Bad Blooms: Portage Lake, which connects to Lake Superior on either side of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, had a rare algal bloom this week, prompting health warnings from regional and state health departments. The greenish scum showed up in Portage Lake, Torch Lake and Portage Canal between Houghton and Hancock. People and pets were advised to avoid direct body contact and to avoid swallowing water. Tests were taken, but the results likely will not be available until next week. TV6 posted a story on the bloom Tuesday. Cory McDonald, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Technological University, is a surface water quality monitoring expert and just launched a monitoring buoy into Portage Lake this year. The university's Great Lakes Research Center sits on the shore of the Keweenaw Waterway (of which Portage Lake is a part) and has a live-streaming video (from which this image was taken.) Cory says the primary bloom was along the western shore of Portage Lake. He speculates the unusual bloom came because water conditions were just right for the blue-green algae to flourish. “Over the past five days, on top of the heat, it got really calm and the wind dropped down. The water heated up really quickly.” Under those conditions, the water, which usually might churn under water transferring temperature strata, stabilized and gave the algae a chance to sit near the surface. The buoy placed this year should help gather some baseline data for the lake, measuring everything from wind and temperature at 10 different depths to oxygen levels. By Thursday, Cory noted, the visual blooms had dissipated from the western shore. An algal bloom in Lake Superior between Duluth and Bayfield in 2018 caused concerns. "No one expected the quantity of blue-green algae that we saw in Lake Superior in August 2018,” Robert Sterner, director of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory, said in a 2019 story about such blooms. "The high abundance of algae was observed for the first time in 2012 on the shoreline of Lake Superior in Wisconsin near the Apostle Islands," the story continued, then quotes Robert again: "Blooms of varying size occurred in subsequent years, but the bloom that was observed in 2018 was by far the largest."
Buoying Research: The COVID-19 outbreak has affected most all aspects of our lives and that's true, too, for placing the information-collecting buoys around the Great Lakes, Kelley Christensen writes in a story for Michigan Technological University in Houghton. Placement has been delayed for many of the weather and wave buoys, critical for safe commercial and recreational boating navigation, as well as for anglers and swimmers. “Numerous nearshore buoys such as those along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore have been delayed this year due to COVID-19, despite reliance on these buoys by the National Weather Service, National Park Service and U.S. Coast Guard,” Michigan Tech researcher John Lenters told Kelley. “This constitutes an emergency situation that puts Great Lakes communities and businesses at significant risk from the massive gap in data and the adverse impact it will have on the Weather Service’s nearshore marine forecasts.” John sought funding to purchase a Sofar Ocean "Spotter" wave buoy and received money from the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research with a match from Michigan Tech. That buoy was placed off the coast of Gay to measure wave conditions, monitored to conduct the dredging of shifting stamp sands there. Another Spotter buoy, seen here, funded by CIGLR, was deployed last week near Munising, along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore near Grand Portal Point. A third buoy is slatted for near Stannard Rock Lighthouse. The U.S. Coast Guard has placed its buoys for navigation as well around the Lake.
Less Wet, But More Water: Precipitation conditions around the Lake Superior basin in June tended to the average or drier than average, but the Lake still rose about 2 inches, about an inch less than average for the month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday on behalf of the International Lake Superior Board of Control. That puts Lake Superior 5 inches below its record high level for the beginning of July (a record set last year) and about 9 inches above its 100-year average for this time of year. The same conditions applied to Lakes Michigan and Huron, which rose less than 1 inch although they usually rise 2 inches in June. The control board will host a webinar July 17, starting at noon ET, to talk about water levels in the Great Lakes. In June, Duluth got just 0.69 inches of precipitation, where as it averages 4.25 inches for the month. It was the third driest, and third hottest – averaging 64.2° F instead of the 60.1° norm – June on record for the city, with logs back to the 1870s. Ashland, Wis., another long-term measuring site for the National Weather Service, got 1.69 inches of rain for the month, which usually sees 3.82 inches. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Marquette got about 4.2 inches for the month, about a 1.5 inches above normal, according to the National Weather Service.
Revived History: Maritime historian and Marquette city council member and booster Fred Stonehouse took this lovely selfie by the reconstructed charcoal kiln. As Fred posted Wednesday: "The Iron Ore Heritage Trail officially turned over the reconstructed charcoal kiln to the City of Marquette today. The IOHT is a terrific group to partner with. The historic kiln is an important part of our Iron history!" The restoration involved many community partners, including students from Northern Michigan University, local landscapers and Premeau Construction, which won the rebuilding contract. A heavy snowfall in 2016 took down the remains of the last historic kiln from the the Carp River Furnace complex, and the IOHT folks mounted a fundraiser to reconstruct it. "Charcoal kilns were used to burn wood into charcoal which fed blast furnaces that converted iron ore and limestone into pig iron."
Yeah, Just Like This: Summer 2020 – and much of the year so far – seems to be a mixture of sweet lupine and a "Bronx cheer" from a local moose, captured in this photo on Minnesota's North Shore by photographer Thomas Spence. So we thought we'd share the photo, and the thoughts, with you.
Oh-0: In our Spotlight on Events Newsletter on Wednesday, some savvy readers noted an unusual time for the Ashland, Wis., Fourth of July fireworks Saturday. If you were going by our time, you'd be quickly eating your picnic lunch and heading to the waterfront for the "1 p.m." display. No matter that the sun will still be shining over Chequamegon Bay, and the ability to see those sparkling bursts would be extremely limited. All of this is by way of reminding you, the fireworks will actually be about 10 p.m. - that's a 1 and a 0 - over the bay from the C. Reiss Coal Dock across from the Plaza Park/Post Office/Ashland City Hall. Organizers ask that you social distance along the highway for viewing. But way before dusk, there's lots going on in Ashland, including a flyover above Highway 2 by Celebrations Incorporated, likely between 11 a.m. and noon, a Happy Birthday America Motorcycle Flag Run from the Neighborly Bar at 10:30 a.m. to ride on Main Street going west to Stuntz Avenue, and an outdoor broadcast of the carillon at United Presbyterian Congregational Church playing "This is My Country America" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" from noon-1 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. The city fire run, with emergency vehicles driving by with sirens and horns will be 9:30 p.m. on Historic Main Street. And then, after all that, at 10 p.m., the fireworks go off.
Mostly Shark-free: T-shirts and caps around Lake Superior declare this a "salt-free & shark-free" zone, but at least one shark has shown up on the shores. This wooden shark on the grounds of Glensheen in Duluth signals where to stop for ice cream and local craft beer (or other beverages), which may sound like an odd combination, but then so is a shark and Lake Superior.
Photo & graphic credits: Michigan Tech; John Lenters/Michigan Tech; Lucie Amundsen; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Fred Stonehouse; Thomas Spence; Freepik; Glensheen