The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

A scientific principle used among climate change researchers that stresses adapting to the changing circumstances and the natural resources at hand rather than trying to engineer manmade solutions—like dams to maintain water levels in the Great Lakes. It entails paying attention to what has happened and what is happening in nature in order to predict what may occur in the future and devise better coping mechanisms.

In the olden times, ships use material like iron bars to serve as ballasts to balance ships in water. However, sailors realized that water serves as a heavy and low-cost ballast. Ships will carry ballast water in tanks, and then discharge the water when it is no longer needed. However, overseas freighters accidentally pick up hitchhikers, particularly invasive species like mussels and alewives, which are then released into the Great Lakes once these ships enter the U.S.

Despite the passage of the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency allows an exemption for ballast water, allowing these ships to continue to discharge water—and potentially invasive species—into the Great Lakes. Instead of installing expensive ballast water treatment systems, one of the easiest solutions to preventing further ecological distress to the Lakes is to ban the entry of overseas freight ships, as only a small number enter the U.