“Pandora’s Locks,” says better restrictions on ballast water could have averted the “biological plague”
A new book by a Michigan journalist says invasive species such as zebra mussels could have been kept out of the Great Lakes basin with tighter government controls.
Jeff Alexander, in “Pandora’s Locks,” says better restrictions on ballast water could have averted the “biological plague” the species have wrought.
“The U.S. and Canadian governments repeatedly failed to regulate ballast water discharges — even after it became clear that ocean freighters were importing a multitude of harmful foreign species into the Great Lakes,” Alexander said in a news release. “The result has been a freshwater environmental disaster without equal.”
Alexander says the 57 invasive species brought into the Great Lakes through ballast water have caused more damage than the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused in Alaska.
The book is published by Michigan State University Press.
