'Christmas Schooner' sets sail for French Creek

Morning Journal

A new Christmas classic may be in the making, but don't look for flying reindeer and fat old fellows going down chimneys in "The Christmas Schooner: A Musical."

This new holiday offering from Lorain County Metro Parks and TrueNorth Cultural Arts comes to the French Creek Nature Center from Friday and runs to Dec. 14.

It's a perfect story for a Lake Erie community, said Rick Fortney who shares directing duties with Marc Moritz.

Last year's show "Uh-Oh Here Comes Christmas" was a comic look at the holiday Moritz noted. "This year were looking for something that tied in more with who we are," he said.

Since the show is co-sponsored by TrueNorth and the MetroParks, the heads of both organizations wanted to feature the Great Lakes at Christmas time. "We thought, 'Wow!' This is perfect," Fortney said. "The music is gorgeous, the storyline fits — it's going to become an annual thing."

This first year the show will be set as a radio show. That is, the audience will watch as the radio show that tells the story is produced. The show will encourage audience participation with an "Applause" sign. The music will be provided by vocalists accompanied by two pianos, a string base and percussion. "It's truly a family show," Fortney said.

The play's story line is cheerful considering the subject is a November shipwreck on the Great Lakes. Based on the true story of the Rouse Simmons, a Great Lakes schooner lost when its captain tried to transport fir trees from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Chicago's German immigrants during the late 19th century.

"The Christmas Schooner" debuted at the Bailiwick Repertory Theatre in 1995. The story is by John Reeger with and music and lyrics by Julie Shannon. Notable songs from the musical include "We All Have Songs," "Pass it On," "What is it About the Water?" "Winterfest Polka," "Questions," and "Hardwater Sailors."

In the musical, a fictional Michigan shipping captain named Peter Stossel travels across stormy Lake Michigan to bring Christmas trees to homesick German American families living in turn-of-the-century Chicago. The captain's wife has misgivings about the trips each year. At the end of the play, said Fortney, she comes to realize the true importance of his mission.

Unlike the true story on which the play is based, only one person dies. "He dies for a noble cause," said Fortney. "Through his death, others are blessed.

"The story tells what led to this event and how the Christmas tradition continued long after his death. It's not gloomy at all," he said.

The real story, however, is gloomy. more

County OKs better fishing access on Lake Macatawa

Holland Sentinel

Experts say that more access to Lake Macatawa for shorebound anglers should locally reverse a nationwide trend of a declining participation rate in fishing.

Few sites are available for anglers without boats because most shoreline land is used for marinas, industry and homes, Dan O’Keefe of Michigan Sea Grant in Grand Haven wrote in a letter to Ottawa County this fall.

Land that is open is far from ideal for fishing, he went on to write.

Because of that dilemma, O’Keefe has expressed support for new fishing facilities along Ottawa Beach Road, just east of the Holland State Park, that would provide a “high-quality and low-cost fishing experience for residents.”

“Lake Macatawa is a 1,780 acre lake with fishing opportunities for bass, sunfish, walleye, perch, catfish and occasional salmon and trout,” he wrote. “The Ottawa Beach location offers excellent fishing opportunities due to its proximity to Lake Michigan, a steep drop-off, and rocky substrate.”
The Ottawa County board listened to his advice and agreed to approve a $500,000 grant agreement last week with the Great Lakes Fishery Trust.

The grant, combined with $150,000 from the county parks millage, will help the county change the Park 12 property into a collection of walkways connecting to fishing spots and piers that reach out into deeper water areas. more

Fox River's dredging for PCBs starts soon

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

The workhorse in the biggest and most expensive phase to clean up the Fox River is a massive building rising from the banks of the river.

Operating like a factory, the 242,000-square-foot facility will extract chemical compounds from river sediments for an estimated seven years and send them away in scores of dump trucks every day.

After years of jockeying and extensive planning, the actual processing of the contaminated sediments starts in May - making the Fox and the Hudson River in New York the largest remediation projects in the country.

The Fox is the largest single source of polychlorinated biphenyls on Lake Michigan.

