Lake Erie News

Enjoy a day of stirring music, ice cream and desserts and local history Saturday, July 14, at the Wolcott Keeper’s House, 9999 E. Bayshore Road in Marblehead.
Tours of the 1820s stone house of Marblehead Lighthouse’s first keepers, Benajah and Rachel Wolcott, begin at 10 a.m. Ottawa County Historical Society volunteers will offer desserts and Toft’s ice cream from 11 a.m. and dulcimer performer Tracie Henson will perform traditional music from noon to 2 p.m. The 65-piece North Coast Concert Band will perform at 2 p.m. in the natural amphitheater behind the house, featuring rousing marches, dazzling soloists and contemporary arrangements.

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science issued the first-ever seasonal harmful algal bloom forecast for Lake Erie at an all-day press event Thursday at Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory. The forecast predicts a mild bloom, similar to conditions last seen in 2007 and about one-tenth the size of last year’s bloom.
“A mild bloom is great news for this year,” said Dr. Jeffrey Reutter, Director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory. “But this is happening because we’re in a drought, not because phosphorus loading to Lake Erie has improved. If we have a real wet spring in 2013, we could be right back to where we were.”

Have you been noticing giant black plumes of smoke in the sky around Lake Erie lately? The local Pheasants Forever chapter and the Ottawa Soil & Water Conservation District have been conducting prescribed burns as a fundamental part of the Lake Erie Cooperative Weed Management Area program. This program aims to protect, restore, and enhance the Western Lake Erie Basin landscape and wetlands by coordinating efforts to identify, prevent and control invasive species.