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Personal Essay: Polluting And Ruining The Great Lakes

753 Words4 Pages

My name is Betty N. Schnowman. I am an environmentalist from Madeline Island. I specialize in informing people about ways they can help change the environment for the better. My goal in life is stopping from polluting and ruining the Great Lakes. I enjoy camping and boating around the lake in the summer with my family. My favorite thing to do is help out the environment and I HATE when litter.
Unfourthanectly, pollute the Great Lakes every day and that is not good. We need to do what we can to prevent it. Lake Superior is the biggest lake in the U.S. we would hate for that to be ruined by people who pollute. Pollution can cause many long-term effects. For example, In 1969 oil got into the waterways and started the lake on fire. We do not …show more content…

There are so many ways we can stop the spread of invasive species. One way to stop the spread of invasive species is by introducing new species that can kill off the invasive species. For example, Asian carp have big appetites, and introducing Alligator Gar, can reduce the spread of Asian carp. Another invasive species is the zebra muscles. They get into water pipes and clog them. They also are really sharp and they make swimming in the Great Lakes dangerous. Those are only two invasive species out of 180. Last but not least I'm going to be talking about the sea lamprey, the sea lamprey is a fish that attaches itself to other fish and sucks the blood out of them. Sea lampreys kill more fish than commercial fishing. This will end up having a huge incline on the food chain and the fish …show more content…

The Great Lakes having the largest freshwater system makes it a great home for species of wildlife and fish. But eventually, if we keep polluting the great lakes and areas around the Great Lakes the species of wildlife and fish will lose their homes. but on the bright side, ¨NOAA has supported over 85 projects on Great Lake restoration. These projects have restored over $460,000 Acres of habitat and have made over 500 more miles of streams for fish to cross their habitat¨. There are so many good things going towards habitat Rehabilitation but there are also downsides too. There are laws saying that when you destroy a habitat you have to create another habitat, when making a new habitat it will never be back to 100% how it was before. You will never be able to get all the organisms back into the new place there will always be organisms left behind. Eventually, this could lead to extinction or danger in the food chain. We need to do what we can now to help habitat loss, pollution, and invasive

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Invasive species are “species that is non-native to the ecosystem whose introduction is likely to cause economic and environmental harm”. A example of Invasive species would be the Zebra Mussel. Zebra Mussels or also known as Dreissena polymorpha is a small freshwater mussel. The Zebra Mussels can live up to three-nine years which can grow up to 2 inches. These mussels attach to hard surfaces such as rocks or boats.

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Invasive species interact with the global health of ecosystems; cause great damage to natural systems and are a huge cost to society as a whole (1). Biologists and environmentalists are alarmed that the invasions of these species could lead to large-scale declines and extinction of native species (3). There are approximately 50,000 foreign species Living in the United States, causing major environmental damages which costs add up to about $120 billion a year. It is believed that about 42% of the threatened or endangered species are at risk because of invasive species (4).

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Dr. Harvey Bootsma discussed the changes the Great Lake faces from invasive species and prevention because in 2050 the Great Lakes will be U.S.’s most valuable natural resource with 20 percent of world’s freshwater. “It’s hard to manage a system when it’s always changing,” said Dr. Harvey Bootsma, Associate Professor for School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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If the fish are not healthy, that can adversely affect people. People could eat contaminated fish, or people cannot sell the fish because they are contaminated. Some fish may die from the pollution, leading to less fish for catching. Lower populations of fish and other marine life can also cause an imbalance in the food chain. Predators can also be harmed

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Can man fix the damage or will they create a new problem? Some conservationists think bringing back the water ways to its original state all the natural vegetation, aquatic macrophytes, submersed plants that grow mostly under the water surface and root to the bottom sediment will come back quickly. Some of these plants are tape grass, hydrilla, Coontail, bladderwort, sago pondweed, Fanwort, Water milfoils, immersed plants they are rooted to the soils on the bottom. Some of these plants are Cattail, bulrush, water spinach, lake hygrophila, marigold, giant foxtail. Can the reconstruction bring back the natural vegetation in the wetlands that the C38 project destroyed of the water ways? The restoration methodology used is backfilling the C-38 canal to restore the flow and function to the historic river that became stagnant and lifeless due to low oxygen conditions.

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The Asian Carp Response in the Midwest states: “The presence of Asian carp in the Great Lakes could cause declines in abundances of native fish species. Asian carp will compete with native fish for food—native fish like cisco's, bloaters, and yellow perch, which in turn are fed upon by predator species including lake trout and walleye” (np). Another consequence is the poor quality of water that carp cause when they enter into new waters. They are known to be responsible for the unpredictable and disastrous results in habitats. As stated by Hansen, M. “Asian carp are like zebra mussels, which also prey on the base of aquatic food webs, and can thereby reorganize nutrient and energy flow with unpredictable consequences on native species” (np).

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