City Council members from Toledo, Maumee and Bowling Green joined Rep. Marcy Kaptur at a press conference Tuesday to talk about how the Great Lakes Authority proposal could help northwest Ohio. Read the full story by WNWO-TV – Toledo, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220831-greatlakesauthorityproposal-kaptur
The Great Lakes are very susceptible to microplastics, because of the enormous amount of industry and the concentration of the population around the lakes. The Cleveland Water Department began testing for microplastics in 2019 and are still working to understand the problem. Read the full story by Spectrum News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220831-microplastics-clevelandwater
Authorities posted a public advisory Tuesday at Edgewater Beach in Cleveland, Ohio, after a combined sewer overflow at the beach Monday night, the second time this has happened this month. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220831-sewageoverflows-lakeerie
As the Great Lakes Now-Northwestern University journalism project “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash” continues to publish, Great Lakes Now producer Anna Sysling made a return to public radio to share more about the issue with Detroit audiences.
Sysling, who left WDET, Detroit’s NPR station last year to join Great Lakes Now full-time, spoke with Morning Edition Host Pat Batcheller about the project.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/great-lakes-now-anna-sysling-talks-poisonous-ponds/
Katie Church spent her whole summer searching, finding, and plucking invasive European water chestnut from the Welland River, in the Niagara Region. It’s one of just three known populations in Ontario. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220831-europeanwaterchestnut
The Ohio Division of Wildlife is reminding pet fish owners not to release their aquarium fish into state waters, since they can harm native fish species. Technicians found what appeared to be a foot-long goldfish during a fish survey this month on Lake Erie in Fairport Harbor, the division posted Monday to its Facebook page. Read the full story by WJW-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220831-hugegoldfish-lakeerie
Fall leaves are just around the corner—and so are Great Lakes Aquaculture Days. The annual event, hosted by the Great Lakes Aquaculture Collaborative and Great Lakes Sea Grant Network, will take place Oct. 26-27.
It’s a chance for current fish farmers, as well as those interested in aquaculture and its products, to learn more about this fast-growing segment of the agriculture industry and get technical advice.
This year’s theme will be fish health, covered through discussions, Q&A sessions and hand-on activities addressing the topic.
The event has a unique hybrid structure: Day 1 is virtual, and Day 2 encompasses in-person sessions in each of the Great Lakes states. Wisconsin’s in-person activities will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus and be organized by Sea Grant Fisheries Specialist Dr. Titus Seilheimer.
On Day 1, fish health experts will discuss preventative measures for keeping fish healthy. Those virtual presentations take place from noon to 3 p.m. central time.
Day 2 will focus on reactive measures to take when fish get sick. There will be time for attendees to create their own fish health management plan. “Attendees will have the chance to dissect an actual fish and take a dissection kit home with them,” Seilheimer said. “You can’t replicate a dissection with pictures, so this will be a great opportunity for farmers.” Due to limited in-person space, aquaculture farmers have registration priority for Day 2, which runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lunch will be included.
For more event information (including possible travel reimbursement) and registration, visit Michigan State University’s webpage for this event.
The post Great Lakes Aquaculture Days to focus on fish health first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/glad-focuses-on-fish-health/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=glad-focuses-on-fish-health
NCEI News Feed
http://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/reporting-state-climate-2021
The total allowable catch (TAC) for yellow perch and walleye went up this year in Lake Erie. The raise is indicative of booming walleye population in recent years as well as a healthy perch population in most areas of the lake.
The walleye TAC rose 18% from 12.28 million fish in 2021 to 14.53 million this year, with yellow perch rising 15% from 6.23 million pounds last year to 7.18 million pounds this year.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/setting-lake-erie-limits/
By Kelly House, Bridge Michigan
The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television; and Michigan Radio, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/michigans-up-north-forests-could-be-doomed/
For Emily Rau, whose term as the J. Philip Keillor Wisconsin Coastal Management-Sea Grant Fellow is coming to a close, the year-long position has been a homecoming in more ways than one. It brought her back to her home state of Wisconsin; to the city of her undergraduate alma mater, UW-Madison; and to a Sea Grant program.
