The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

Having lived near two great lakes in my life (Lakes Erie and Michigan), I was dying to know what was going on. Thiw was informative and read like a novel. My only complaint: not enough graphs, maps, and no timeline.

I have always been a fan of the Great Lakes, especially Lakes Michigan and Superior. My family has always loved fishing in the lakes. I never realized how much in peril the lakes are. This book was an eye opener.

One of the best books written about the The Great Lakes water system and invasive species now inhabiting them. Well written and very informative. I spend every summer sailing these waters and have seen first hand the changes these species have caused to these precious fresh waters. This book not only covers the science of it, but also the politics and actions of the effected states in managing these Lakes concerning the history, commercial shipping, fishing, recreation and conservation. Loved reading this book and learned a lot of great information that was not only current but very accurate and well researched.

Very i nformative and thought provoking
I will not look at Lake Michigan with the same eyes, This book should be required reading for all students of political science as well as environmental sciences and anyone who loves the great fresh water lakes which nurture us

Any midwesterner drawing water from the Great Lakes will appreciate this thoughtful and well-researched book. At times a bit ponderous with detail, Egan could have written with a stronger narrative or in a more personal way (which he does at the very end with a touching story about his young son), but this book is still worth reading and informative. As a Chicagoan I care deeply about the health of the Great Lakes. Mr. Egan does, too.

Pretty amazing story and lessons on the unanticipated consequences of human activities. It's too bad for this country that the people currently in charge of decision-making in the federal government are unlikely to read this or anything remotely like it now or ever.

Having lived,vacationed and traveled around the Great Lakes most of my life, I have gained a much deeper understanding and appreciation for these spectacular inland seas. One of the most enjoyable, informative and hopeful books I've read in my lifetime.

Wonderful account of the history of our relationship with the Great Lakes. Very interesting how the Great Lakes have changed and adapted, or simply survived in the face of society's dependency on the Lakes. Now it is more important than ever to recognize this vital resource in light of worsening perils and threats to the health and vitality of these majestic Lakes.

The content of the book is very good, but the binding of the book separated from the pages. At one month, old it is a book without a cover. As a customer I am very disappointed with the product and with the store's service.

Dan Egan's "The Death and Life of the Great Lakes" is a sweeping chronicle of North America's largest fresh-water lakes and the environmental threats they face. Tracing their geological history, from the end of the last ice-age some 10,000 years ago, to today's troubling headlines, Egan explores man's impact on one of the World's most precious resources: fresh-water. Well written and meticulously researched the book is endlessly fascinating with the author's hand-on approach of traveling to many locations and interviewing the people who live and/or work in these affected areas. The problems started with the building of some bypass-canals in an attempt to link the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and the world of international shipping. Done with the best,
of intentions in the mid 19th Century, these canals would allow goods from all over the World direct access to our "inland seas" and the communities who crowd their shores. Sounds like a good plan, right? Problem is; these canals not only served as a pathway for world commerce they were also a perfect avenue for any invasive organisms that happened that way. Whether these organisms swam, drifted or hitched a ride in the ballast of a cargo ship, they came in vast numbers from all over the Atlantic Seaboard and beyond. And they were unstoppable! I really enjoyed reading Dan Egan's marvelous book on the history and ecology of the Great Lakes. Written for the layman reader in clear, non technical prose, Egan starts out with their origins at the end of the last Ice Age. But it's man's impact on The Lakes, both intentional and non-intentional, that makes up the bulk of the book. The only connection between The Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean is the St. Lawrence River so any unwanted organisms would have a hard time getting past the many rapids and of course Niagara Falls. The early 19th Century governments of the United States and Canada wanted to open the area to worldwide shipping as a boost to the local economies and improve both commercial and recreational fishing. To that end it was decided to construct a series of canals that would allow the passage of deep-sea ships through a series of locks. There were a few dissenting voices heard but but those voices were largely ignored by the two governments and the canals were made available to overseas shipping concerns and the doorway to The Great Lakes was opened wide. At first everything worked fine but it wasn't long before environmental problems began to crop up. Foreign organisms, fish, algae, ect, found free passage to The Lakes on the hulls, and in the ballast tanks, of deep sea ships and, it turns out, the locks were largely ineffectual in stopping the invasion. Biologists and fishermen began noticing some strange fish in their catches. unfamiliar shell-fish and algae blooms added to the warning signs, but to no avail. Adding to the problem was the sewage discharge from coastal communities and and over application of fertilizer by farming concerns. It's a battle that continues to this very day. I was amazed at some of the suggestions made by professional biologists and by politicians, in both countries, to "fix" the problems. Also amazing was the connection between The Great Lakes and the Mississippi River and bodies of water even further west, it truly is a small world. I wholly recommend this book to anyone interested in the ecology and and social impact that can occur when Man tries to "improve" on Nature and how short sighted some scientists and governments can be. I received this Kindle edition free through the Good Reads Giveaway program. There were no technical or downloading issues with this edition.

