There's an editorial in last Tuesday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calling for the closure of the St. Lawrence Seaway in order to prevent ocean-bound ships from transporting new invasive species into the Great Lakes. The reasoning behind the idea is that freighters should be banned from the Seaway until the shipping industry can prove that appropriate measures are being taken to avoid introducing ballast invaders to the region. The Journal Sentinel also published an in-depth two part article on the subject last week.
Got an opinion on this? The MJS is looking for letters to the editor on the subject - details are at the end of the editorial.
(Thanks to Tracy C. for psychically pointing me towards this story ;-))
3 comments:
This is a great series of articles, and not the first time I've been impressed by the journalism in that paper. Thanks for pointing them out.
Perhaps they could also focus on preventing humans from releasing species into the Great Lakes for religious, sporting or aesthetic purposes.
It's encouraging that the debate is taking place on the Great Lakes. On the Chesapeake Bay (only the world's largest estuary), few would dare suggest that the shipping industry be required to do anything above and beyond the absolute minimum. So now we have Phragmites, Hydrilla, watermilfoil, Dermo, MSX, and lots of other fun stuff from Eurasian boats.
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