Emily Rau, a 2021-22 Keillor Fellow, stands at Pebble Beach in Sister Bay, Wisconsin. For her fellowship, Rau has been stationed at the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program (WCMP). Some of the funding to help the Village of Sister Bay acquire this scenic shoreline came from the WCMP. (Submitted photo)
While in graduate school at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, Rau spent two years as a research assistant at Michigan Sea Grant, where, among other projects, she was the lead author for a report about employment trends connected to the Great Lakes. At that neighboring Sea Grant program, she saw the organization’s value and that of the broader network of 34 university-based Sea Grant programs.
“Michigan Sea Grant helped me discover that I liked helping bridge the gap between science and decision making, especially when it comes to the Great Lakes,” said Rau. It also helped her locate her fellowship with Wisconsin Sea Grant—one that has felt tailor-made for her. Originally from Oak Creek, Wisconsin—a southern suburb of Milwaukee—Great Lakes coastal issues are close to her heart.
Said Rau, “This has been a perfect fellowship for me. I got to learn in depth about a specific subset of Great Lakes management and policy and how the Coastal Management Program works federally and on the state level. And I’m getting to broaden my network by interacting with experts and project partners who do coastal work.”
During her fellowship term from September 2021 to August 2022, Rau’s main task has been working on the third edition of the Wisconsin Coastal Processes Manual and shepherding it through the production process. That work has included writing and editing chapters, coordinating the review of chapters by Sea Grant Editor Elizabeth White, starting a reference system, cleaning up appendices, gathering images and more.
The manual has been a major undertaking that predecessors in her fellowship—including Sea Grant Coastal Engineer Dr. Adam Bechle, now one of Rau’s mentors—have also worked on. As Rau summarized, “The overall goal… is connecting the science of coastal processes with Wisconsin coastal communities along Lake Michigan and Lake Superior that can benefit from that information. It’s taking that science and bringing it to municipalities and local organizations in an easier-to-use format so they’re able to apply that work.”
When not occupied with the manual, Rau has tackled other projects, such as learning about the annual coastal grants cycle at the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s Coastal Management Program, where her office is stationed. Municipalities, local governments and university researchers can apply for funding from the program.
“That’s been eye-opening for me because I have never been a part of the grantmaking process before but wanted to experience it,” said Rau. Reviewing some of the submitted proposals and helping administer the grant program have broadened her professional skillset.
Rau also helped develop and facilitate a series of “research roundup” webinars with Carolyn Foley, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s research coordinator, and Chiara Zuccharino-Crowe, Sea Grant liaison to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for the Great Lakes region.
While her Keillor Fellowship is ending, Rau has her next step in her sights: contingent upon funding, she will continue working on coastal issues under another fellowship that will also be based at the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program. Through funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) that NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management administers, she anticipates serving as the coastal infrastructure project coordinator, helping to plan, coordinate and develop habitat-focused infrastructure projects funded through that legislation.
As for the Keillor Fellowship focused on coastal hazards, that post will continue with a new fellow for the 2022-23 year, with Hannah Paulson picking up the reins. Stay tuned for more information about Paulson, who, like Rau, hails from a Wisconsin coastal community and holds degrees from both the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan.
The post Keillor Fellow reflects on horizon-expanding experience assisting Great Lakes coastal communities first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/keillor-fellow-rau-reflects/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=keillor-fellow-rau-reflects
Keep up with energy-related developments in the Great Lakes area with Great Lakes Now’s biweekly headline roundup.
