects. For instance, it has adverse effects on the quality of air. It is extremely harmful. Lead particles are inhaled in air and absorbed by the soil. As a result, environmental groups have been putting pressure on the company to stop selling leaded gasoline.

Most of these environmentalists have been arguing that the company should ban TEL by 2010. This seems to be unrealistic because developing countries can’t refine unleaded gas.

On the other hand, it has forced the company to commit itself to a lot of environmental responsibilities. There is a suggestion that the company should use profits from Octel to transit away from TEL.

The company admits that although lead additive is its greatest money maker, it is still harmful to the environment. This has forced Great Lakes to agree that the eventual elimination of leaded gas line is necessary.

Should the company stop the production of leaded gasoline, many countries will be affected. This is because most of them have not made a transition from the use of leaded gasoline to unleaded gasoline. Most governments lack regulation on the way forward as far as leaded gasoline is concerned.

This can be explained from the fact that many developing nations have not been able to eliminate lead as an additive. Any positive developments in the elimination of lead as an additive have been overshadowed by lead problems in most developing nations.

This has put the company in a tricky position as they are not certain on the way forward. Demand for leaded gasoline is still high, and the company can not just discontinue production without a clear path to follow.

The external environment is very tricky and unpredictable in that case. This is because the lead additives industry is being blamed for many environmental problems. Environmentalists want it banned by 2010.

The industry environment, on the other hand, is very flexible as many companies are reinventing themselves to produce less harmful products.

There is no competition in the industry as most of them have switched to other products. This industry is attractive because there is a lot of demand from developing countries (Hitt et al., 2010, 8).

This industry is attractive based on good returns that Great Lakes’ has continued to get. It will continue being attractive because of the high demand for lead additives from developing countries.

These nations don’t have the necessary refineries to refine leaded gasoline. This is a very lucrative industry in the short run as later on people will move to unleaded gasoline.

For a company to survive in this industry, it needs a good strategy. This means that more attention should be paid on environmental issues and in the long run transit to unleaded gasoline as technology is moving in that direction.

The lead additives industry has the necessary assets and skills to transit and engages in more environmentally conscious activities. For instance, it is argued that it will be less costly for Great Lakes to transit from producing leaded additives.

The industry has the necessary resources to attract the best skills that will help it to come up with the best way forward.

Strategy implementation will not be a problem because there is a general good will to help the industry move forward (Hitt et al., 2010, 13). This means that all stakeholders will have to be involved in proper strategy implementation.

On the other hand, governments are committed to ensuring that they enhance the use of unleaded gasoline.

As long as developing countries don’t find a better solution to enhance their refineries, the lead additives industry will still register high returns. This is because most vehicles in those countries are still using leaded gasoline.

Competitor Analysis

Ethyl Corporation (which bought Dow chemical) is Great Lakes immediate competitor. In the early stages, the company was able to maintain its top presence in the business.

Great Lakes’ has continued to develop and produce a variety of specialty products for the market. The National lead company is also another competitor.

Although there is a lot of demand for leaded gasoline in developing countries, the company does not have any impending and invisible competitors. This is because its major competitors are no longer involved in the production of tetraethyl lead (TEL).

Tetraethyl lead is the additive for gasoline. The company has continued to flourish in all scenarios thereby controlling 90% of the market. This market has not attracted a lot of competitors because of numerous environmental issues.

Such trends are expected to continue because of large capital costs. This is in terms of building new plants and a lot of unsavory publicity.

The company faces competition from other chemical producers. To remain more competitive, it has continued to develop and produce a variety of chemicals for sustainability.

Capabilities and Challenges

The company can continue supplying lead additives to other developing countries. This is for the foreseeable future as demand is expected to remain high.

Also, competition is expected to be minimal. On the other hand, the company has the capabilities to increase its profits in the long run. This is because developing countries will only switch to unleaded gasoline when it’s economically feasible for them to do so.

Great Lakes’ is still in a better position to ensure that it adheres to good environmental practices. This is because environmental concerns have continued to be raised against the company thereby affecting its operations in a broad way.