Last Ranger

If you need water to live (and regardless of where your home is) you really need to read this book... Dan's work plays out like a slow burn sci-fi novel with the steady progression of "man-versus-nature" towards "man-versus-man." The punch in the gut is when you remember that this is non-fiction.

the store discontinued:
a) its discussion boards,
b) reporting the number of helpful votes for a review,
c) reporting the number of votes for a review,
d) reporting the number of helpful votes for a comment post inside a review and,
e) reporting the total number of votes for a comment post inside a review.

These features greatly enhanced the quality of books I purchased, and enhanced the context within which I read books. the store loses its advantage over other retailers by removing these features. I was unable to google an article on why the store emasculated its customers. Therefore, this is my last review at the store unless these features come back. I'm now headed to my nearest brick and mortar book store to buy some more books.

Here's my review of this book:

Dan Egan is an expert. He’s an expert journalist and that expertise is well-demonstrated here, both in the quality of his writing and the framework he develops to tell this story. Egan leans heavy on the history, economics, and especially, scientific perspectives that explain the present ecological state of the Great Lakes.

Jerry Dennis’ prior book on the Great Lakes, The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas, made it a challenge for subsequent authors to cover the current state of the Great Lakes without being redundant to Dennis’ more comprehensive coverage. I think Egan pulls that off spectacularly; especially in his treatment of Lake Erie which Dennis covered so extensively. So Egan’s readers are presented with the current state of Lake Erie while those who read Dennis’ book still don’t have to re-hash much of what’s covered in Egan’s book.

One of Egan’s best perspectives is that of the public and how far removed their perspectives are, and sometimes even in denial of, what economists and scientists understand about the Great Lakes. That helps explain the horrendous public policies that impact the health of the Great Lakes.

A good example is the economic impact of invasive species such as the zebra and quagga mussels. Egan reveals that the costs extend far beyond the Great Lakes region, even impacting the maintenance costs of infrastructure located in the Colorado River Basin. That enormously negative external cost relative to the modest supply chain benefit of allowing ocean-tankers entry to the Great Lakes. I’m confident most people, if asked what the cost/benefit analysis is, would argue the exact opposite of what the actual result is. That would include me prior to reading Egan’s book, in spite of my being sensitive to the marginal impacts of public policy and the presence of negative and positive external costs.

So thank-you Mr. Egan for changing some of my positions to defensible ones.

My biggest complaint here is similar to my frustration with the Dennis book. That’s the lack of coverage for Lakes Superior and Ontario. I’d especially love to find a book that focuses exclusively on Lake Superior.

One fortunate result of reading The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is how I can better understand current events reporting on Great Lakes issues. Especially the efforts to contain the invasive Asian Carp threat. Egan’s book provides a better tool set to evaluate the efficacy of efforts promoted by experts and politicians reported in the news. So the benefit of reading this book doesn’t end with the last page.

Thank you Dan for teaching me so much! Fantastic research and thorough explanations of the mess we have made of the Great Lakes. I am born/raised in Milwaukee, WI and a graduate of both UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison - I am so embarrassed to say how little I knew about these lakes. This book should be required reading for ALL students who live in the Great Lakes basin so that they are motivated to protect and preserve it. With our consumer-focused and sportsman-minded actions, we have destroyed a rare fresh-water ecosystem that is struggling to regain itself with little, if any, help from us humans. I was nauseated to learn that "exotic" Pacific salmon were added to the lakes because fisherman would enjoy the feisty-fight once it was on the end of the fishing line struggling for its life - this is our goal or happiness? People sitting on their butts waiting for their 'highlight' of the day: death-fearing fish fighting for their lives giving these folks a decent upper body workout, in between a beer or insulin shot, to help them feel like a real man? Oh no.

No matter where you live in the U.S., you can learn something about the lake and river geography of your area from this excellent book. Of course, the emphasis is on the Great Lakes basin – but the flow of water into and out of that basin directly affects a huge part of the U.S. What's more, the lessons learned by the different attempts that have historically been made to dam these waters, to stock them with fish, to clean them, to dredge them - can inform the way water is manipulated anywhere in the world. Dan Egan narrates the fluctuations these efforts have brought about in a clear, highly readable way.

Even if you don't have a shoreline house or don't currently care much about how pollution and temperature change is affecting U.S. waterways, you're likely to find this book interesting. In addition to providing a lot of widely applicable information about the waves of change that have affected the Great Lakes, Egan peppers his work with fascinating tidbits of history, biology, and chemistry.

He tells about the tragedy of the Eastland, the ship that tipped over, killing 844 people at Chicago's pier in the early 1900's. This biggest of all maritime disasters actually eclipsed the tragedy of the Titanic that had taken place a few years earlier. But with grim irony, it was the sinking of the Titanic that contributed to the Eastland's fate. Because so many of the casualties among the Titanic's passengers were caused by an insufficiency of lifeboats, it was mandated that all ships be stocked with additional lifeboats in the future. But it was exactly the weight of these additional lifeboats that made the Eastland extra tipsy.

