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Jesse Schomberg
Project Partners:
“A View From the Lake” was designed to bring watershed and nonpoint
pollution education directly to Lake Superior coastal communities
through presentations, displays, activities, and hands-on water quality
analysis while on Lake Superior aboard the L.L. Smith, Jr. Research Vessel
(R/V). The goals of the project were to increase the knowledge and
understanding among residents and local government officials about the
Lake Superior Ecosystem, watershed processes, and the relationships
between land use and water quality, with ideas and solutions that can be
used on their properties or in their local communities.
“A View From the Lake” (VFL) is a project of Northland NEMO, a joint
Minnesota-Wisconsin educational program for land use decisionmakers
that addresses the relationship between land use and water resource
protection. The VFL project is led by educators from Minnesota Sea Grant
and the University of Wisconsin Extension, and is bi-state, working in
Minnesota and Wisconsin. The project started in 2004, and the 3rd
season was completed under this grant during the summer of 2006.
Work Completed
For the 2006 VFL trips, we developed new materials for use during the
trips. A powerpoint presentation was created that we presented to the
participants prior to boarding the vessel. A series of 5 posters were
created for use on the vessel on the following topics:
1. Lake Superior hydrology
2. Urban and rural Stormwater issues
3. Stormwater management regulations
4. Stormwater BMP’s: options for reducing runoff
5. Climate Change and Mercury: impacts and solutions
In addition to the posters and powerpoint, we developed a watershed
management activity that allowed participants to each “manage” a
different land use within a watershed, and “spend” their budget of
candies on various best management practices and work together to
solve a sediment problem in a fictional stream. A variety of publications
and fact sheets were also assembled and distributed to participants in a
folder at the completion of the trip, including the guidebook “Building
Superior Coastal Communities” that was funded in part with funds from
Minnesota’s Lake Superior coastal Program..
We also held two hour-long public presentations. The first was on June
25th at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais. We had 10 people
attend that presentation. The second was held after the end of the trips
at Sugarloaf Cove on December 9th. In the past, we have been asked to
run a trip out of Taconite Harbor, but the boat cannot dock here. As an
alternative, we scheduled a public presentation of the materials we used
on the boat. We had 16 participants at this presentation. The
presentation is titled: “Climate Change, Mercury, and Stormwater:
Bringing it all Home”, and the powerpoint slideshow is included on the
accompanying CD.
Results
In Minnesota during 2006, we brought over 333 participants out during
17 trips out of ports in Grand Marais, Silver Bay, Two Harbors, and the
Twin Ports (Table 1). A summary table of participation by port is below.
Participation numbers are from
Table 1. Trips and participants per port for 2006. evaluation responses, which was
nearly 100% (but not quite). From
Port # of Trips Participants
Duluth / Superior 7 141
all trips in MN and WI, 424
Grand Marais 4 77 surveys were returned. To help
2
Silver Bay 35 assure high survey return rates,
Two Harbors 4 80
we used the completed surveys as
their “ticket off the boat” at the end.
View from the Lake Participation
by audience, 2004 - 2006
Participants 40%
selected a number
20%
between 1 (being
0%
“poor”) to 5 (being Fun, View Education or Invited or
“excellent”) for each Scenery Interest Recommended
100%
Yes No Not sure
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Total Elected Non- Full Time Seasonal Teacher Visitor
Official Elected Resident Resident
Official
Conclusions
We believe “A View from the Lake” has been a successful project, with
participants interested in learning about the lake and what they can do to
protect it. It has been a very popular event, with trips filling up within
days of registration opening, in many cases, and many people calling in,
hoping to be added to waiting lists. The evaluation data shows that this
program is an effective way to educate residents and local officials, with
60-80% of these target audiences coming away with knowledge and plans
to make changes or take actions to protect the lake. We also have
indications that may of the past participants are making changes and
taking actions because of past trips.
Big Lake
affected
• find out what you can do and how you can become
changes ahead
Registration is simple. Just visit our Web site at www.seagrant.umn.edu/vfl and select
the trip you want. The username and password you’ll need are “lake” and “superior”. If
you have questions, just call one of us at the number below, and feel free to hand out
the enclosed flyers in your community.