Click on the headline to read the full story:
Illinois
Chicago has signed a $422.2 million agreement with Constellation New Energy, LLC to provide renewable power to government buildings, street lights and all other city assets — and a carbon-free footprint — by 2025.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/energy-news-roundup-michigan-solar-power-inflation-reduction-act/
In the year since its designation, the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary has been busy laying the groundwork for future tourism and research, including sonar mapping of the lakebed in the entire sanctuary, installing weather buoys and searching for undiscovered shipwrecks. Read the full story by Manitowoc Herald Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-shipwreck-sanctuary
The annual fall migration of monarch butterflies is about to be underway, when scores of the iconic black-and-orange winged insects, recently categorized as endangered, travel thousands of miles to their wintering grounds in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. As monarchs navigate through the Great Lakes, the migration is viewable in Michigan’s hotspots: Stonington Peninsula and Tawas Point State Park. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-monarch-butterflies
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the Ohio Power Siting had obtained enough information about the potential impacts of Icebreaker on birds and bats before issuing a permit for the project. Now that legal obstacles to the Icebreaker project have been removed, efforts to construct the demonstration wind farm in Lake Erie have started up again. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-wind
Nearly $500,000 in Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding was awarded to Muskegon County Water Resources for additional restoration work for Mona Lake. The Great Lakes fish habitat funding will pay for long-contemplated restoration of former celery fields that previously were wetlands along Black Creek and Mona Lake (located inland along Lake Michigan, northwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan). Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-restoration
A pair of eco-friendly drones or “litter bots” made their Michigan debut in Muskegon on this week along the shores of Lake Michigan, where the drones whimsically named “PixieDrone” and “BeBot” trundled through the water and the sand gathering plastic debris that has become endemic in the Great Lakes. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-drone
Ongoing consideration of remediation and excavation efforts for coal ash ponds in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina may have implications and serve as an example for coal ash units in Indiana and Ohio. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-coal-ash
Staff and volunteers at the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority in Southern Ontario are working to restore eroding riverbanks along the Nottawasaga River to improve habitat for two species at risk, lake sturgeon and northern brook lamprey. Read the full story by Collingwood Today.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-ontario-fish
Shannon Orr, a professor of political science at Bowling Green State University, is being recognized by Case Studies in the Environment with its top prize article for 2021 for her award-winning research into the various competing interests for keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. Read the full story by Sentinel-Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-carp
On a beautiful and sunny Sunday in Kingston, Ontario, a group of local divers strapped on their gear and hit the water in the name of sustainability. At Gord Downie Pier the divers convened toting along their gear in preparation for the first-ever trash dive for Sustainable Kingston’s “Underwater Pitch-IN” event. Read the full story by Global News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-trash-dive
After a two-month delay, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced plans to start dredging the South Haven Harbor in South Haven, Michigan this month. Sampling results confirm the proposed outer harbor dredge material is suitable and 18,000 cubic yards of material will be placed as nourishment material south of South Beach. Read the full story by South Haven Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220829-dredge
NCEI News Feed
http://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/humans-ncei-karen-flowers
Eighty-eight-year-old Hilda Barg hunched her shoulders and rested her forearms on her hardwood dining table, talking fiercely about coal ash contamination in her neighborhood. Barg, a lifelong resident and former supervisor of Prince William County, Virginia, is leading a local fight against how Dominion Energy — the state’s largest electric utility — is dealing with toxic coal ash at its Possum Point plant 3 miles from Barg’s home.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/excavate-toxic-coal-ash-question/
A federal grand jury has indicted a Minnesota farmer for allegedly cheating buyers of more than $46 million by falsely labeling non-GMO soybeans and corn as organic.
The post Minnesota farmer accused of multimillion dollar organic grain scan first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.Great Lakes Echo
http://greatlakesecho.org/2022/08/29/minnesota-farmer-accused-of-multimillion-dollar-organic-grain-scan/
Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Brown (WIC009) Wisconsin Issued by the National Weather Service
https://alerts.weather.gov/cap/wwacapget.php?x=WI126407488F78.SpecialWeatherStatement.12640748B304WI.GRBSPSGRB.ce06a839b270345b617501fa75335439
A special segment for Detroit Public Television’s public affairs program, “One Detroit,” features Great Lakes Now’s collaborative reporting project about coal ash.