In another chapter, Egan tells about the high-security genetic experiments that are taking place to insert an extra gene in the DNA of the carp that are threatening to invade the Great Lakes. This extra gene would prevent the carp from becoming females. Unlike with humans, the default sex for carp is male. A certain enzyme is needed to turn them into fertile females. The extra gene would prevent this enzyme from being produced. However, the gene is being designed so that its effects will fade after passing through three generations of fish – so there'll be no danger of the extreme eventuality of that species of carp going extinct.

There is a good deal of information about the alterations that Chicago has made to its waterways over the years, including the complete reversal of one of its rivers. I'd taken numerous tours of the Chicago River and had heard lectures about this major engineering feat – but I didn't really understand the geography of the process until I read about it here.

So there's something for everyone in these pages. Once you start this book, you'll want to go with its flow.

Scary! Written by Dan Egan and Published by W.W. Norton in 2017, this book describes the effects of human activities on the Great Lakes of North America. Climate change deniers should read this book to learn how human activity not only can alter the earth in major ways, but how it already has. The scope of the book includes more than just the Great Lakes. To demonstrate the interconnection between the Lakes and other bodies of water in the United States, the author also discusses Lakes Meade and Powell in the West, Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, and the entire Mississippi River drainage basin from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He also addresses the threat to the Columbia River Basin.

Mr. Egan’s research is meticulous and comprehensive. His writing is easy to read and understand. He is able to make complex concepts understandable. He has included all of the major invasive species infestations that have affected the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, such as the Mississippi River and Lake Meade in Nevada. He describes the failed efforts to prevent Zebra and Quagga Mussels from invading Lake Powell in Utah, and the likely-to-fail efforts to prevent the same invasion of the Columbia River Basin. He describes many of the various invaders: Sea Lamprey, Alewife, Zebra and Quagga Mussel, Asian Carp, Round Goby, Spiny Water Flea, and several others, along with several species of invasive plants.

He tells us how it all happened, and how our institutions of government have failed so utterly to protect us from the ravages of these invasions. It all began with the completion of the Erie Canal between Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, with Buffalo, New York, on Lake Erie, in 1825. This canal allowed species from the Atlantic Ocean to gain access to the great lakes, but not in any great number that was observed. The Welland Canal, completed in 1829, added another access route for invasive species. Designed to allow ships to bypass Niagara Falls, it connects Lakes Erie and Ontario. Built and managed by Canada, it provided another avenue into the upper Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean. But it was the St. Lawrence Seaway, completed in 1969, that drove the final nail into the coffin of the Great Lakes. Ocean-going freighters (called “salties” by locals) were able to enter the lakes all the way to America’s heartland: Duluth, Minnesota on the western tip of Lake Superior. These ships must carry “ballast” in order to maintain their stability under differing load conditions, and the most efficient ballast is water. All of these ships have multiple large ballast tanks that are pumped full of water and emptied when needed. Water ballast from places like the Caspian and Black Seas, and a multitude of other places, has been routinely dumped into Great Lakes harbors for almost five decades. With that water came the invasive species that now inhabit the Great Lakes and have destroyed a great fishery of their native fish.

Egan describes the “front door” and the “back door” to the Great Lakes. The front door consists of the Erie Canal, the Welland Canal, and the St. Lawrence Seaway. The back door consists of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects the Chicago River and the Des Plains River that flows into the Illinois River, and eventually into the Mississippi River. Built originally as a drain for Chicago’s sewage that had been flowing into Lake Michigan, it opened in 1900, and it reversed the flow of the Chicago River. This, then became another route of access between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin. Built and controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Corps’ commanding generals have steadfastly refused to implement any effective measures to halt the spread of Asian Carp from the river system to the Great Lakes. Its priority has been shipping and commerce — not the health of the Great Lakes. This is also true for the Welland Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

I did not find many inconsistencies or editing errors in the book. One exception was on page #94, where the author describes how the introduction of Coho salmon into Lake Michigan “would trigger one of the greatest spikes in outdoor motor sales in industry history.” I’m not sure what an outdoor motor is. Perhaps the author meant outboard motor . . . Also, in his fifth chapter, Mr. Egan asserts that the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal was the back door to the Great Lakes, and he implies that it is/was the only back door. I believe that the first actual back door was the canal between the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers at Portage, Wisconsin. By the late 1840s, a waterway that allowed the passage of canoes between the two rivers was in operation, and by 1876 the Army Corps of Engineers had completed a canal that was suitable for shipping at 75 feet wide, 2.5 miles long, and 7 feet deep. It had a set of locks at both ends, and a current flowed from the Wisconsin to the Fox River. Certainly, if ships and canoes could travel between the Wisconsin River (which empties into the Mississippi River) and the Fox River (which empties into Green Bay on Lake Michigan), then fish could do the same. The Chicago Canal might be the biggest back door threat to the Great Lakes, but it wasn’t the first. I am surprised that an author who has spent as much of his life in Wisconsin as Mr. Egan has, either was not aware of this bit of history, or chose not to include it in his otherwise very comprehensive book.