A lot of responsibilities have been put on the company to bring about these environmental changes.

The company can still get out of lead additives production and rescue its reputation. In this case, it will be able to take a big financial hit.

On the other hand, the company can phase out its participation in the market place. This can be done with a five-year deadline. Also, it is also in a good position to push developing countries to switch to unleaded gasoline.

Hitt, M., Ireland, D., & Hoskisson, R. (2010). Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization. USA: South Western Educational Publishing.

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IvyPanda. (2019, September 3). The Great Lakes Company. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-lakes-company/

"The Great Lakes Company." IvyPanda , 3 Sept. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-lakes-company/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'The Great Lakes Company'. 3 September.

IvyPanda . 2019. "The Great Lakes Company." September 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-lakes-company/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Great Lakes Company." September 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-lakes-company/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Great Lakes Company." September 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-lakes-company/.

'Like something out of a horror movie': Scientists tackle invasive sea lampreys in the Great Lakes

PIEN HUANG, HOST:

Let's check in now on a decadeslong environmental effort focused on a creature that sounds honestly like a nightmare.

MARC GADEN: A tooth-filled mouth, about 100 teeth - The mouth is a suction cup on the end of a snake.

HUANG: He's talking about sea lampreys.

GADEN: The teeth anchor the lamprey mouth to the side of the fish, and then a sharp tongue like a file flicks out and drills its way through the scales and skin of the fish to feed on the fish's blood and body fluids. It's like something out of a horror movie.

HUANG: Oof. And Marc Gaden says if they're left unchecked, lampreys could have ended what's become a $7 billion fishing industry in the Great Lakes. Gaden is executive secretary of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. It's a group that's been working since the 1950s to curb the invasive lamprey population that first made its way to the lakes through canals.

GADEN: Each sea lamprey will kill about 40 pounds of fish, and each female lamprey will lay about 100,000 eggs.

HUANG: The commission's lamprey control program went on pause during the COVID pandemic, and the numbers ticked back up.

GADEN: These sea lampreys bounced back so quickly, it actually astounded a lot of the people in the control program.

HUANG: OK, but here's some comforting news for humans - lampreys only target fish.

GADEN: Nobody needs to worry about being attacked by a lamprey. They don't like warm-blooded creatures.

HUANG: And the better news - this summer, Gaden says thanks to interventions like using a pheromone that lampreys love to chat more of them, these slithery invaders are dwindling back towards pre-pandemic levels once again.

GADEN: We're cautiously optimistic that we'll be meeting the control targets very, very soon. So it really is a success story.

HUANG: In other words, so long, suckers.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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How Tim Walz Got So Savage

J.d. vance should be afraid—because this guy used to teach high school..

New Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz’s decency and mensch status have rung out over the past few days. Protector of IVF . Supporter of queer teens . Champion of feeding all schoolkids . Thrower of precise first pitches . Beloved and superb public high school teacher .

But there is a specific kind of needle underneath his patina of ice fishing and state fair ardor. In the clip you’ve surely seen by now, Walz clowned VC errand boy and womb zealot J.D. Vance:

The clip’s now-memed line is worthy of close reading: “I gotta tell ya, I can’t wait to debate the guy. That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up!”

The opening is sepia-toned Great Lakes. “I gotta tell ya” signals that we are about to receive the kind of diss track unexpected at a gathering of Lutherans and hot dish. Then real enthusiasm (“can’t wait to debate!”). Then turning Vance fungible (“the guy”). Then the knife to the ribs: “if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.” This succeeds twofold: summoning the unfounded rumor that the junior senator from Ohio sought the girlfriend experience from a sectional and recalling the cowardice (“show up”) of a man who struggles to defend his wife from racist attacks and now serves a man he once compared to Hitler.

It’s a masterclass of Midwestern prosody that cannot be taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Many have said and written that Walz has “great comic timing.” But the skill isn’t congenital—it’s professional. It’s the skill of a teacher.

