Coming Soon - The Rest of the Story About Issatan and Kafralu Islands

It's been quite a while since I thought I'd quit carping about the Asian Carp and move on to new topics.  At the time of my last post, I had several hot topics, such as the history of the islands in East Sandusky Bay including the resorts of Issatan Island and Kafralu Island.  Both have an interesting history that affect our life and time on the East Sandusky Bay.

Then life got interesting.  I got called for jury duty the week of the Erie MetroPark's Huron Greenway trial.  The trial  was for a jury determination of the money damages owed to Warren Jones.  Mr. Jones was one of several property owners whose property was "taken" by eminent domain for the project.  Under Ohio law, the government agency who wants the property defines what they need to "take" and a jury then decides what the "take" is worth.  The MetroPark thought the "take" they defined was worth less than $10,000.  The property owner's appraiser said it was worth over $500,000.  I didn't get chosen for the jury, but I was so fascinated that I watched the trial for an entire week as the sole gallery occupant.  The jury awarded Mr. Jones about $200,000 plus legal fees.  The current director and park board has attempted to spin the story as the fault of the previous administration - but it was the current guys who defined what the park was "taking."  A board meeting set for next Tuesday should produce some interesting public comments.  By the time the dust settles, the Greenway is likely to be a multimillion dollar debacle. 

Incidently, I think the Greenway jury got it just about right - possibly a little low.  I guess the system works.

No sooner did I get focused back on Kafralu and Issatan than my friendly banker demanded that I get flood insurance or pay off my mortgage in 30 days.  It seems that it had been federally guaranteed and the feds were nervous.  The bank explained  that were told by FEMA that the house was going to wash away sometime in the next hundred years.  After working that problem for a while, I got a lot smarter about the floodplain designations.  A few hundred dollars later, the house was "saved" by my surveyor.  In the process, I learned that the new survey technology allows micrometer level accuracy in determining the elevation of a blade of grass and the flood maps were now new and improved.  Everyone should know what elevation their house is at within 0.01 inches.  This was once accuracy territory approached only by a skilled tool and die maker working on a well-tuned Bridgeport.  What FEMA didn't tell the bank was that the related problem of determining the level where the water may rise to is still done the old fashion way and, in fact, has not been rechecked anytime since 1977.  It remains unclear when, if ever, it was scientifically determined for even the "open lake."   It is clear that, even following the Army Corps of Engineers' analytical framework, it was never determined for East Sandusky Bay.  But that's the subject for a half-dozen future blog entries in which I will try to maintain my cool while discussing how your tax dollars are at work and costing me money.

The Asian carp story refuses to go away.  More of your tax dollars at work.  There's more and more handwringing from the environmentalists, cries for action from the politicians, and news stories about recipes and eating the critters.  Even the New York Times recently picked up on the idea of eating invasive species.  After all, the Carp we are so afraid of are called Kentucky tuna just a couple hundred miles to the South.  (One should remember that the first Asian carp to reach the Great Lakes in the 1880's were brought here by the federal government to help the fishing industry.)    Since the Chinese love big carp, maybe we can trade to get back our dollars in exchange for their favorite fish. 

My personal feelings are that Sandusky Bay and other shallow waters of Lake Erie are the waters most endangered by the new carp invasion but that the greater threat is from trucks rather than the river system.  Ohio should be taking an Ontario-like approach to stopping them at the border by simply making possession of live fish illegal.  Some politicians claim the "new and improved" Lacey Act stops interstate shipments under federal law.  However, it appears to have more holes than a badly built gill net.

Another angle on the Carp crisis is to let them eat the green gunk that grows on the western basin to fatten them up before shipping them to China in trade for dollars.  Seems like a win-win.  Guess we'll have to keep carping about the situation.

In our spare time, we've been looking at such famous people as Lyman Cooley, Robert Manning, and John Ripley Freeman who have helped to shape the Great Lakes a century ago and whose technology still govern Great Lakes science.  Say who???  Stay tuned for the answer to what all inquiring minds want to know.