2305 E 5th St
P.O. Box 2000
Registration is open for a third season of "A View From the Lake" cruises.
Water quality specialists from the University of Minnesota Sea Grant
Program and the University of Wisconsin Extension are again boarding
the L.L. Smith, Jr. with citizens and the research vessel's crew to discuss
Lake Superior.
"A View from the Lake" is funded by grants from the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources, and the Coastal Programs in Wisconsin
and Minnesota through the Coastal Zone Management Act, which is
administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management.
--30--
A View From the Lake
a guided tour of Lake Superior & its coast
Funding Sources:
Presentation – 20 minutes
• Setting the stage
On the Boat
• Stormwater
• Mercury
• Climate change
eroSioN SedimeNt
Pollutant Sources
Precipitation
Groundwater
inflow
Development Impacts
on the Water Cycle
10% 20%
Natural runoff patterns
www.usda.gov/stream_restoration/chap1.html
Original stream channel
www.usda.gov/stream_restoration/chap1.html
Original stream channel
www.usda.gov/stream_restoration/chap1.html
new stream channel
Help
New stream baseflow !
What have you observed?
Positive Proof of Global Warming
What have you observed?
The
Greenhouse
Effect and
Planet Earth
cfcS
coolerS: duSt, SulfateS,
cloudS aNd water vapor
Many Factors
contribute to
climate
Buildings and
Industry, 31%
based on Meehl et al. (2004)
Climate Change Predictions for the
Great Lakes Region
http://memBerS.aol.com/djl4looNS/looN.gif http://artSci.Shu.edu/Biol3341aa/eNvtoxweB/BeacheS%201.htm
Take home messages:
Grand Marais
Silver Bay
Two Harbors
Duluth
Washburn
Ashland
Superior
Climate Change,
Credit: nationalgeographic.com
• Slide 3 has notes to help you through it. If the pictures make it hard to talk about, Slide 4 kind of covers the same
stuff so you could skip slide 3.
• Go though presentation as slide show first and see how slide 5 plays (don’t be fooled by its blank appearance.
There is a lot of stuff there that animates. The underwear come in one by one. If you don’t want it to work that way,
move the last slide into its place, the underwear are all on there right from the start. You’ll see what I mean.
• Consider deleting details on “what do we expect for Minnesota” and leaving those to poster on the boat. Makes
slide really cluttered and will just be a list at this point, since no examples. I have an alternate slide at the end.
• I will email notes to go with mercury slides. I’m out of time. The Holiday Inn in Alpena MI has free internet so I’ll
send notes tomorrow night. After all I have twelve hours of driving time to work in the van.
• I really didn’t have time to do much with the stormwater piece and am really not happy with it. It doesn’t really tell
people a whole lot, but I’m not sure what to do with it. See what you think. At least some pictures of stormwater
coming in. I think Jesse’s slides are nice but not in the little bit of time we have, especially without some real
pictures to relate them to.
• We need a concluding slide that ties climate, mercury, and stormwater back together. Probably more valuable than
the standard concluding slide about natural resource inventories, etc. that we have in there now.
• I suggest you save this under a different name before you start working on it. It would be awful to have a problem
and lose parts of it.
• Call my cell if you need help. I’ll keep it with me.
The greenhouse effect and your car:
How do scientists figure out
what’s happening?
temperatures in Minnesota
winter temperatures
• Shifts in timing of
precipitation
• More intense rainfall
events
hiStoric
BuSiNeSS
data
aS uSual
lower emiSSioN SceNario
Worldwide Glacier Melt
Things we’re
doing right:
Controlling sulfur
emissions
Reducing mercury
product use,
improving disposal
Things to
work on:
Reduce energy
Hg- inside of flip-out
use!
