Ice-breaking to begin along St. Lawrence
River for upcoming seaway season
Along the St. Lawrence River, there is no surer sign of the approaching spring than the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway navigation season.
The Great Lakes Seaway Development Corp., which manages the U.S. side of operations on the waterway warned residents on the river that ice-breaking operations will start around March 15 in preparation of the navigation season.
This winter there has been significant ice coverage along the entirety of Lake St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River between Iroquois and the Eisenhower Lock near Massena, N.Y.
The Canadian Coast Guard announced last month it was beginning ice-breaking operations east of Montréal. No formal announcement from the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp., which operates the Canadian side of the Seaway operations, or from the CCG have been made on ice-breaking operations for this section of river.
The St. Lawrence Seaway will open the Montréal-Lake Ontario section for navigation March 22 at 8 a.m.
The Morrisburg Leader
Soo Locks to open early for 2025 shipping season
2025 “Know Your Ships” launches
The new shipping season is at hand, and so is the release of the 2025 edition of Know Your Ships, the popular annual field guide to boats and boatwatching on the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Seaway, now in its 66th year.
Preorders are now being taken. As usual, standard and spiral bindings are available. Preorders will be the first to mail out when the book arrives from the printer around March 23.
New this year is the ability to preorder the midsummer EXTRA magazine, which will feature a 50th anniversary tribute to the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew, when you preorder the book.
To mark the opening of the Soo Locks, Editor & Publisher Roger LeLievre will be at the Soo Locks Visitor Center Saturday, March 26, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., to sign copies of the new edition. Buy them right from him, or from Das Gift Haus and Island Books and Crafts in the Soo, bring them to the Visitor Center and he will sign them.
Preorder at this link: www.knowyourships.com
Enter Duluth’s 42nd Annual First Ship Contest
Birds chirping. Snow thawing. Groundhogs emerging. There are many signs of spring across the country. In Duluth, it’s when the season’s first oceangoing vessel, known as a “saltie,” enters the city’s harbor. Begone ice! The ships are coming in.
To celebrate the occasion, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority and Visit Duluth are partnering for the 42nd Annual First Ship Contest. Correctly guess when the season’s first saltie sails into our seaport and you could win an epic prize package of Duluth goods and experiences. The second-place winner will also receive a prize package.
Here’s the link: https://visitduluth.com/first-ship/
A second round of NOAA layoffs leaves weather
forecasts, Great Lakes science in limbo
Milwaukee, WI – Katy Frank worked all day Feb. 27 for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, revamping computer codes and scripts used to monitor lake conditions for the upcoming field season.
At the end of the day, her supervisor at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory warned her that colleagues had received emails saying they were fired. Frank and her boss sat at her computer, anxiously refreshing her email. Right before 4 p.m., an email came through saying she had been let go for “performance reasons.”
Frank, a computer scientist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, had worked at the Great Lakes laboratory as a university affiliate for years, and became a full-time federal employee just six months ago. She was one of eight people let go that day — 20% of the lab staff.
Her termination was part of the first round of layoffs in the Trump administration’s effort to wither the federal workforce. More than 1,200 staff members were lost due to firings, deferred resignations and retirements.
Another round is expected to begin Thursday.
Reports say that another 1,029 NOAA employees will be let go, bring the combined reduction to 20% of the agency’s workforce.
The federal agency, which sits in the U.S. Department of Commerce, is the nation’s dominant agency for weather research and climate science. It has broad responsibilities, from forecasting daily weather to monitoring natural disasters to tracking climate trends. Both the National Weather Service and the Storm Prediction Center are part of NOAA. Some activities, such as launching weather balloons, have already been suspended.
“The way these firings happened was really hurtful and harmful,” said Rebecca Knoche, the former Great Lakes regional coordinator at NOAA.
Knoche found out she was fired from the federal agency five minutes before boarding a plane home to Hayward, Wisconsin, following a work trip in Michigan. By the time Knoche’s plane landed, she had been locked out of her email.
Anyone who interacts with the Great Lakes will likely feel the impact of these firings, Frank said.
In the Great Lakes, NOAA monitors lake, weather and climate conditions, conducts scientific research and safeguards shipwrecks within its national marine sanctuaries. Frank worked with a coastal monitoring network that provides real-time information about what’s going on out in the lakes. She made sure that information got to the public.
For example, commercial freighters can use wind and wave data to help keep shipping traffic moving. Water managers can see if harmful blue-green algae blooms are polluting drinking water. Beachgoers, surfers, boaters and fishermen can see if it is safe to go out into the water, which is especially important as many Great Lakes beaches don’t have lifeguards.
Local agencies and city planners can also use the information to better understand coastal flooding and fluctuating lake levels. Sewerage districts can use information on weather patterns and rainfall to determine whether to initiate a sewer overflow.
What happens to that remains to be seen because scientists at the laboratory are highly specialized and stretched thin, Frank said.
People in the region will most likely see the biggest effects in weather forecasting, said Paul Roebber, a distinguished professor and atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Local weather offices are already understaffed, and many will likely be blended into offices that cover larger areas.
This kind of science is technically demanding, Roebber said. He’s worried that these moves will make it harder to attract students to do this work in the future.
Many people don’t object to making things more efficient, but “there are right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it,” Roebber said. “The way it’s going now is wrong.”
Knoche’s role as Great Lakes regional coordinator was to work with agencies and partners under NOAA’s umbrella. The National Weather Service is the most well-known; others include the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Estuarine Research Reserve. The estuarine research reserve is a network of 30 protected coastal areas throughout the country, including one near Lake Superior.
Another example of NOAA’s massive monitoring abilities in the region is the Great Lakes Observing System, or GLOS, which has sensors on the lakebed, buoys on the water, and satellites in orbit that provide real-time information on lake conditions. That information isn’t just for scientists, it’s for everyone interacting with the lakes at all levels.
A remotely operated vehicle helped scientists investigate the 40 newly discovered sinkholes at the bottom of Lake Michigan in the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. The camera-equipped robot dove more than 450 feet to the sinkholes on the lakebed.
The agency has been spearheading efforts to map the bottom of all the Great Lakes for several years. Less than 15% of the lakebeds have been mapped in high-resolution. A bipartisan group of lawmakers who represent Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Ohio and Illinois have been trying to pass a bill authorizing funding for the effort.
NOAA also distributes grants through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the landmark program that has helped restore and protect the Great Lakes.
Finally, the National Marine Sanctuary System, which protects 629,000 square miles of the oceans and Great Lakes, is under NOAA. There are three national marine sanctuaries in the Great Lakes: Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Lake Huron; Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary in Lake Michigan; and Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary, the newest in the lakes. A site has also been proposed in Lake Erie.
“The work isn’t going to stop, but everyone is going to have to find a way to move forward,” Knoche said.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Help Wanted: Interlake Logistics
Solutions Seeks Chief Engineer
The Interlake Logistics Solutions team has an immediate need for an experienced Chief Engineer Limited. More details about the position, pay and schedule can be found via the link below. You can apply directly through ADP and if you have additional questions and genuine interest, you can reach directly to General Manager Chuck Leonard at 231-590-8695 or cleonard@interlakems.com