It’s a secret of the profession: Witness bowling-alley faculty happy hours in which the fiftysomething science teacher delivers a scorching five minutes on the evangelical family whose dad surfs OnlyFans in the carpool lane. Hear your trusted, overburdened administrator go off on how she got the title “dean” but no pay bump, nor shielding from fire-breathing parents, and weave a monologue about contemporary bullshit worthy of Pynchon. Talent agents of America, get off TikTok and forsake the NYU–to–Echo Park pipeline. Scour the nation’s “Meet the teachers!” nights for your next comedy star.

There’s a reason they’re so good. Like other artists, most teachers are skilled humanists who have eschewed a lucrative career for intellectual freedom. But other artists—even pre–social media stand-ups who had to perform in front of actual people in clubs—do not have to weather the audience that teachers do: teenagers.

The true rite of passage for a teacher isn’t bureaucracy or textbooks that call Jefferson Davis “complicated” or the withering of a generation’s attention span. The test is having young people at their most charmingly venomous stage savage your appearance, your voice, your vocabulary, and your habits. To survive, you can either become the humorless disciplinarian that they hate (the J.D. Vance type), or you can play along with them, roast yourself a bit, and then, when for the third time that week a boy reminds the entire class of the time when you forgot to wear a belt, you can laugh along with the joke, pause for a moment, and gently clap back with something like, “Yeah, it’s kind of like the time you forgot that Gatsby’s first name isn’t actually The Great.”

Walz nails the self-deprecation element. He never hesitates to refer to himself as an old white guy. He apparently told Kamala Harris’ team that he needs coaching on how to use a teleprompter. Crucially, it’s clear that his students trusted him—and that they were high school students . An early childhood teacher who jokes back needs to be sent to The Hague. Remember when Trump teased the 7-year-old who believed in Santa ?

At the beginning of my teaching career in the 2010s, when I was only a decade older than my students, I made a deal with them: If they didn’t do their work, I would ruin a contemporary catchphrase. It worked. After I said that John Donne’s ability to blend human desires with religious duty was “on fleek,” no one turned in an essay late again. It’s become my signature move, my aged millennial version of George Carlin’s withering media critiques.

“Weird” appears to be Walz’s idiosyncratic touch. It’s perfect: a timeless insult that skewers thoughts and actions without giving them the power of a badass word like “abhorrent” or “dangerous.”

“Weird” summons the kinds of conversations teachers have only with each other. Accurate but not cruel. I’m thinking of a paper I read and assessed—through a jaw so clenched it reignited my TMJ—which argued that the titular character in Toni Morrison’s Sula deserved her fate because of her temerity to have sex for pleasure. When I told a colleague about the essay, he and I shook our heads and settled on “weird.” I remember the parent who tossed a bag bursting with orange prescription-drug vials from the driver’s side window of their Tesla to their child standing curbside like it was Val Kilmer sliding a duffel across a bank floor in Heat . In the moment, I said nothing. Hours later, speaking with another colleague? “Weird.”

Walz, like any other good teacher who approaches their work with their eyes open, lives in the mundane, the profound, and the deeply weird of each school day. Those rhythms craft a strong sense of humor. Going back and forth with teenagers about Rita Dove or Thomas Hardy leaves no room for bullshit. I’m confident that Walz or Harris could have been some dull, self-satisfied Silicon Valley bigwig’s Excel jockey for a few years. But I know in my waters that Vance wouldn’t make it past lunch as a schoolteacher. Though maybe the funniest bit possible would be to see him trying.

The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge

Brian Brenner, P.E., F.ASCE, is a professor of the practice at Tufts University and a principal engineer with Tighe & Bond in Westwood, Massachusetts. His collections of essays, Don’t Throw This Away! , Bridginess , and Too Much Information , were published by ASCE Press and are available in the ASCE Library .

In his Civil Engineering Source series More Water Under the Bridge , Brenner shares some thoughts each month about life as a civil engineer, considering bridge engineering from a unique, often comical point of view.

