USEPA - United States Environmental Protection Agency

We have studied 24 second order and 24 third order watersheds along the north and south shores of the western end of the lake that vary in levels of forest fragmentation, recent logging, mature forest, and wetland cover. We have examined the influences of these factors on a variety of physical, chemical, and biological factors including algal, fish and invertebrate communities, sedimentation and erosion rates, hydrology, and nutrient dynamics. Fieldwork for the project started in 1997 and is expected to continue through at least 2 1.

Provide trend monitoring data on biological and limnological conditions in off-shore waters of the Great Lakes. Keyword: Biological, Trend

To estimate the atmospheric deposition of toxic organochlorine compounds to the Great Lakes. The compounds are polychlorinated bi- phenyls, pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some of these compounds are banned and some of them are still in use. Keyword: Air, Ambient, Atmosphere, Congener, Control, Deposition, Distribution, Effect, Exposure, Extract

Over the last decade, much attention has been focused on ballast water as a vector for nonindigenous species introductions to our Great Lakes and marine coastal ecosystems, and on open-ocean ballast exchange as a defense against new introductions. However, the issue of NOBOB (no-ballast-on-board) vessel operations in the Great Lakes has risen from a position of relative obscurity to become one of the top concerns in the Great Lakes basin today. On average, less than 1 % of ocean vessels entering the Great Lakes in recent years contained declarable ballast water on board.

Conservation of fish genetic diversity is important to those who rely on fish as their income, to those using fish as a food source, but also to all who understand that to maintain biodiversity is snyonymous to maintaing "a healthy planet." In order to ensure that genetic diversity is maintained for the future, we propose: (1) to develop relatively simple techniques for sperm cryopreservation under conditions typical of commerical production; (2) to develop genetically engineered strains of fish to enhance production; (3) to establish a Fish Genetics Resource Bank of cryoprese

Determine how much nitrogen, phosphorous, carbon and energy is moved between a coastal wetland and its adjacent bay by fish. This will allow us to evaluate the importance of the coastal wetland/nearshore connection in terms of nutrient and energy exchange. The project will be expanded in 1998 and 1999 to include a mass balance approach that will include tracking of nutrient transport in dissolved and particulate form as well as in fish and invertebrates. Keywords: Bioenergetic, Carbon, Community, Composition, Ecosystem, Energy flow, Fish, Littoral zone, Movement, Netting.

This report presents the activities and preliminary findings of an environmental anthropology fellowship at the Great Lakes Commission (GLC). The fellowship project demonstrated the utility of an ethnographic approach called Risk Perception Mapping (RPM) to the public consultation and social research interests of the Great Lakes Commission and other relevant regional organizations. These interests are reflected in the interrelated activities of a network of Great Lakes management agencies and organizations, including the GLC.

The principal focus of this project is the mapping and interpretation of landscape scale (i.e., broad scale) ecological metrics among hydrologic units and within 1 km, 5 km, and 1 km regions of coastal land in the Great Lakes Basin (GLB). Much is still unknown about the ecological relationships between human activities, surface water quality, and the biological characteristics with the GLB. This project is an important step toward understanding the distribution of these phenomena and the analyses of their interrelationships.