Turtle Flambeau Flowage

Tribal monitoring of mercury vital to lake health

More than 50 projects on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior are underway to not only clean up pollution hot spots, but back in the Great Lakes in their natural state.

Initiative funded by the federal Great Lakes restoration will continue until 2014, unless Congress decides otherwise.

Last April, members of the tribes of Lake Superior Ojibwa an ancient custom followed by the fish spear Turtle Flambeau Flowage-. Some of the fish ended up in a laboratory to test High levels of mercury.

Superior Scientific Research Institute, Tom Markee said they started with 260 gold, but now his freezer at the University of Wisconsin-Superior is almost empty.

"It's not much left. In fact, they do so today there are only about three bags of it is probably about 30 fish, "Markee said.

Most fish are inland lakes in northern Wisconsin, but a handful of lakes are also tested in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and northern Minnesota. A three-year grant $ 458 000 from the Great Lakes Initiative to restore the Great Lakes Fish Commission and Indian wildlife in Odanah, Wisconsinmakes this test possible.

Mic Isham of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwa is the Chairman GLIFWC. He says they have been testing fish for mercury for the last quarter century.

"I mean what good eating fish if you will be poisoned by it?" Asked Isham. "So we wanted to do outreach and education and that's how we started in the 90s."

Environmental biologist Sara Moses GLIFWC working on the project at the offices of the Odanah Bad River Reservation.

"You know, our goal is not to scare anyone or anything like that discourage people from eating fish," she said. "The goal is really the opposite. What we do is try to inform tribal members about how they can still eat fish, but do so safely. "

Mercury excesses of the Great Lakes portion of coal from as far away as China. Because of this, Moses said to remove mercury from fish is not the goal.

"The goal is really to reduce the extent we can and hopefully get to a point where we can eliminate consumption advisories so that people can actually safe to eat unlimited amounts of fish."

High levels of mercury can damage the human nervous system, especially among infants and children. Isham said that tribal people have a higher proportion to how much mercury is in the lakes they fish. Fishing is not sport for them. That's their livelihood and cultural life.

Faith Photo Club: Why we love the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage of ...

Here are some pictures to show you why we love camping, canoeing and boating in the deserts of the Flowage Turtle Flambeau. The first photo is a sunset of July 28, 2011. I took a bunch of them, hope for a good, and I think I had a couple. I had the function turned bright red, but only to help bring out the red in the evening sky. That night we were treated to a dark, cloudless sky loaded with millions if not billions, of stars that God created. We do not get to see many of the Fond du Lac. These next two photos are from the following morning.I woke early, around five hours and could not sleep, so I got up, took my camera and set about to take some pictures. I was pleased to see the clear sky, because it meant I could get some pictures up good. As the sun since the day the Lord did not disappoint me with the sunrise. This photo was taken on the east side of our island. As I walked around the island, looking for photo opportunities, I noticed footsteps in the sand at the water's edge. I have not checked what kind of tracks they are, but I guess they were made by a raccoon or possibly an otter.We have not had a problem with raccoons in the camp, so I'm not positive about the identity, such as raccoons. But he made a nice picture, no matter who made them.

Marta thought they were bear tracks too, when she saw the photo, but they look larger than they really were. I had the camera almost sitting on the sand when I took the picture, which is why the tracks look so big. But they are really only about 1.5 "to 2" long. If it's a bear, a small bear. They had trouble with a bear on the island to the west of our island, and bears can swim, but we saw no evidence of wear on our island.

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