The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge connects Duluth, Minnesota, to Superior, Wisconsin. It crosses St. Louis Bay at the western head of Lake Superior. It is one of two vehicular crossings directly connecting the cities, the other being the John A. Blatnik Bridge. The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge is about 2 1/4 miles long. It features a tied-arch main span of 500 feet crossing the busy shipping channel, connected on both sides by a series of beam bridge approach spans. The channel provides access from the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes to Duluth’s large inland port.

The bridge was named after Richard Ira Bong. Mr. Bong was a heroic pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps (forerunner to the Air Force) during World War II who was also renowned as an ace marksman. The bridge was originally to be named “Arrowhead Bridge” after the original low-level wood trestle the new bridge replaced. Eventually, it was decided to honor the late pilot. Also, there is some thought that the “Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge” is a name that is a little bit more laid back and chill than the “Arrowhead Bridge,” which is more aggressive.

The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge is a long crossing, and sometimes drivers from Superior (see Note 1 below) will get fatigued while driving across it. After such a long trip, those who get the munchies can find a variety of food shops and restaurants on both shores. Those needing to work off some steam can visit a trampoline park north of the bridge in Duluth.

Another way to address fatigue when driving across the bridge is to wear comfortable shoes. Lightweight “Mary Jane” loafers are available at the Duluth Trading Post . These moccasins are considered to be an excellent choice when crossing the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge.

The bridge opened in 1985 after three years of construction. In keeping with its era of design and construction, engineers did not specify a jointless deck. Instead, the bridge includes joints between many of its spans (see Note 2 below). The bridge superstructure was rehabilitated  in 2014-15. Work included replacing 18 modular expansion joints and six strip seal joints. The deck was repaired, and the steel arch superstructure repainted. The bridge has a pedestrian walkway on the west edge of the deck. Pedestrians can leisurely cross the spans to observe the joints.

The bridge has many piers founded in the bay. These submerged structures help to support aquatic life by providing microhabitats and shelter. This function is an artificial version of natural reef habitats. Lake Superior does not have tropical coral reefs, but underwater freshwater reefs can be found around the Great Lakes. Some of these reefs have become contaminated by industrial and mining processes over time. Large dredging projects have helped to remove contamination. One project is at Buffalo Reef . The project seeks to remove tailing sands from copper mining that covers the reef cobbles and impacts fisheries. Closer to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge, natural underwater reefs are sometimes referred to by the nickname “reefers” (see Note 3).

The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge is a key industrial route, but it is perhaps less important for recreational use. However, recreational use has increased. Substantial recreational use increase was supported by Minnesota legislative action on Aug. 1, 2023. However, recreational use in Wisconsin has received less support . Therefore, pedestrians observing the joints on the bridge walkway may need to stop at the Minnesota border before crossing into Wisconsin.

The rehabilitation of the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge was completed before the start of a much larger project, a planned replacement of the nearby Blatnik Bridge. The older Blatnik bridge opened in 1961. It features an above-deck arch truss with a main span of 600 feet. This structural type is a smaller version of the main span of the former Key Bridge in Baltimore. Concerns about the Blatnik Bridge’s condition include advancing deterioration, limited pier protection, and the overall strength of truss gusset plates. As the bridge aged, annual maintenance costs were increasing. MnDOT and WDOT determined that full replacement was the best approach, and the agencies received substantial federal funding for the project.

The replacement project is expected to be procured by a design-build contract starting in 2026, with the current project value estimated in the range of $1.8 billion. Based on the preliminary design, the preferred option is for the new bridge to be built at the location of the older one. The existing Blatnik bridge will be closed and demolished. This approach is thought to be the most cost-effective, and it simplifies overall construction staging issues. However, to keep traffic moving, a key part of the plan is to divert traffic to the remaining bridge.

The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge is a prominent crossing at the western edge of Lake Superior that has served its residents well for many decades. It is one of the longest bridges in both Wisconsin and Minnesota, but sometimes travelers find it challenging to use its lengthy official name. So they simply refer to it as the “Bong Bridge.”

Superior, Wisconsin, is a well-regarded city.

