ONLINE: Imperiled Shores

media release: November 4 "Imperiled Shores" Lake Michigan water levels in the last decade have reached some of their highest and lowest levels in history. What does this bode for the future? Join us for an in-person or live-streamed panel discussion to learn more.

Click here to meet some of the other experts we're working with to find the stories that answer the question: what is our water future? We hope to bring future virtual and in-person exploration of the past, present and future of the Greater Green Bay waterscape to light in early 2022.  

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O my floating life

do not save love

 for things

  Throw things

to the flood

ruined

by the flood

 Leave the new unbought-

  all one in the end -

water

--Lorine Niedecker*

A gaggle of children searching for crayfish beneath the limestone slabs of a Door County Bay. The roll of waves on a sandy beach or the still of sunset punctuated by the cry of gulls overhead. The scent of smoked fish and the parade of fishing charters sidling up to the pier. Or maybe it's the tall ships passing under the draw bridge or small cities of shanties on the frozen bay, many of them flying their green and gold flags of allegiance.

The 120-mile long bay of Green Bay has a bittersweet place in our thoughts. The waters become part of our identity and the best parts loom large in our memories. But it has always been a place challenged by our actions on the land. In recent years, Great Lakes water levels have risen at an alarming rate with increased heavy rainfalls, leading to inundated marinas and coastal erosion and inland flooding with even small amounts of rain. The temperatures of the Great Lakes are creeping upward as well, adding yet another threat to a struggling fishery by potentially decreasing the effectiveness of lampricide, which checks the spread of invasive sea lamprey. A ubiquitous class of chemicals known as PFAS, often found in flame retardant and food containers, has turned up in drinking water and some studies have found high levels in fish elsewhere in the state. The bay continues to face polluted runoff and other invasive species. What is our water future? How do we remain resilient? This is a question to be posed in virtual and in-person convenings across the state, including Greater Green Bay.

The bay of Green Bay was derided from the days of the first peoples as smelling just a little bit off, like the exhalation of the hundreds of acres of wetlands at the mouth of the Fox River that once fed one of the most productive fisheries on the Great Lakes. Many of those wetlands were filled in the with the expansion of the city of Green Bay, altering an important system of flood control, filtration and rearing areas for fish. Once the bay teemed with commercial fishing boats, now long gone as the Great Lakes fishery suffered from a combination of invasive species and poor management.

In living memory, these waters were always working waters. A busy port, ships from far locales may have dumped ballast water filled with non-native species like rusty crayfish and zebra mussels that became invasive. With the calls of alarm that reached a crescendo in the 1960s and 1970s, projects were begun decades later to clean up contaminated industrial sites and control polluted runoff. Wildlife deformities, fish consumption advisories, closed beaches, and "dead zones," created by runoff-fed algae, were just some of the issues that resulted in designation in the 1980s by the International Joint Commission under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement as an Area of Concern needing extensive cleanup.

In the last 30 years, many of the recommendations found in remedial action plans have been enacted. But challenges remain. The "easy" fixes have been addressed, while some of the most difficult have only become more complex. Now, high lake levels, erosion and coastal damage only add another layer of complexity. What do communities need to prepare for? What are the stories that need to be shared? What's your water story?

*Permission given by Bob Arnold, Literary Executor for Lorine Niedecker