I liked this book, and I think you will, too. It is chock full of a portion of our country’s history that most Americans are unaware of, but should be. Our country’s EPA and Corps of Engineers have still not moved aggressively enough to protect our Great Lakes, perhaps the most valuable asset in the world, and we should be worried about that. Water will soon be more valuable than oil.

I didn't get around to reading this book till last week. I can't remember why I didn't read it before, this is an important and concerning book on the Great Lakes. It is primarily concerned with invasive species and their ecological impact, although also the impacts of pollution from sewage, agriculture and lawn run off, and one section concerns interest elsewhere in the country in Great Lakes water (such as Arizona). The writing is excellent, and most resembles science journalism. Egan loves the Lakes and his passion for them comes through and saturates the book.

The most famous invasive would be the sea lamprey, which has decimated most of what was left of the native fishery (based on whitefish, lake trout and other fish). Egan chronicles how the Welland Canal, the Erie Canal and the St Lawrence Seaway have been awful in their impact, of ships from abroad emptying ballast in the Lakes and with it, dangerous invasives (he argues we have not been effective in prevention and that the trade is so small that simply requiring cargo be transferred to trains would be worth it). The lamprey is now within reasonable control, a fascinating story.

Then comes the alewife invasion, growing to astronomical numbers, and the effort to stock the Lakes with Coho and Chinook salmon, turning a commercial fishery, what was left of it, into a sport fishery. That prospered and then largely collapsed. The is the quagga and zebra mussel invasion, which exist in prodigious numbers. They filter water making it more clear than it has been in decades, but also filter out most of the plankton at the bottom of the food chain, altering the ecology all the way up. The mussels can clog pipes, intakes to water and power plants, and are expanding west, now affecting many rivers and reservoirs (Lake Mead, Lake Powell).

Then there are the carp--grass carp, fathead carp and others--headed for the Lakes. Their future is possibly to become toe world's largest carp pond. Egan's description of how the infestation started and has spread is the best I have read about it anywhere, and explains why a fish few people take seriously really is a serious threat. As noted above, there's a good section on people outside the Lakes area greedily eyeing all that water; at this time there's a Lakes state compact (of the Lakes states and Canadian provinces) aimed at preventing that, but the compact may not really be constitutional.

The book somehow manages to end with some optimism. He notes that Lake Erie empties about every 2.5 years (that is, water flows in and out and takes that long to completely cycle), so there is the possibility of regeneration. There is also some evidence of fast evolution of native species accommodating the huge changes in the ecosystem brought by the mussels and other invasives.

Whether or not you are one of the 40 million people living within the Great Lakes region this is a must read. The five Great Lakes comprise 20% of the earths fresh water and they have been under assault for 200 years. Four of the five Great Lakes are 600 feet above sea level which protected them from outside ecological influence until canals and locks enabled the invasion of foreign species released in ballast from outside the region. The author does a magnificent job of describing the history of the lakes, their destruction from multiple invasive species, efforts made to restore ecological balance and the unintended consequences of dredging in the st Clair river and the reversed flow of the chicago river. The author provides the reader with a wealth of information that is scientific yet understandable for the average reader. The biggest threat to the Great Lakes is yet to come; an increasing dearth of drinking water and the political pressure to pipe water from the lakes.

This book is a comprehensive, easy to read analysis of what has been going wrong with the Great Lakes over the past 200 years. Invasive species, change in water flow, and other man made mishaps have all taken its toll. It's a wonder these lakes have held up as well as they have. But more than this the author does a great job in explaining how water flows through the lakes and how each lake differs from the others. You might think it sounds all techie and boring but the author breaks things down into easily understood pieces. Thankfully at the end, just when you thought all hope is lost, the author gives a few glimmers of hope.

Bottom line: one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. Required reading.

I ordered two copies of this fantastic book after just finishing a library copy. It is that good! I want everyone to read it.
Being a gal from upstate NY and going to college along the St. Lawrence there in the 60's, I never knew all these
fascinating details about the St. Lawrence Seaway. We all thought it was the BEST idea to build the seaway---and it
turns out that it was one of the worst ideas ever conceived.

There is so much information included which applies to everyone in all states. Who knew that invasive, nasty quagga mussels
could adhere to a boat hull in Lake Michigan and hitch a ride into Lake Mead, reproduce and cause billions of dollars of
problems. There is a $5000 fine for transporting those mussels and launching a boat into Utah lakes!!

This book is a page-turner. Who would think one could say this about a book titled: "The Death and Life of the Great Lakes".
The author deserved the Pulitzer prize.

Dan Egan's book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes was distressing to read. I know these lakes. I have lived near the Great Lakes for almost 50 years. I grew up along the Niagara River and have lived 40 years in Michigan--including seven years living near Lake Michigan, three years so close I heard the sound of the waves day and night.

I have seen the lakes die and become reborn and die again. I remember in the 1970s when the water at the base of Niagara Falls foamed with brown-yellow froth from pollution. I remember when shallow Lake Erie was declared dead; the wonder of its rebirth; now its waters have become poisonous.

