The Lake Ontario ecosystem will be the subject of a public meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Port of Rochester terminal building, 1000 North River Street. The forum is being put on by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and New York Sea Grant. A DEC press release says […]
Lake Ontario
Posted inNews & Opinion
Week Ahead: County moves to restrict gifts; waterfront planning in the city
Monroe County Legislature committees are meeting this week.Democrats have introduced legislation to restrict the gifts that county officials can accept. In an introductory memo, Democrat Josh Bauroth writes that the current prohibition on accepting gifts is too vague. Current county law prohibits county employees and officials from receiving gifts exceeding $25 if “it could be […]
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New lake levels plan proposed
The International Joint Commission is advancing yet another proposal to change how it regulates Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River water levels. But the new proposal projects that shoreline property owners may face some additional costs from water damage, which is an issue that’s driven their successful opposition to past plans. The IJC has used […]
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Flight pattern
Local birders have long known about the birding hotspots near Lake Ontario — wisdom gained through long hours on the lens and guided by intuition. Now those assumptions are backed by hard science. A recent study conducted by the Nature Conservancy of Central and Western New York, Audubon New York, and the New York Natural […]
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Report notes changes in Lake Ontario, other Great Lakes
Warmer surface water temperatures and declining winter ice cover suggest that climate change is affecting the Great Lakes, including Lake Ontario, says a report released this week by the International Joint Commission. The report evaluates 16 indicators of the Great Lakes’ health and water quality. And for the most part, the measurements are trending in […]
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No hearings set on lake levels plan
This week, the International Joint Commission, which handles issues involving water bodies located in both the United States and Canada, has been holding meetings in Washington, D.C. Previously, environmental groups had publicly urged the commission to move its proposed water levels plan, Bv7, forward by setting public hearings. While not all of the meetings are […]
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Environmental groups push bi-national commission to advance lake levels plan
A coalition of environmental groups is calling on the International Joint Commission to move forward with its proposed Lake Ontario levels management plan. The IJC, a bi-national commission that handles issues involving water bodies with shared US-Canadian borders, is meeting today and tomorrow in Washington, D.C. And the environmental groups are asking the commission to […]
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Port work should begin this fall
City of Rochester officials learned the hard way that Rochesterians don’t care to go to the lake in the off-season. Pier 45, the city-subsidized restaurant at the terminal building, had to stop operating in the winter because of steep financial losses. So what makes officials believe that they can transform the port from a summer […]
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Lake Ontario water levels still low
Low water levels in Lake Ontario persist, with the water depth measuring approximately 5 inches below average at the end of March, says the International St. Lawrence River Board of Control. The board, a sub-group of the International Joint Commission, oversees and manages water levels in the lake and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Simply put, […]
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Sequestering the Great Lakes
Before last year, most people probably associated “sequester” with juries. But now the word has a lot of people thinking and talking about federal funding. The sequester is just another term for mandatory, across-the-board federal spending cuts, which were triggered when a deficit reduction committee failed to reach agreement two years ago. At least, that’s […]
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Our stressed-out lakes
The other day, I stumbled across an article on ThinkProgress that gives a snapshot of how climate change is affecting the Great Lakes. And it talks about some of the potential future effects on the region. But what caught my attention is a map embedded in the post. The image, developed by the Great Lakes […]
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Great Lakes: progress and problems
The Great Lakes are much better than they used to be in terms of the presence of toxic pollutants like mercury and DDT. New laws and a healthy amount of public awareness have helped restore the lakes. But challenges still exist; the Great Lakes face an evolving list of environmental threats and problems.