Reduce
stormwater
runoff impacts
Influence global
policy
• Options:
–Reduce Precipitation
–Increase Evaporation 20%
–Increase Infiltration
1 acre
287’ x 151’
1 acre
287’ x 151’
1 acre 1 acre 1 acre 1 acre
287’ x 151’
1 acre 1 acre
1 acre
5 acres
696’ x 313’
1 acre
1 acre
287’ x 151’
347’ x 125’
287’ x 151’
287’ x 151’
173’ x 247’ 1 acre
347’ x 125’
1 acre
173’ x 247’
2 acres
Before…
437’ x 200’
696’ x 313’
5 acres
1,000 ft
and After
500 ft
100 ft
not “out”
Temperature Preferences of
95 Great Lakes Fish Species
Preferred Temperature (°F) 86 Warm water species:
Data from: John J. Magnuson, North Temperate LTER Database, Cr for Limnology, UW-Madison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canadian_Shield_Ontario.jpg
events since
1931
Ben Mattila
How could
Natural sources
– fire, volcanoes climate warming
People sources affect mercury in
GLOBAL POLLUTION (30%) – coal burning
lakes?
power plants**,
incineration, • Warmer water, longer
products
REGIONAL summer “stratification”
POLLUTION (40%) – Less oxygen in
bottom waters
– More toxic
mercury
Cold water species: produced
“TopLake trout, herring • Increased erosion –
predators” more mercury to lakes
consume fish
and wetlands
• Loss of oxygen also
Mercury from can cause fish kills
Watershed 20,000 ng/L and toxic algal blooms
Remember, mercury: Mercury
“bioaccumulates” Our lakes are
• Is sticky – moves with soil
Bacteria convert
especially
• Becomes toxic in wetlands
and lake zones with no mercury to toxic 1.3 ng/L sensitive!
oxygen, available sulfates. form • Thin, poor soils
No oxygen
• Canadian Shield lakes are High sulfate • Lots of wetlands
more vulnerable to toxic • Lakes acid sensitive (not
mercury formation much buffering capacity)
Managing Stormwater: Reduce, Slow, and Clean the Flow
Stormwater and
Nonpoint Pollution -- the EPA NPDES Phase II:
Number 1 Water Quality Stormwater Permit Program
Problem in the US.
All MS4s within “Urban” areas are
Ordinance Development
Inventory Natural Resources
Identify stormwater needs and BMPs for
new and existing development Identify important natural areas,
such as wetlands, parks, river corridors,
Stormwater Utility etc., for conservation
Develop and maintain infrastructure Identify and utilize existing forest
Identify drainage patterns and problems resources in community to slow and
Fees based on assessment of user’s needs
infiltrate runoff
Forest
Duluth trout stream watersheds
Nemadji Watershed
Mouth of Fish Forest Clearing
Creek
SEDIMENT: Where is it coming from?
Roads 2% Sheet & Rill 9%
Nemadji River (3,000 Tons) (12,000 Tons)
silt/clay budget
33,000 tons of Bluffs 89%
sediment dredged Lake Superior 74% (117,000 Tons)
annually by COE
(98,000 Tons)
1998 Cost =
$260,000.00
Bay Floodplain Uplands
14% 4% 8%
(19,000 Tons) (5,000 (10,000 Tons)
Tons)
Sediment Yield
Peak of
of disease-causing bacteria
agricultural
3X Flow 3000
conversion
fecal matter
2500
2000
E. coli in Stormwater Runoff
2X Flow
100000 1500
1991
Residential Streets
1991
About
90000
Residential 65% Open
80000 1000
(Geometric Mean Concentration)
70000
Commercial Completely
Forested
1870
C/100ml
500
60000
Residential Lawns
50000
40000
0
30000 Modeled 1870 Observed 1991 Modeled 1991 Modeled 1928
20000
10000
s
fs
ns
et
fs
ng
g
et
ay
kin
oo
oo
oo
tr e
tr e
aw
ki
w
lR
lR
lR
ar
ar
rS
ive
lL
lP
lP
ria
or
tia
cia
de
tia
Dr
ria
ct
cia
en
st
er
en
ee
le
du
st
er
sid
m
ol
lF
sid
du
In
m
m
lC
Re
tia
Re
In
m
Co
tia
en
Co
en
sid
sid
Re
Re
Urban Source
1.4
1.6 2.1
1.2
1.5
5.
1 0.4
0.5
1.2 6.
Runoff 9
1.5
Direct
0.7
Precipitation
0.7
1.0 6.