We have wrecked havoc with the beautiful and perfect ecosystem. We have made decisions based on capital gain, without foresight or thought about our actions' impact on the natural balance. We have altered the landscape to serve our need, heedless of the consequences.

We dug canals, opened the Lakes to world-wide shipping, dumped industrial and agricultural waste into their waters. Non-native species, by accident or intent, were brought in and allowed to become established and alter the ecosystem.

And in the big picture we have contributed to a climate change that threatens the Lakes as their waters remain warm and ice free in winter, promoting evaporation and lowering lake levels.

Lake Superior shipwreck of Gale Staples
near Hurricane River and Au Sable Lighthouse
My husband and son camped in the Upper Peninsula in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They knew the lake levels were dropping. The shipwrecks along the Superior coast between the Hurricane River campground and the Au Sable lighthouse were more exposed every year. The Sitka had been underwater when they first saw it. The next year it was exposed. The cold waters of Lake Superior preserves the shipwrecks; exposure will speed their decay.
*****
Egan's book explains how we got to 'here': a Lake Michigan so devoid of life you can see deep into its waters; a Lake Erie covered in poisonous algae that makes the water undrinkable; lake levels dropping, evaporation increasing. And the whole country itching to get a share of the water. Canada's decisions also impact what happened, or does not happen, to the lakes. Had they closed the 'front door' to allow foreign ships direct access into the Lakes the introduction of alien species would have been stemmed.

The Lakes were a 'closed system', an ecosystem developed and perfected in isolation since the glacial melt created them at the end of the last ice age. In "The Front Door" section Egan explains how the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Welland Canal, and even the Erie Canal opened the door to non-native species. The native Lake Trout were killed off by Sea Lampreys. Alewives found their way into the lakes and flourished, replacing native species, Coho and Chinook Salmon were brought in to feed off the Alewives. The Salmon were chosen over restocking native fish because sportsmen preferred them. For a time the Winter Water Wonderland of Michigan offered some of the best fishing around. Then--the Salmon ate all the Alewives and were left starving.

The next wave of invaders were the Zebra and Quagga Mussels. Inedible to native fish, they flourished in the lakes and quickly covered everything. Literally. Including the inflow pipes that provided drinking water and water for industry. The costs for controlling the mussels is mind boggling.

The second part of the book, "The Back Door," tells how Asian Carp are waiting in the Chicago Canal System to invade Lake Michigan; how mussels were carried from the Great Lakes to invade pristine Western Lakes; and addresses the Toledo Water Crisis, created when the Black Swamp was drained and turned into the lush farmland whose fertilizers are carried into the lake to feed the algae.

In Part Three, "The Future," Egan explains how climate change, the bottling of lake water, and the diversion of the water to 'dry' states will impact the future of the Lakes.

The final chapter addresses ways to move into a sustainable future for the Great Lakes.

My son at Lake Superior near the shipwreck Gale Staples
America already is facing a water crisis as glacial ground water is used up and changing weather patterns bring drought. It is urgent that we address how to protect our most important resource--the Lakes, which comprise 20% of the world's fresh water--before it is truly too late.

Egan's book lays out the history and the problems we have wrought in the past. Can we--will we--preserve and restore the Great Lakes? Our new presidential administration with its ties to business is unfriendly to science. The plan to gut the EPA and defund programs to protect out water will have devastating consequences to our most precious natural resource.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Humankind’s intelligence grows by leaps and bounds, but our wisdom invariably lags behind. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is a prime example of the damage we humans do when our brains (usually fueled by greed) get too far out in front. Dan Egan’s book is so densely packed with facts that it is hard to summarize, but his stellar writing makes for spellbinding reading as he unfurls an environmental whodunnit that twists and turns and evolves and continues to unfold today.

The Great Lakes form a huge 300,000 square mile inland fresh water sea. This unique body of water, incredibly rich in wildlife and fisheries, was “ecologically naive” meaning the lakes had never been exposed to invading organisms; hence they had never developed an environmental “immune system”. That all changed when human efforts opened Great Lakes doors to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River. The domino effect, defined as one event setting off a chain of similar events doesn’t quite work to describe what has happened to the Great Lakes after they were opened up to other bodies of water. I think a better term is cause and effect chain. Each cause’s effect can in turn be a new cause for another effect, and so on.

Front Door: Ontario is the only great lake below the massive Niagara Falls at Lake Erie’s east end. East of Lake Ontario the Saint Lawrence River violently descends to the Lachine Rapids near Montreal and onward to the Atlantic—the total drop from Erie to ocean—over 413 miles. After many false starts and over a century, engineers made a connection from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes via the Welland Canal and St. Lawrence locks. In the meantime DeWitt Clinton spearheaded the building of the Erie Canal which connected Lake Erie to the Hudson River, thereby providing access to and from New York Harbor.

Front door access opened the way for lampreys, an Atlantic eel-like bloodsucker to invade the lakes. The lamprey attaches to its victim’s stomach—in this case Great Lakes native Lake Trout and Whitefish whose populations were decimated. Scientists developed a targeted poison to purge the Lamprey.

