The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

Clinton was the mayor of New York, but in the context of this book, he was better known for having jumpstarted construction of the Erie Canal with state funding and persuading the public to get onboard with the plan. The plan for the Erie Canal was actually devised by Jesse Hawley, an inmate in a debtors’ prison who sought a canal that would link the Hudson River in New York to the Great Lakes.

The president of the U.S. at the time of the Seaway’s construction, Dwight D. Eisenhower was wary about the Seaway’s impact on economic and politics, particularly given that foreign ships travel to Canada in close proximity to U.S. territory, and the U.S. has no authority to regulate those ships. Eisenhower’s concerns are overruled by Congress, which passes legislation allowing the Seaway’s construction. 

A general for the Army Corps, John Peabody once played as a child on the shores of Lake Erie. These childhood memories motivate Peabody to take on the fight to halt the spread of the Asian carp into the Great Lakes. 

David Lodge works at the University of Notre Dame and is one of the foremost experts in the U.S. on invasive species. Lodge and his team of researchers received a grant to create DNA-based testing to identify invasive species that hitchhike through the ballast water of ships coming through the Seaway. This DNA-testing is put to use to find Asian carp making their way to the Great Lakes by river.

Jacques Marquette was a French missionary who sought to convert Native Americans to Christianity; his friend, Louis Joliet, worked as a French-Canadian explorer and fur trapper. This duo was known for their boat journey up the Mississippi, which brought them to Lake Michigan in 1673.

Vernon Applegate is a researcher with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who invented a poison to kill the invasive lamprey species. He also came up with a plan to reduce the non-native alewives through the reintroduction of native trout. However, Howard Tanner’s approach of introducing Pacific salmon wins over Applegate’s solution.

Howard Tanner is a fisheries biologist who decides to introduce coho and chinook (Pacific) salmon to the Great Lakes in order to boost fishing tourism. Tanner insists that he did not introduce the salmon to control the wildly reproducing population of alewife fish, but instead to grow the local economy. Tanner’s approach of introducing salmon wins over restoring native fish species; however, ironically, the salmon population eventually dies off and is some of the native species best able to adapt to the invasion of mussels. Tanner exemplifies putting economic interests before scientific ethics. Wayne Tody is Tanner’s successor in the salmon fisheries business on the Great Lakes.  

A former Arkansas Game and Fish chairman—and fisher and farmer—who explains the rationale behind the EPA working with Auburn University to use Asian carp in sewage treatment experiments in the South due to the fish filter-feeding properties. However, when funding for the program ran out, the invasive carp were dumped into rivers and began migrating north, decimating plankton populations upon which other fish species depend.

Although Ken Koyen comes from a family of Great Lakes fishermen, he is now the last full-time commercial fisherman on Wisconsin’s Washington Island. Most of the other fishermen left due to the drastic decline in native species. However, Koyen observes that the whitefish eventually adapt their diet to consume mussels and other fish, leading to the surviving whitefish to be fatter than their predecessors. Koyen’s story shows evolution at work in the Great Lakes in response to the invasive species.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a U.S. governmental body that handles and enforces regulations related to environmental matters and legislation. The EPA is at fault for many of the invasive species now plaguing the Great Lakes and demonstrates the necessity of government enforcement to keep environmental regulations in place and constrain bad actors. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a governmental agency within the Department of Interior that enforces federal wildlife regulations and restores fisheries. Biologists who work for this agency play a role in some of the disputes surrounding the Great Lakes.

The Army Corps is a key governmental agency that deals with the shipping industry, conducts studies, and offers potential solutions on the problems regarding invasive fish in the Great Lakes. Egan interviews numerous scientists associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He does not always agree with approach of the Army Corps, which often tries to devise solutions such as fish poisons or barriers rather than fixing the underlying issue of the exotic species introduced by ships.  

Ron Thresher is an American who spearheads efforts to control invasive species through DNA-based methods. Egan meets with Thresher at his research facility in Australia, where Thresher says the genes used in his treatments are specific only to certain species and do not threaten the public. Nonetheless, Thresher takes extraordinary measures to prevent the escape of any of the genes from his laboratory, which underscores the destructive potential of scientific experimentation—even when it is well-intentioned.