0
Evaporation
Square miles
200,000 Lake
LakeSurface
Surface AreaArea
200 The time it
150,000
150
would take to
refill an empty
100,000
100 lake
50,000
50
0
Superior Michigan Huron Erie Ontario Superior Michigan Huron Erie Ontario
• Low “productivity”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canadian_Shield_Ontario.jpg
• Cold-adapted critters
More Climate
Change Information
and Data
2500
100
Moose Wolves
Wolf Population
IPCC 2001
Moose Population
2000
80
1500
60
1000
40
500
20
0 0
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Deg F
16
15
14
13
Summer
12
11
10
Deg F
16
15
14
13
Winter
12
11
10
Funding Sources:
Outline
• Some solutions
• Climate Change
• Effects on Water Quality
• Adapting and Minimizing
• Mercury
• Climate change interactions
View from the Lake Goes Global!
Erosion Sediment
Where’s the water come from?
Precipitation
Groundwater
inflow
Retention Time
200
150
100
50
0
Superior Michigan Huron Erie Ontario
Canadian Shield
10% 20%
Natural runoff patterns
www.usda.gov/stream_restoration/chap1.html
Original stream channel
www.usda.gov/stream_restoration/chap1.html
Original stream channel
www.usda.gov/stream_restoration/chap1.html
new stream channel
Help
New stream baseflow !
Reducing Runoff: what are our options?
• Options:
– Reduce Precipitation
– Increase Evaporation
– Increase Infiltration
20%
5 acres
696’ x
313’
1 acre
173’ x
247’
More coMpact
coMMunities produce
2 acres
437’ x
200’
less runoff
5 acres
696’ x
313’
• Reduces impervious
surface
wetlands
Vegetated Buffers
Superior WWTP
Pervious Pavement
What have you observed?
Positive Proof of Global Warming
What have you observed?
The
The Greenhouse
Greenhouse
Effect and your car
Effect and
Planet Earth
• Observation
• Monitoring
• Experimentation (??)
• Modeling
– Look to past
– Look to the future
All but 1
since
1983
Ben Mattila
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canadian_Shield_Ontario.jpg
Jason Biggerstaff and Jacob
Orlove , Brandeis University
Monitoring: Precipitation Patterns
Historical
Trends:
Extreme
Rainfall
Events
1931-1996
Lake Mendota
Monitoring: Global Temperatures
Monitoring: Global Temperatures
Modeling:
what factors
contribute to
climate
change?
Better fit
*natural = solar radiation
volcanoes Natural and Human** Combined
86
Bullhead, carp
50
Invasive Species
Rick Lindroth
What can we do?
– Energy consumption
– Energy supplies
• Adapt to Minimize the Impacts
Addressing Global Climate Change
• Will it make any difference?
14 degree
difference
Buildings and
Industry, 31%
Loons, otters,
people eat bigger
fish
Small fish eat
invertebrates,
bigger fish eat
small fish
Invertebrates
eat bacteria
Bacteria convert
mercury to toxic
form
Mercury: What can we do?
Things we’re
Things to work on:
doing right:
Reduce energy
Controlling sulfur use!
emissions
Reduce
Reducing mercury stormwater runoff
product use, improving impacts
disposal
Influence global
policy
Build Compact Communities
Conserve Energy
Maintain Forest Cover, Wetlands
Keep Stream Corridors Forested
Minimize Impervious Surfaces
pre-trip presentation - - - - 1 2 3 4 5
Indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following: Disagree ⇒ Agree
I felt knowledgeable about protecting Lake Superior water resources prior to this trip 1 2 3 4 5
The level of technical information was appropriate for me - - - - - - 1 2 3 4 5
I was comfortable asking questions/sharing information - - - - - - 1 2 3 4 5
My opinion about protecting Lake Superior water resources has changed as
a result of this trip - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 2 3 4 5
How has your opinion changed? _______________________________________________________
Comments:
“A View From the Lake” has been supported by grants which are now ending.
In future years, how much would you be willing to pay for this program? $_________
Any other comments or suggestions?
Did you participate in past years? ___ 2004 ___ 2005 (check all that apply)
If you checked either year, please answer the following:
Did you read, use, or pass on any of the publications, fact sheets, or cards we distributed?
___Yes ___No ___Not Sure Comments:
Did you take any actions or make any changes because of information from past trips?
___Yes ___No ___Not Sure Please explain your answer.
Sample Comments from Evaluations 2006