Also swimming up the waterways were small Atlantic River Herring or Alewifes. Though the Alewifes bred prolifically (there were now few predators), they were not well suited to a full life cycle in fresh water, and so they also died prolifically, piling up in huge mounds on lake shores. Fishery experts needed to restock the lakes with Alewife predators.

The door was also open for international freighters to sail into the Great Lakes. Seawater was used as ballast to stabilize these ships when their cargo holds were empty and was later discharged as the ships took on cargo. The effect was that suddenly the lakes were invaded by organisms from exotic locales that stowed away in the bilge water. The chief culprits were Zebra and Quagga Mussels. While fishery scientists were restocking the lakes—with non-native breeds of salmon, considered “sexier” than the native fish in that they grew large fast and put up a magnificent fight when reeled in, the mussels were colonizing the lake bottoms and affixing themselves to every available surface, wreaking havoc on industrial and municipal water intake pipes and costing millions of dollars to protect infrastructure. The salmon stocking was successful and for some years the lakes were an angler’s paradise, bringing a huge economic boost to the region. It couldn’t last. The mussels were gobbling up the zooplankton that the alewives fed on while the salmon were gobbling up the alewives themselves. Soon the alewife population crashed as did the stocked salmon’s.

Back Door: There was only a short marshy divide between Mississippi tributaries and the tiny Chicago River that once fed into Lake Michigan. It took almost 200 years but humans breached it, first with a barge canal and then with the larger, deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) in 1900. Besides allowing larger craft to pass, the CSSC was designed to flush Chicago sewage from Lake Michigan into the Mississippi watershed. The CSSC actually reversed the course of the Chicago River to flow out of instead of into Lake Michigan.

The back door fight has mostly consisted of keeping Mississippi River creatures out of Lake Michigan and has been predominantly fought against non-native Asian carp, first introduced in the US to clean farm ponds and weed-infested waterways. But it’s more complicated than that—Egan reports that scientists have identified 39 invasive species poised to ride the CSSC into or out of the Great Lakes. This ongoing battle has been fought with electric barriers, selective poisoning of stretches of waterway, and more recently DNA sampling to monitor progress of unwanted species. Proposals have been made to plug the unnatural barrier between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi watershed altogether.

The author describes other issues related to the Great Lakes including the ongoing dumping and run-off of phosphorous that causes dangerous, even deadly algae issues. He relates how invasive mussels have hitched rides on recreational boats and their trailers and have contaminated western US bodies of water and he discusses the role of climate change on the lakes.
Still, Egan offers some degree of hope for the future. A small fish called the Round Goby is now living in the Great Lakes and it specializes in crunching through mussel shells. With the Goby as bait and with the Alewives no longer feasting on Whitefish eggs, Great Lakes Whitefish have rebounded. The Whitefish have also adapted their stomach muscles to digest mussel shell.

Dan Egan’s newspaper background obviously served him well in researching, organizing, and prioritizing his wealth of material, but the telling of the story in a manner that reads like a novel, reveals his unparalleled writing skill. I highly recommend this book. Having lived a good part of my life near the shores of Lake Erie, I was amazed at how little of the story I knew.

It's hard to describe how a book about sea lampreys and algae blooms can be so compelling and suspenseful, but Dan Egan did it. In this book, we see disaster after disaster unfolding in slow motion as individual hubris, community complacency, and industry greed conspire to destroy a precious natural resource.

In short, the history of the Great Lakes comes in three parts. In Act One, amazing feats of engineering grant Man the ability to mold nature to his will: to open new seacoasts, reverse rivers, and turn swamps into fertile farmland. In Act Two, the unintended consequences of these actions wreak havoc on communities of the Great Lakes and beyond-- rivers light on fire, Toledo drinks poison, tons of rotting fish wash ashore, and new infestations destroy America's water infrastructure. Act Three brings hope in the form of stronger regulations, new technologies, and the resilience of Mother Nature. Simple policy changes could quarantine destructive species and prevent new disasters. Genetic engineering may finally remove invasive species, intricate hydrological models can help control affects of climate change and erosion, and advanced water treatment can purge dangerous ballast water entering the Great Lakes. And when nature is no longer under constant attack, we can see fish adapting to new diets and native populations growing again. Egan also gives us a scary peek at Act Four: Water Wars.

Unlike Egan and his son, I've never fished on the Great Lakes, but I've enjoyed their sandy beaches, beautiful islands, tributaries, and waterfalls. It's impossible to live in the Midwest and not feel a sense of stewardship over the water system that has shaped its history, fed its industry, and provides so much joy. This book captures that interdependency and presents solutions to protect the ecological, agricultural, and medical health of the Great Lakes communities in the decades to come.

Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is stunning. Its meticulous research and documentation of the seemingly eternal glacial relicts takes one on a journey that reveals how careless ballasting, thoughtless planning and regulations have brought these magnificent lakes to the brink of biological extinction and microbial demise. Step by step, stroke by stroke, this journalistic limner exposes the decisions, flaws and bureaucratic blunders that now menace one of the geological wonders of this country. It is painful exposé, yet, he provides portals for change, venues of recovery and solutions that a receptive governance can adopt to resuscitate the waters. He blows the warning shofar with the anticipation that it will be heard in time both by local and national legislators, but his very personal message exhorts all citizenry to action. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes should be read by all who wonder and marvel at nature and its terrible beauty and want to preserve it.
A. Colón, MA, Phd, MD

Quite a few years ago, as a child growing up in the Cleveland, Ohio area, a favorite expedition was with my Dad and Uncle Frank to Lake Erie’s waterfront.  We'd fish for whatever might be biting, which at that time tended to be blue pike and yellow perch (which are so rare now they're almost collectors' items).    Since I left for college in New Jersey and then settled in California, I’ve had zero days of fishing on Lake Erie or any other of the Great Lakes.  But from popular news accounts, family, and friends, I was aware of some of the changing identities of the lakes’ major personalities, such as the invasive zebra mussel and the stocked coho and chinook salmon as well as the threatening Asian Carp.

Each of the aforementioned non-natives are discussed, as well as others in The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan, a reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  It’s a lively, very well written survey of the non-native creatures of the Great Lakes, along with comments on related scientific research and politics.  It could be called a natural history book, even though the non-native species are uniformly introduced through man’s actions, some intentional, some not.

The subject of non-native species in the Great Lakes is non-trivial, as they've cost utilities, municipalities, former commercial fishermen, and other lake users $$$Billions in lost income, cleanup, increased maintenance, re-engineering, etc.  And the costs aren't confined to the Great Lakes - zebra and quagga mussels are working their way west, fouling water and inconveniencing boaters to the tune of many $$$Millions.

The book covers a lot of ground as may be evident from some of the sources the author weaved into the story:  University of Michigan’s Institute for Fisheries Research, Boston Society of Natural History, Cornell’s National Aquatic Nuisance Species Clearing House, the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish Farming Experimental Lab (!, itself an endangered species), and Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative, among others.

In short, Egan's book is an intelligent, balanced, and highly readable report on many of the more popular or vexing inhabitants of the Great Lakes.

Superb writing, and investigative reporting! I grew up in Rocky River, a western suburb of Cleveland, and often rode my bike to Lake Erie to walk the beaches and breakwaters. On a very clear day, we could see the ‘Canadian side’ of the lake to the north, even though the lake appeared so vast from the shore. We had relatives in Buffalo, NY, and visited Niagara Falls many times, riding Maid of the Mist, and walking through the tunnel behind the falls. I never appreciated the wonder of Erie and the other Great Lakes until reading Dan Egan’s book. Thank you, Dan! I see there are many letters to write! Read a borrowed copy of the book.

Anyone who is interested in ecology, science or history would enjoy this book. It is one of those books that brings complex ideas into an enjoyable and understandable format for most readers. I found it especially captivating because although I now live in the west, in the Columbia River basin, I grew up in Waukesha Wisconsin which is 20 miles from Lake Michigan but not in the Great Lakes watershed ... an important part of the story as Egan tells it.

This book deserves the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. PLEASE, judges, PLEASE award this stunning and remarkable book. I am not even from any state near the Great Lakes - & in fact currently live in Los Angeles, CA (though my hubs & grad degree are from Michigan) - but I was blown away by the history, the science, the political battles, the engineering feats, the moral dilemmas, and the human corruption and short-sightedness that the author explores.

Topic-wise, this book tells story after story about how human civilization has devastated the ancient ecological networks that existed in the Great Lakes. He gets you to fall in love with the freshwater lakes in the early chapters. He gives sublime descriptions of the formation of the lakes over the course of the ice age. He gets you to fall in love with the lake trout that used to be the dominant, hardy predators that swam the waters. Then he introduces the brutal, competitive canal-building enterprises of the 19th and 20th centuries. The canals opened a corridor for creepy sea lamprey, which is basically a gigantic suction serrated mouth on a wriggly eel body that bites into the bellies of fish and sucks out their insides. The lamprey wiped out the population of the trout. And that's still chapter 3 or so.

Other topics the book explores are the river herring that invaded from the East coast oceans, the carp and sticky quagga mussels that invaded through the Mississippi River basin, the battles between states to get access to water, the water levels dangerously low and then suddenly bouncing back during the Polar Vortex - overall the determination of moneyed shipping companies to build bigger, better, and more lucrative canal systems at the expense of the essential ecosystems that make the Lakes so great. In fact, maybe this book should be called, Make the Great Lakes Great Again.

My favorite aspect of the book, though, is that Egan is not opinionated or in-your-face about politics or the environment. He never preaches, rants, or even does much abstract analysis of his findings. He just digs up facts that he's accumulated through decades of research and pieces together absolutely amazing journalistic accounts that are captivating on the level of the practical, ethical, political, and poetic. (Yes, millions of maggot-infested river herring corpses washing up on Chicago's shoreline is rather a poetic, if horrific, image.)