A toxic substance, coal ash is what’s left over after burning coal. While the use of coal is declining across the Great Lakes region, the ash that remains from decades of producing energy with it is a problem.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/poisonous-ponds-featured-on-one-detroit-program/
At almost 300 sites on the Great Lakes and coast to coast, unregulated buried and landfilled coal ash is putting water supplies at risk, alleges a federal lawsuit filed August 25. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-coal-ash
For the many coal plants located on the shores of the Great Lakes, coal ash flooding into the lakes and tributaries is a serious risk highlighted in a June 2022 report by the Environmental Law & Policy Center that focused on how climate change could exacerbate rainfall and high lake levels in southern Lake Michigan. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-coal-ash-climate-change
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy confirmed the presence of Didymosphenia geminata, or didymo — a nuisance algae known as “rock snot” — in a stretch of the Boardman River. Read the full story by the Record Eagle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-rock-snot
The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation is studying how fish species spawn in Lake Ontario and hoping to help boost their population in the process by creating two “spawning reefs” in Chaumont Bay and Black River Bay, for several species of native fish. Read the full story by WWNY-TV – Dexter, NY.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-lake-ontario
Located at Lake Superior State University’s Richard & Theresa Barch Center for Freshwater Research and Education, the Center of Expertise will conduct research examining the impacts of oil spills in freshwater environments to help develop effective responses. Read the full story by The Sault News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-coast-guard
Ohio’s South Bass Islands are hoping visitors are able to vacation and learn about the importance of Lake Erie. Ohio Sea Grant’s Aquatic Visitors Center and the Ohio State University’s Stone Lab are hard at work helping tourists understand the shared responsibility for this natural resource. Read the full story by WKYC-TV – Cleveland, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-south-bass-island
A football sized goldfish, which likely was a released pet, was caught on Pine River which flows into Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron. Read the full story by the Midland Daily News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-goldfish
Large amounts of “unsightly” and smelly vegetation has been washing up on Toronto’s Cherry Beach shoreline recently, but the director of water programs at Swim Drink Fish Canada says there’s no need for alarm. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-cherry-beach
The Lake Erie Volunteer Science Network — a collaboration of 16 local water quality monitoring programs convened by the Cleveland Water Alliance — has published a set of standards for volunteer-collected data. The standards aim to empower communities to tell a new regional story about the health of watersheds and support smart environmental education, research, and management. Read the full story by WaterWorld.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-data
Québec’s cold waters are and extremely low levels of pollution from industrial or urban sources is favorable for high quality algae growth. Fifteen species are now certified “Fourchette bleue” or Blue Fork 2022, a Québec certification that aims to introduce new marine products to the public while also supporting sustainable use of the resource. Read the full story by The Conservation.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220826-algae
NCEI News Feed
http://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/quantifying-ocean-carbon-sink
Joliet, Illinois, a city of about 150,000 people southwest of Chicago, has long depended on a deep sandstone aquifer for drinking water – an increasingly strained resource that city officials hope to supplement with a billion-dollar pipeline from Lake Michigan.
But while this highly publicized search for a new source of municipal water unfolds, some residents who rely on private well water face a different threat.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/coal-ash-contaminating-groundwater-near-joliet-to-stay/
Just upstream of Alabama’s Mobile Bay sits a vast region of wetlands known as the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the United States. As well as 21 million cubic yards of wet coal ash.
The J.M. Barry Power Plant has been a flashpoint between environmental advocates and the state utility, Alabama Power, for years.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/climate-change-puts-coal-ash-impoundments-at-risk/
Bison are on the upswing again as ranchers and government officials aim to increase their populations across the United States. And that could have implications for other livestock operations.
