fish or swim

“The lame-duck Congress that returns to Washington today must pass crucial Great Lakes restoration legislation to ensure the health of the planet's largest freshwater ecosystem.†http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index. ... t_edi.html Click on the link below to write your Member of Congress. It takes less than 1 minute to do. http://www.environmentmichigan.org/acti ... -act/email More information on the Act http://www.environmentmichigan.org/grea ... ection-act http://www.healthylakes.org/category/po ... ection-act I haven’t been able to find out what date the vote is suppose to take place on.

Water tanks, live wells, bilge pumps all have to be winterized as well. Or at least checked to make sure they are self-draining. And just because they are suppose to be self-draining doesn't mean they actually are. $230 doesn't sound like a bad price, but I am not sure for how much work. If a reputable business did the work and you have a bill you have a recourse for them to cover the damages if there is a problem next spring, maybe. Ask them if they have a written document insuring their work. I wouldn't let anybody pump antifreeze into my boat and then tell me they have no responsibilty.

Over the last few months the scientists have had a chance to review all of the recent Asian Carp claims. It now seems that some political agendas were trying to produce some (or all) misleading stories. No offense is meant to the original post. It looks like they were trying to take us all for a ride. http://www.freep.com/article/20101010/S ... Asian-Carp

I am in complete agreement with the posts on here that say that lead can be bad for the environment and peoples' health. And I do agree that something should be done to reduce the amount of lead (and all heavy metals and toxic chemicals while we are it) in the environment. The problem with banning lead fishing equipment is it is not going to solve any of these problems. The amount of lead contamination that comes from fishing tackle is basically an insignificant factor. Like I stated before emissions are a huge problem plus a few others-mining. The heavy metals leave the coal stacks (and other sources) travel through the air and end up in the water, in the rivers and lakes. As the metals travel up the food chain they become increasingly concentrated in the top predators. Saying that birds are getting lead poisoning from eating lead sinkers is really not accurate. But it makes for exciting headlines in the news so these so-called 'environmental' groups try to take advantage of that for publicity and fund raising purposes. Don't take some 7 post new guy's word for it (mine). Look it all up. It is widely documented. Take a careful look at the numbers from the mining and coal industry. Then look at the fishing equipment numbers. Specifically the amount of equipment that is lost every year and the amount that actually makes it into a bird's mouth. That should give a bit of a shocking idea of the scope of the problem. We don't have to wait for regulations to try and fix this problem. We can conserve energy around the house and be careful with purchases of all potentially dangerous materials as a way to try and help out. I have been doing these things for years. I haven't seen that the world change because of my actions but I will continue to do it anyways.

Help Fight Unreasonable Bans on Fishing Tackle From the American Sportfishing Association http://www.asafishing.org/government/po ... 92910.html "On Wednesday, September 28, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) introduced S.3850, which seeks to prevent an overarching federal ban on lead in recreational fishing tackle. If enacted, this ban will have a significant economic impact on the recreational fishing industry. To ensure support for this crucial legislation, please contact your Senators urging them to co-sponsor Senator Lincoln’s bill. It is important that industry members send comments." How You Can Help "To ensure support for this crucial legislation, please contact your Senators urging them to co-sponsor Senator Lincoln’s bill. It is important that industry members send comments. Please enter your zip code below, which will direct you a message that you can send to your Senators asking them to support S.3850." http://www.capwiz.com/asafish/issues/al ... 06&type=CO Follow the instructions in the link, it is easy. The amount of lead in the environment from fishing equipment is tiny compared to other sources. The heavy metal emissions from coal fired generating plants is measured in kilotons, thousands of tons per year. And these emissions are one of the most dangerous forms of lead and other heavy metals. Whether or not the fishing equipment is banned isn’t going to make a significant difference to the environment.

"So does ban on lead mean litrally every lure out there will be illegal?" Yes, lead, brass contains about 1% lead, the coloring in plastic may contain lead. All of them should be banned according to the petition that was sent to the EPA.

Why is this just an attack on lead fishing equipment and not a ban on lead everything everywhere? I would guess that there is 100 or 1000 times as much lead used in industry than is used in sporting goods (fishing equipment).

Yes, I wish some people would have a bit more respect for the outdoors as well. Thank you for helping out.

Find My Cleanup is a community resource that will help connect people to the watershed cleanups happening in their neighborhoods. Visit http://www.findmycleanup.org/ today and submit your clean up event or find out if there is a cleanup taking place in your region. This is a new resource and we would appreciate your help in making it as useful as possible. Please Forward this email to a friend and encourage them to tell us about the cleanups happening in their region! http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=b501 ... 514bb94b7d

Here are some links for updates http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/AIS/Default.aspx?tabid=393 bottom of the page Many articals on this site http://www.glu.org/en/asiancarp http://www.glu.org/sites/default/files/ ... _feb10.pdf

Weekly Great Lakes Water Level Update for March 19, 2010 http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/greatlake ... terlevels/

On the website https://sites.google.com/site/stopasiancarp/ there is a 2 page poster available explaining the Asian Carp problem. Print the poster and ask your local bait shop, marine store etc to put them up. The more people that are educated about the problem the stronger our voice will be. There is also spot at the bottom of the poster with the link to the http://stopasiancarp.com/ petition. As of last week there were 85,000 signatures. There needs to be many more. Poster Link https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2 ... NWQx&hl=en Thanks for your help.

On Monday, February 8 there will be an Asian Carp Summit at the White House, Washington, DC. There will be many political leaders there and some critical decisions may be made concerning this issue. Now is the time to let these leaders know your views on this issue. If you haven’t already signed this petition please do so. Get your family members and friends to sign it as well. It is meant for anyone in the Great Lakes area and beyond to sign. This is the link to the petition. It is a different one than is already posted on this site. http://www.stopasiancarp.com/ If any one has other petitions that they know of please post them here. As well contact your member of Congress and two Senators. If you have already done this please do it again. Even if you expect to get a form type response or even no response at all it is important to create as much volume of letters and phone calls as possible. This lets them know there are many people concerned about this issue. If anyone is not familiar with the Asian carp problem this link gives a full explanation. Asian Carp Management http://www.asiancarp.org/rapidresponse/ Threat to the Great Lakes http://www.asiancarp.org/rapidresponse/ ... threat.htm Please copy this to other fishing sites that you may visit.