The #1 thematic word that comes to mind after reading this book, though I don't think Egan ever mentions it a single time, is **trauma.** The Lakes have experienced staggering, constant ecological and topographical trauma over the course of the 19th - 21st centuries, and Egan, in an objective, firm and readable tone, tells every harrowing - and absurd - detail of the Lakes' story.

This is a great book. First, the facts are good: Egan tells the whole story, with just the right level of detail for a beginner. I live in Chicago, but moved here only two years ago and am a Great Lakes ignoramus. It added a lot to my appreciation of the city to know a bit about what's happening just offshore. The writing is good too. It's a crash course in Great Lakes history, but it's a pleasure to read. Egan can capture the behavior of each key species in a few sentences, even for people like me who can't tell a trout from a tuna. Second, the level of opinionating is just right: Egan makes clear when he has strong opinions, or when there's no denying that someone has screwed up. But he lets all his interviewees speak for themselves, and has no illusions that managing the lakes is a problem with a single best solution. Rightly, he ends on a hopeful note. I'm grateful to the author for writing this book.

This book was a birthday gift. I've owned a Lake Michigan cottage for 23 years and have been coming to the lakes longer. I thought
I knew and understood the lake at my beach. Egan's book really highlighted my lack of knowledge. Some very real and personal examples from the book. In 1996, we arrived to an alewive kill but had not seen one since. I learned its because the population has crashed. In 1999, my son who was 5 spent the whole summer finding and catching crawdads. We haven't seen any in years now I understand its probably the result of the zebra and quagga mussel infestation. I always suspected dredging had something to do with the dramatic decline in water levels in 2013. And the dramatic increase in seaweed washing up on my beach over the past couple of years to me seemed tied to the water being too clear and allowing too much light in. Lastly, for years the water was never much more than the low 60's in early July but the last few years with the exception of 2014 the early July temperature has been above 65 and closer to 70. Egan's book helps explain all of these phenomena.
Personally I think Egan paints a too sympathetic portrait of some of the human efforts to engineer the Great Lakes. An addendum is badly needed to address the potentially crippling effects of regulatory emasculation currently being pondered. In spite of all that has been done, the story of the Great Lakes continues to be a story of resourceful renewal against the odds.

I made the mistake of judging this book by its cover. "Who cares about the nuances of fish species? Not me!", I thought. But thank goodness I gave it a try based on the reviews! This book is a gripping masterpiece in storytelling that covers US history, human ambition, geological wonders, and environmental follies (it even makes nuances of fish species interesting!) I couldn't put it down and would highly recommend adding it to your collection.

Dan Egan provides a well written example of what lengths the arrogance of mankind will go to in pursuit of improving creation. How very sad, since it allows means a poor outcome for what nature originally created. This is really a telling take and should be mandatory reading for ALL.

Thoroughly researched and lucidly presented, Egan's book is a vivid lesson on how shortsighted and hubris-laden the human race often is. His book about our treatment of the Great Lakes should be required reading for every politician in the country, although I fear greed will win out almost every time.

We need more of this important research that has helped us fight for preserving and restoring the health of the largest freshwater source on earth. This work spells out the changes that have occurred over time, and how we are dealing with them . A very interesting read.

A fascinating history of the trails the Great Lakes have been through from the earliest discovery to current issues with invasive species. I would recommend this book to anybody who has or still does fish the Great Lakes or just loves them in general.

Thourghly researched informative book

This is a vitally important story about 20% of the freshwater in the world and how we have managed, mismanaged, and misunderstood its importance over time. The other really important thing to say is that this is an incredibly well written, fast paced book. I might read it again.

Thorough, well researched, and engaging to read. Checks in with the right experts in the right times and places. I’ve worked in state government for both Michigan and Ohio, and this is the best summary of the major issues I’ve ever seen.

I dont write reviews often but this book/ author deserve one . 5 stars! Wonderful & interesting read. I love when authors add their sense of humor to point out the ironies of otherwise serious material. Phenomenonly well researched. This book could be the standard bearer go to manuscript for all novice and experts concerned about the future of the great lakes.

A thorough but approachable look at the history of ecological messes we have wrought upon the largest body of freshwater in the world. Egan has a journalists tack and manages to call out the absurdity of favouring sport over ecological health without being aggressive. This is a good place to start if you're interested in the Lakes - and complete with Aldo Leopold quotes as well!

As a lover of the Great Lakes, this book was difficult to put down. Very well written and full of interesting information. A must read for not only those that depend on the Great Lakes, but anyone in Canada and the US.

This story of The Great Lakes is a page-turner. It is an accessible, well-researched biography of the essential source of our lives, the fresh water that sustains North America. A must read for anyone concerned about the currency of the 21st century.

This is a 12 hour audiobook that I finished in less than two days. It is an amazing book that will have you understanding zebra mussels and how the Chicago river flows backwards. It should be a must read book.

Well researched book that is very thorough around the ecological history of the Great Lakes. Well written and relatively easy read that explains geological concepts in layman's terms. Suffers from its apocalyptic forecasts for the future of the Lakes. There is precedent for the Lakes recovering from arguably more dire circumstances in the past, but Egan seems to suggest this time will be different. Not convinced that will be the case