PCBs have long posed health risks to humans who consume fish that live in affected waters. Pulp and paper makers used PCBs for nearly two decades until the chemicals were outlawed in 1976.

Now, as the building takes shape, documents recently made available show the cleanup will cost polluting companies hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Environmentalists have long complained the project will rely too generously on a cheaper alternative that covers polluted sediments - rather than dredging and removing them.

But state Department of Natural Resources records reveal that the most recent estimates, using a combination of capping and dredging, have jumped to $750 million.

This is an increase of more than $200 million from contractors' estimates used only a few months ago.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the Hudson River cleanup could also cost up to $750 million.

A spokesman for General Electric Co., which is responsible for the Hudson work, declined to discuss the cost, other than to say that GE has spent $385 million so far.

The DNR said the costs of the Fox cleanup have risen as more has been learned about how to rid PCBs from a river with the highest concentration of pulp and paper plants in the world.

The irony of the polluted Fox is that despite its troubles, the river is prized for fishing. Even in mid-November, fishing boats troll the cold, gray river for walleye and musky.

Walleye fishing generates $6.2 million annually for the local economy, according to the DNR.

Last year, anglers caught 172,341 walleye. But only 57,000 fish were kept, the DNR said.

"Most people won't eat the fish from the river itself - it's ingrained into their head," said Fran Barbeau, the owner of Fathead Fran's Bait Shop in Green Bay.

He said that not only those who love the river, but the entire community will welcome the sediments' removal "because it is going to help our whole economy."

Chemical damages

Studies show PCBs can cause developmental problems in infants and children. The chemicals are linked to problems with the immune and circulatory systems. PCBs also can cause liver damage and increase the risk of cancer.

Polluting companies have agreed to dredge more than 4 million cubic yards of sediments in sections of the 39-mile river that stretches from Neenah to Green Bay, the DNR said.

In all, 18,000 pounds of PCBs will be removed between now and 2016. Work on other areas that are being capped will last until 2018.

A project to clean up spots in Little Lake Buttes des Morts in Neenah is nearly done. Another project has been finished at a hot spot below the De Pere Dam, where the highest PCB concentrations have been found.

"Any way you look at it, this is one of the largest projects in the country," said Jim Hahnenberg, remedial project manager for the Fox with the EPA. more

New oil pipeline across Minnesota approved

Star Tribune

Minnesota energy regulators gave their approval Tuesday to a new pipeline that will come out of Canada carrying crude oil across northern Minnesota and on to Wisconsin.

The unanimous decision by the five-member Public Utilities Commission followed a pitch from U.S.-based affiliates of Enbridge Inc., that the 1,000-mile pipeline will help supply the north central United States with reliable energy from a friendly neighbor, at a time of volatile petroleum prices and growing demand by a growing population.

The approval came despite arguments from the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy that this oil is mined in a process that releases three to five times the pollutants of regular drilling, and that Americans' petroleum consumption is likely to stay constant or even drop amid growing conservation efforts.

The project requires regulatory approvals from several other U.S. agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service, Enbridge spokeswoman Denise Hamsher said. It also faces one more bump within Minnesota, because the pipeline company has yet to come to financial terms with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in order to put a stretch of the pipeline across its land south of Duluth.

If constructed, the line will increase the company's crude capacity out of Canada into the United States by 450,000 barrels per day by 2012, from its current 1.54 million barrels per day, Hamsher said. more

Sessions will shed light on water withdrawal rules

Capitol News Service

A series of workshops developed by the Michigan State University Water Team and the Institute of Water Research is intended to help participants understand the state's new water withdrawal regulations.

The December and January meetings will be held in Howard City, Clinton Township in Macomb County and West Olive.

David Lusch, an MSU senior research specialist focusing on drinking water protection and groundwater management, said the sites were chosen because of the number of large-quantity water withdrawals there. The Macomb County location was picked because lawn and golf irrigation-type withdrawals are common in the area.

Thomas Dudek, a district horticulture and marketing agent for MSU in Ottawa County, said the West Olive location is important because of the region's agriculture industry, one that includes blueberries, nurseries, greenhouses and corn.

