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Great Lakes Regional Water Program
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Monthly Newsletter June 2012
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Dear Great Lakes Regional Water Program Friends and Colleagues,
Well, summer is in full swing. We're getting the first harvests from the garden - peas, lettuce, kale, and delicious raspberries!
In April and May, the Great Lakes Regional Water Program was harvesting success stories from our 2010 and 2011 initiatives. We had the pleasure of being able to share those at the 2012 Land Grant and Sea Grant National Water Conference and in our 2011 Annual Impact Report. There were several workshops, presentations, and posters from the Great Lakes Region addressing issues from innovative edge-of-field monitoring for agriculture to water management applications for wireless devices.
There is excellent information at the conference website from our region and from across the country. Jenna Klink (our Great Lakes Regional Water Program evaluation specialist) and I extend our thanks to the initiative leaders that have done such amazing work this year. We invite our readers to take time to browse through their stories. However, the final impact of our work is not what we write, it is applying what we learn on the land.
Rebecca Power, Co-Director, Great Lakes Regional Water Program
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| *FEATURED INITIATIVE* | | |
Midwest Cover Crops Council: Innovations in Cover Crops and Perenniality
As the public grows increasingly aware of our collective ecological footprint and its relationship to climate change and water quality, the effort to add living cover to our landscape can generate new sources of renewable energy, mitigate greenhouse gases, reduce the use of agricultural chemicals and provide novel income streams for rural communities. The Midwest Cover Crop Council (MCCC) reflects a diverse group of professionals from academia, production agriculture, non-governmental organizations, commodity interests, private sector, and federal and state agencies collaborating to address soil, water, air, and agricultural quality by increasing the use of cover crops throughout the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi River basins.
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LiDAR Workshop Series
| | U of MN Water Resources Center
The University of Minnesota's Water Resources Center is coordinating a new workshop series on the use of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data in conservation and water resources planning. Workshop developers and instructors include representatives from the University of Minnesota, MN Department of Natural Resources, MN Board of Water and Soil Resources, and US Natural Resources Conservation Service. The series consists of six separate training modules designed for GIS and CAD users who address natural resource issues. Target audiences include Watershed Districts, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, counties, cities, not-for-profit organizations, private firms, and state and federal agencies. All participants are required to attend the "Basics" module prior to attending additional workshops. Water resources professionals will find the "Hydrologic" and "Wetland Mapping" modules most beneficial to their professional development. Please visit the website for training dates and locations and an overview of the project.
Click here for website. |
| In the News #1 | |
The National Water Quality Monitoring Council will host a webinar on Better Access to Statistical and Assessment Methods for Water Quality: A New Component of the National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI) on Thursday, June 21, 2011 at 10:00 am CT. Dr. Doug McLaughlin will discuss an online database of statistical methods developed by the Council's Water Quality Statistics and Assessments (WQSA) Workgroup. The WQSA effort is being integrated with the Council's popular National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI). The webinar is free and no pre-registration is required.
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| In the News #2 | | |
Fracking boom spurs environmental audit
by Helen Thompson
For Ohio, a Midwestern state hit hard by recession, the promise of an energy boom driven by hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking', would seem to be a sure route to financial health. Far less certain is whether the technique has an impact on human health. Fracking uses high-pressure fluids to fracture shale formations deep below ground, releasing the natural gas trapped within. With the number of gas wells in Ohio that use fracking set to mushroom from 77 to more than 2,300 in the next three years, the state is the latest to try to regulate a rapidly growing industry while grappling with a serious knowledge gap. No one knows what substances - and at what levels - people near the gas fields are exposed to in the air and water, and what, if any, health threat they might pose.
See quote from Deborah Swackhamer, Co-Director, U of MN Water Resources Center
Click here for full article.
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| In the News #3 | | |
Michigan Sea Grant: Great Lakes temps higher than usual
by Morgan Sherburne
CHARLEVOIX - Charlevoix resident Dean Mikulski noticed something he hasn't seen in the 46 years he has lived in Charlevoix: the salmon are in - early. "Normally, the salmon don't normally get going until late July," he said.
Mikulski, 70, arrived in Charlevoix in 1966, just as the Department of Natural Resources began planting salmon, after the collapse of the lake trout fishery from the sea lamprey and over fishing. So when he first saw Lake Michigan from Charlevoix, the lake was a barren place. "I looked out there and said, you mean to tell me there aren't fish out there to be caught?" he said. But over the next few years, hatchery salmon began returning to Lake Michigan tributaries in overwhelming numbers.
This year, the fishing hearkens back to those early salmon days. Mikulski has one guess as to why that might be: according to Michigan Sea Grant's daily temperature recordings, Lake Michigan, in front of Petoskey and Charlevoix, ranged 13 and 14 degrees warmer than late May of last year.
Click here for full article.
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| Future Newsletters | | |
Tell Us About Your Projects
Your contributions have placed the Great Lakes region at the forefront of national and international water research, outreach and conservation. We would love to know about any new projects, grants or multi-state efforts you are leading or participating in. If you have ideas for e-newsletter content, please share with the GLRWP marketing specialist, John Kriva. You can contact him at john.kriva@uwex.edu.
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About Us
The Great Lakes Regional Water Program (GLRWP) is a partnership among the Land Grant universities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, and the NIFA National Water Program. The overarching goal of the GLRWP is to maintain and protect natural environmental systems for agriculture, human health, recreation, and economic benefit through regional leadership and coordination of research, education, and extension/outreach efforts within Great Lakes and North Central Region states.
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