The post In Northern Michigan, bison are teaching a lesson in sustainability first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.Great Lakes Echo
http://greatlakesecho.org/2022/08/26/in-northern-michigan-bison-are-teaching-a-lesson-in-sustainability/
Ever visited a U.S. national marine sanctuary and look forward to another trip? If so, you can have inspiration through a new set of postage stamps.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary System, the U.S. Postal Service is releasing 16 new postage stamps showing scenes from sanctuaries around the world.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/stamps-celebrate-noaa-landscapes-marine-life/
August 25, 2022
By Marie Zhuikov
The Wisconsin Idea is one of the longest and deepest traditions surrounding the University of Wisconsin. It promotes the principle that education and the influence of the university need to reach beyond the boundaries of the classroom across the state.
Associate Professor of Geoscience Michael Cardiff and his research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are applying the Wisconsin Idea to groundwater issues. They received two years of funding from the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute to survey rural residents about their perceptions regarding groundwater quality and quantity. The findings will be interpreted by a panel of experts who will use the results to inform future water opportunities and research directions.
“The central goal is basically understanding people’s perspectives on this issue of water availability with the idea that if we better understand stakeholders — the people who care about water — we can do a better job of making decisions that are positive and are viewed positively,” Cardiff said.
The water survey will be sent by mail in early 2023 to people who live in rural communities. “As far as we’re aware, it’s going to be the first of its kind to try and get a better handle on rural Wisconsin perspectives,” Cardiff said. “We are focusing on rural counties because 97% of our state is rural and the majority of water is beneath those counties, but we’re also trying to get some diversity represented in the counties we are surveying.” Cardiff noted that rural communities depend on groundwater for their drinking water supply because many do not have public water treatment systems.
For a second part of the study, the researchers will examine news stories, research reports, county plans and public comments with a technique called natural language processing, which allows computers to read and extract meaning from text. The computers will be instructed to analyze and summarize articles that contain terms such as “water quality.” Cardiff explained this is another way to tune into conversations surrounding water issues in various communities.
This project was an unexpected benefit from the social isolation that Cardiff experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. “It was a great chance to pause and consider the impact of my work,” he said. “I came to the conclusion that I love the technical aspects of the work I do, but one of the reasons I’m in hydrology is that it’s important that the work has positive outcomes – both for people and the planet. I felt there was a niche to make more connections with people about what’s going on with water resources and understand their perspectives so we can have productive conversations throughout the state.”
Collaborating with Cardiff on the project are Bret Shaw, associate professor in life sciences communication and Ken Genskow, professor of planning and landscape architecture. Both are at UW-Madison. Shaw will ensure the survey questions elicit useful information and that they are understandable. Genskow has experience bridging the gap between water science and social science. He’ll bring his experience working with rural communities on issues such as nitrate contamination in groundwater.
They will be aided by students Catherine Christenson and Campbell Dunn.
This project is also receiving additional funding from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The post Research survey aligns the Wisconsin Idea with water first appeared on WRI.News Release | WRI
https://www.wri.wisc.edu/news/research-survey-aligns-the-wisconsin-idea-with-water/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=research-survey-aligns-the-wisconsin-idea-with-water
The village of Dresden is nestled amid charming vineyards and the placid blue waters of Seneca Lake, the largest of Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes.
Wineries, breweries, dairy farms, and state parks dot the lake’s shoreline, making it a picture-perfect vacation destination.
But for local residents, the three auburn-colored smokestacks of Greenidge Generation’s plant towering above the trees are an unnerving reminder that their natural resources are at risk.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/bitcoin-mining-plant-dirty-coal-ash-problem/
At almost 300 sites on the Great Lakes and coast to coast, unregulated buried and landfilled coal ash is putting water supplies at risk, alleges a federal lawsuit filed August 25.
This threat is in addition to contamination from up to 700 coal ash repositories that are covered by 2015 federal coal ash rules.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/unregulated-coal-ash-poses-brewing-threat-to-lake-michigan/
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of widespread man-made chemicals that don’t break down in the environment or the human body and have been flagged as a major contaminant in sources of water across the country.
