MONDAY MASHUP: Cleaning up the Great Lakes
"Find My Cleanup" is an interactive map that lets communities coordinate cleanup efforts. Photo: Great Lakes United
Great Lakes residents looking to lend a helping hand have a newly discovered resource at their fingertips.
An international coalition dedicated to restoring the region’s ecosystem has developed a mashup that allows users to post cleanup opportunities.
“Find My Cleanup” serves as a network for communities that coordinate restoration efforts.
The interactive map displays colored balloons with the date and times of upcoming projects throughout the Great Lakes region.
Click on the cleanup for details on who’s coordinating the event and a close-up of the location.
Great Lakes United encourages all groups and organizations to publicize their efforts. Upcoming events and recently added cleanups are displayed on left side of the home page.
“We” have been trying to clean up the Great Lakes since the very first Earth Day. We had some initial successes early on, but, since it has been a losing battle even tho we periodically re-resolve to clean up.
For instance, BP (British Petroleum) owns a huge refinery near Chicago that extracts oil from Canadian tar sands and oil shale, the most dirty forms of oil. A byproduct of this refinery is huge amounts of airborne mercury and other heavy metals being deposited in Lake Michigan, and they want to expand the refinery. Another battle being lost is the first of several sulfide metal mines that will be dug into the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of MI, WI, and MN. Yes WI, even tho they have temporarily banned sulfide mining, and yes, northern lower MI and MN, because the same geological strata exists there. All of those mines will be located near rivers which lead to the Great Lakes.
Currently, the sulfide metal mine being developed by Kennecott/Rio Tinto in the U.P. has been guaranteed not to fail or pollute by K/RT, and if it does they are ready to deal with any problems. Sound familiar? Echos of BP’s Deep Water Horizon? “The crown pillar will not collapse, guaranteed”, thus causing the Salmon Trout River to fall into the mine and when the mine is filled continue to overflow into Lake Superior carrying a toxic brew of sulfuric acid and heavy metals. Nope, there is a guarantee, even tho the State’s selected mining expert said that K/RT’s crown pillar design is deficient. The metal ores will be processed at a plant located at Humbolt MI, so, more airborne pollution of heavy metals will be released into waters flowing to the Great Lakes.
So, continue to resolve to clean up the Great Lakes because there will, be much to do just by the aforementioned mining and refining projects.
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