The climate at the site features a wide temperature range, requiring design for substantial temperature movements in the joints. Although the area may be cold during much of the year, summer days can be very hot. On those days, the bridge experiences smokin’ hot joints.

OK, I made that one up. Underwater reefs are not referred to as “reefers.” However, to demonstrate the idea that one can find results on the internet for almost any topic, this aquarium discussion thread, “ When Do You Consider Yourself a Reefer ,” suggests the nickname “Reefer” for one who is overly enthusiastic in aquarium maintenance.

More Reading

“ When is a Bridge a Bong? ," by Mariez Huikov, in Marie’s Meanderings, posted May 17, 2017

Huikov writes: 

“Although the name is a nice tribute to a local war hero, the people who thought up the name HAD to know it would get shortened to just “Bong Bridge” or just “Bong” in the local vernacular. After all, we have another bridge that spans the same body of water, which is named after John A. Blatnik. Everybody just calls it the “Blatnik.”

“Take the Blatnik to Superior,” we say. Now we can also say, “Take the Bong to Superior.” Most locals know that won’t get you into trouble with the law.

“It’s just such a questionable name. I can’t believe it got through the transportation department’s approval process. But Richard Bong must have had a big fan club that overwhelmed common sense when it came to bridge names.

“We even have a Bong Museum. But it doesn’t contain what you think it might. Not even one. I know. I checked.”

References 

“Restoring Buffalo Reef in Lake Superior”

https://www.fishsens.com/ecologists-work-to-restore-lake-superior-reef-for-native-fish/ . Accessed June 2024.

“A History of the Bong Bridge Linking Duluth and Superior”

https://newstribuneattic.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/a-history-of-the-bong-bridge-linking-duluth-and-superior/ . Accessed June 2024.

“The Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I._Bong_Memorial_Bridge . Accessed June 2024.

“I-535 Blatnik Bridge” MnDOT project website

https://www.dot.state.mn.us/d1/projects/blatnik-bridge/ . Accessed June 2024.

“Bong Memorial Bridge Rehabilitation, South Approach & Intersection”

https://www.ayresassociates.com/project/bong-memorial-bridge-rehabilitation/ . Accessed June 2024.

• Profession & Practice
• Structural Engineering
• Bridge Engineering
• More Water Under the Bridge

P.E., F.ASCE

At a Russian Border Post, Scenes of Ruin After Ukraine’s Surprise Attack

A week after the biggest foreign incursion into Russia since World War II, The New York Times visited one of the spots where Ukrainian forces stormed into Russia and surprised the defenders.

The body of a dead Russian soldier lay in front of the destroyed Sudzha border control post in Russia on Monday. The body was recovered by the Ukrainian military and later placed in a body bag. Credit...

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By Andrew E. Kramer

Photographs by David Guttenfelder

Reported from the Sudzha border control post in Russia

• Aug. 12, 2024

All that remained of a Russian border post was a tableau of destruction: Sheet metal flapped in the wind, customs declarations fluttered about, and stray dogs roamed under a road-spanning sign that said, “Russia.”

Kicking up dust, Ukrainian armored vehicles rumbled past, unimpeded, as the flow of men and weaponry carried on in the biggest foreign incursion into Russia since World War II, an offensive now nearing the end of its first week since the breach of the border here in Sudzha and at several other sites.

At the crossing point, a Ukrainian soldier posted on the roadside waved at the forces passing by, days after Russia’s head of the general staff declared that the attack had been rebuffed.

At the border, the detritus of a losing battle — and signs of soldiers caught by surprise — were scattered about: bullet cartridges tinkled underfoot, discarded body armor lay on the asphalt.

Taking the fight to Russian soil was a weighty moment for Ukraine in its war with Russia, coming two and a half years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion and 10 years after Russia intervened militarily to seize territory and support separatist client states in eastern Ukraine.

Within the first month of the war, Ukraine did strike back with a cross-border helicopter assault and has regularly bombarded Russian oil refineries and airfields with a fleet of homemade drones. Two smaller, earlier forays into Russia by Russian exile groups backed by the Ukrainian Army ended in quick retreats.

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