Keep up with PFAS-related developments in the Great Lakes area.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/pfas-news-roundup-eliminating-forever-chemicals-reporting-obligations/
The 2021 publication advanced understanding of VHSV, an invasive pathogen affecting fish, in Wisconsin waters
A journal article that grew out of Wisconsin Sea Grant-funded research has been honored with a Publications Award from the American Fisheries Society (AFS), presented today at the society’s annual meeting in Spokane, Washington.
The society honors one outstanding paper from each of its journals annually with this award. “Widespread Seropositivity to Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Virus in Four Species of Inland Sport Fishes in Wisconsin” was published last year in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health. Its authors are Whitney A. Thiel, Kathy L. Toohey-Kurth, David Giehtbrock, Bridget B. Baker, Megan Finley and Tony L. Goldberg.
In this July 2016 photo taken near Wauzeka, Wis., Whitney Thiel draws blood from a brown trout while Tony Goldberg observes. (Photo: Bryce Richter, UW-Madison)
The team’s work revealed a more accurate and complex picture of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Virus (VHSV) than previously understood. They found evidence of VHSV farther inland than anticipated, as well as “hot spots” and “not spots”—affected and unaffected bodies of water—that were surprisingly close together.
Said Thiel, who completed her master’s degree at UW-Madison in 2019, “I was surprised and flattered when I heard about the award. What a great feeling to know our research, something we all worked so hard on for so many years, is appreciated by the scientific community.”
In addition to serving as the paper’s first author, Thiel presented the group’s work at the Great Lakes Fish Health Committee meeting last year, where it was well received. “I think others are grateful for the insights into inland VHS prevalence that this wide-scale surveillance effort has provided,” she said.
Goldberg, who holds the John D. MacArthur Chair in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, also noted that the publication sparked discussion with others in the field. “I suspect it was an eye opener because it changed our vision of what VHSV is, from a lethal and geographically restricted pathogen to a sometimes not-so-lethal pathogen with a far wider distribution than originally suspected.”
For the study, blood samples were drawn from fish in a non-lethal way. (Photo: Bryce Richter, UW-Madison).
The work has implications for mitigating the virus’ spread. Said Goldberg, “VHSV is not ‘everywhere.’ Rather, there are antibody-negative water bodies very close to antibody-positive water bodies, so the risk of spread is still there. In other words, our paper should not be interpreted as an excuse to throw up our hands. There’s still a lot of prevention that can be done.”
Looking ahead, he anticipates that researchers working in other regions will find similar patterns in VHSV occurrence. In the meantime, Goldberg is pleased by the AFS honor and credits former graduate student Thiel’s role in the effort. “I’m very proud of what Whitney did during this project. There’s no doubt in my mind that we would not have been able to do a study like this without a stellar–and Sea Grant-funded–student like Whitney.”
Find previous Sea Grant coverage of this work here, and the team’s journal article here.
The post American Fisheries Society honors journal article based on Sea Grant-funded research first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/afs-honors-journal-article/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=afs-honors-journal-article
At Pere Marquette Beach in Muskegon, Michigan, Meijer announced the launch of two drones to clean up microplastics—small fragments of plastic in the environment resulting from broken down trash and debris—that have been polluting the Great Lakes shoreline. Read the full story by WOOD-TV — Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220824-cleanup-drones
In Ontario, trash that had been flushed down the toilet has ended up in Toronto Harbour due to combined sewage and stormwater pipes that overflow during heavy rainfalls. Read the full story by CBC News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220824-sewer-overflows
A circulating petition in Haldimand County, Ontario, is asking Conservation Ontario to streamline the process to allow property owners to conduct restoration work to remedy increased erosion to the Lake Erie shoreline. Read the full story by The Hamilton Spectator.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20220824-lakeerie-erosion