"The intended audience are farmers," he said. "Those folks that are irrigators or want to develop wells for their fields."

Eighty people have signed up for the three locations.

Jeremiah Asher, a geographic information systems project manager at MSU, said he expects consultants for well drillers, farmers and environmentally concerned citizens to attend.

"There should be a pretty diverse group," he said. "The workshop will be helpful for a variety of people on both sides of the issue."

The new regulatory system governs withdrawals that pump 100,000 gallons or more a day from surface or groundwater. It's a result of the Great Lakes Compact legislation signed earlier this year.

"Michigan had no choice but to have some sort of water withdrawal regulatory environment in place to prevent federal action or water diversions out west," said Lusch.

Agricultural and golf course irrigation, industrial and manufacturing facilities, including breweries and drinking water suppliers are typical large-quantity users.

Legislation passed in 2006 authorizes the removal of large quantities of water if it has no "adverse resource impact," but the law didn't specify how that impact could be measured.

An "adverse resource impact" means disrupting fish populations, according to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

The 2006 regulatory system gave rise to a water assessment tool that allows users to screen sites in advance. The system is available online, and its use will become mandatory in July.

Lusch said the computer-based program is easy to use and more convenient because most large-quantity withdrawals won't upset local environments. It's expected to curb the need for thousands of requests for DEQ evaluation that appear each year. more

Marquette Plan rewarded for excellence

News-Dispatch

"The Marquette Plan: Indiana's Vision for Lakeshore Reinvestment" received a "2008 Excellence on the Waterfront" award at a ceremony Friday at the annual conference of the Waterfront Center in Chicago.

The Waterfront Center is a not-for-profit organization that assists communities in enhancing their urban waterfronts. The Center initiated its Excellence on the Waterfront awards program to recognize waterfront work of varied kinds to encourage communities, developers and design firms to strive for excellence in such undertakings. The Marquette Plan was one of two recipients of this year's "Honor Awards" for plans.

U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, conceived the Marquette Project in the mid-1980s as a means for recapturing Northwest Indiana's Lake Michigan shoreline for public use. This vision was subsequently incorporated into the Marquette Plan, which was adopted in two phases in 2005 and 2008.

The core principles of the plan are to recapture at least 75 percent of the shoreline for public use, set back all new development at least 200 feet from the water's edge, and establish a continuous trail system parallel to the entire length of the region's shoreline.

Accepting the award on behalf of the project sponsors was Mayor Olga Velazquez of the City of Portage, a board member of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.

"The Marquette Plan represents a bold, shared vision for how we can transform our Lake Michigan shoreline into a livable, sustainable asset for current and future generations," said Velazquez. "What's particularly heartening is the commitment and enthusiasm we are seeing in northwestern Indiana to making the plan a reality. The newly-opened 60-acre Portage lakefront and riverwalk, a former brownfield site, demonstrates the promise and potential of the plan for creating a lasting legacy for residents and visitors alike."

NIRPC Executive Director John Swanson said, "There were hundreds of citizens and stakeholders who participated in the numerous public input sessions which were used to generate ideas and identify issues and opportunities. There was also extraordinary collaboration and cooperation between the various congressional offices, the Lake Michigan Coastal Program of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the sponsoring municipalities and counties, and the various firms which comprised the consulting team." more

Ethanol Plant May Come to Northwest Indiana

Officials in Northwest Indiana have already Ok'd the construction of a facility that will turn garbage into ethanol. But finding a suitable site may come with some challenges.

Powers Energy One says its facility will employ up to 100 people and will process 4,000-10,000 tons of garbage per day, transforming it into ethanol.

Exactly where in Lake County the plant will be built hasn’t been decided.

Reverend Dwight Gardner of Gary hopes the facility won’t be built in his city, or in neighboring Hammond or East Chicago.

GARDNER: The rim cities of Lake Michigan should not be the trash processing center for the Midwest.

Gardner says he doesn’t want trash to be hauled in from outside of Lake County, and he worries about pollution. more