my weblog - [editor@h2onotes.com]

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- For Matt Tiffy, a high school teacher, adding shops and eateries to Chicago's Navy Pier a decade ago to turn the former naval base into a tourist mecca was good civic restoration. He calls more development a mistake.

A plan to build an indoor water park, floating hotel, monorail, enclosed plaza and 260-foot (79-meter) Ferris wheel would reduce the 90-year-old site to another amusement park, he says. ``If they add all that new stuff, it's going to ruin it,'' says Tiffy, 23, during a field trip with students at the pier.   more...

BY SAM COOK
NEWS TRIBUNE OUTDOORS WRITER

A proposal for a new Lake Superior "fishing and angling endorsement" is drawing mixed reviews among anglers.

While it's favored by some Lake Superior trollers, it's opposed by other trollers and also by a local muskie fishing group and many St. Louis River walleye anglers.

The endorsement proposal originated with the Western Lake Superior Trolling Association in November 2005. The $15 endorsement would replace the $10 Minnesota Trout and Salmon Stamp for anglers fishing Lake Superior and its tributaries up to the first fish barriers. Anglers who fish inland trout streams and trout lakes would still be required to have the Minnesota Trout and Salmon Stamp.   more...

By DON BEHM
dbehm@journalsentinel.com

The success of a 25-year commitment begun this spring to help restore lake sturgeon to their historic spawning range in the Milwaukee River, while boosting the ancient fish's population in Lake Michigan, rests on the shoulders of Carl John and a handful of other volunteers at Riveredge Nature Center.   more...

Sam Oddo and Craig Jeroue have been fishing on Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River for much of their adult life, and through that experience they figured the bite at the end of Oddo's line Sunday was a small muskie or a lake sturgeon.

"When we finally landed it in the boat, we looked at each other and said, 'What is it?'" said Oddo of Algonac. Oddo, along with Jeroue of New Baltimore, landed a record 20-pound white bass and striper bass hybrid called a Wiper on the Canadian side of the Detroit River.   more...

Detroit Free Press

Not all threats to the Great Lakes are big. The New Zealand mud snail, which has been found in two of Lake Superior's harbors, is about the size of a peppercorn. It reproduces by cloning itself, covers lake and stream beds, and will add to the disruption at the bottom of the food chain.   more...

Detroit Free Press

Keeping huge Asian carp out of the Great Lakes requires feats of both engineering and finance. So it is disappointing that government engineers have missed their May 8 target for turning on a second, stronger electric barrier to supplement an experimental one built earlier for smaller species. And it remains essential for members of Congress from Michigan and the other Great Lakes states to convince their colleagues to fund both barriers -- which is the level of protection these precious lakes deserve.   more...

Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

A group of scientists hoped it had the right elements -- a stony reef and temperate waters -- to attract a male and female to a corner of Belle Isle to, well, you know.

Biologists discovered a male sturgeon in heat off the northern point of this concrete island, the first occurrence of its kind in years and one they hope indicates the finnicky fish species may return here in greater numbers to spawn.   more...

Sailing on Lake Superior can take its toll on a sailboat, as Don and Maryjane Westra can attest. Aside from the inevitable wood rot that takes hold, there are hazards to be navigated around, such as rocks lurking underwater, one of which Don found with the keel of their boat, the Abigail Susan. There are some pretty stubborn docks, too, that don’t always know enough to get out of the way, as Maryjane learned the hard way.   more...

Sandy Mitchell

Put-in-Bay, located on South Bass Island, just north of Sandusky and Port Clinton Ohio, is Ohio's Lake Erie playground. Cut off in the winter, the island comes alive in the summer with antique stores, a vibrant marina, lots of lively bars and restaurants, and a home-grown brewery and historic winery. Put-in-Bay belongs in every Clevelander's summer plans.

more...

Sandy Mitchell

For over a century, the lighthouses of Lake Erie have guided ships into the many North coast harbors. Today, many of these gracious structures have been restored and still stand along the shore, from Sandusky to Ashtabula. Some are in ruins, yet somehow picturesque; others welcome visitors with museums and visitors' centers.    more...

Overnight the wind slowly backed from east of north to west and increased slightly, releasing the fleet from their hell of windward
work – which, in terms of sailing days, has really stayed with them since they left the Chesapeake halfway through the last leg.

Courses show a gentle curve to the north with the leading bunch now sailing north-north east at speeds between 14 and 19 knots. No prizes for guessing who is sailing the fastest.   more...

Twenty years ago, the ship was built to track Soviet submarines through the Atlantic Ocean. Just three years ago, it was converted into a teaching vessel called the State of Michigan. It's used by the Great Lakes Maritime Academy to train merchant marine officers how to operate a ship on the lakes.

more...

By Hugh Leach
Lansing State Journal

April showers normally bring May flowers.

While April didn't uphold its end of the bargain this year, May is more than taking care of matters by itself.

According to the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Lansing received 3.69 inches of rain in May through midnight Sunday. That's 2.5 inches higher than normal for this date and 0.98 inches more than normal for the entire month of May.   more...

MILWAUKEE - By raising newborn sturgeon in water taken from the Milwaukee River, a group of volunteers hopes the fish will learn to recognize unique scents in the water that will lead them to return to the river years from now when they spawn.

Lake sturgeon have not spawned in the Milwaukee River in more than 100 years. State officials have released hatchery-raised sturgeon into the river in hopes the fish would recognize it as a future breeding site, but to no avail.    more...