Disclaimer: This is an automated transcript, we apologize for any errors. If you notice any problems, please email the show at teachmeaboutthegreatlakes@gmail.com. Thank you.

Stuart Carlton 0:00
teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. John, welcome back to teach them about the Great Lakes a twice monthly demonstration of my sheer incompetence when it comes to all things Great Lakes. My name is Stuart Carlson I work with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and I am super pumped to be here on a Wednesday morning because I'm joined by my good friend, the one the only Carolyn Foley Carolyn, what's up?

Carolyn Foley 0:23
There are actually a bunch of Carolyn Foley's in the world. I don't know if you ever like Google yourself, but But anyway, yes, I am doing well. Thank you, Stuart. How are you doing?

Stuart Carlton 0:33
I'm doing fine, too. Yeah, there's a battle among the store Carlton's that is true. And there's this one dude who live like in the 19th century, I think name hocking Stuart Carlton. It used to be when you that you'd find him. Since then, I've achieved enough in my career where I'm finally beating out someone who's been dead for like 200 years, when it comes to Google results from a name so so that's good. Anyway, so today, this is actually something that you brought up, I think it's near and dear to your heart as a Canadian, American, or however you identify,

Carolyn Foley 1:02
it should really be near and dear to the heart of anybody who's in the Great Lakes. And if you're paying attention to the news, you've probably heard about line five, five, yeah. And it's, it's a really tricky issue. Because there are good reasons why it's there. There are concerns about why it's there. So today, we're going to talk with somebody about some of the things you probably need to take that back because I took over from you.

Stuart Carlton 1:28
That's good. No, that's awesome. Yeah, we're gonna talk to somebody about some things. That's what we do on the show. But the good news is today, the person we're going to talk to, as we all know, is a researcher, which means with apologies to our guests, it's time for the researcher feature theme. So here we go.

"theme song" 1:50
Researcher feature, a feature, which are researchers, teachers, about the great lakes.

Stuart Carlton 2:01
Our guest today is Dr. Eric Anderson. He's a hydro dynamicists. Which reminds me of my first question, a hydro dynamicists with the great NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, Eric, how are you today?

Dr. Eric Anderson 2:12
I'm great. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Stuart Carlton 2:15
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. So that is the first question hydro dynamicists Hydro means water. dynamism means having to do with movement or something or maybe volume. So what is the hydrodynamics? Just

Dr. Eric Anderson 2:26
yeah, you hit it. So it's right movement of water, kind of the physics of water. Maybe the the reason that I use that term is to distinguish the stuff that I do from say works that hydrologists do so hydrologists are generally interested in kind of quantity of water in in movement of water, but in that kind of tracking water through the water cycle. hydrodynamics is more about the momentum equations, the energy equation, so waves and currents and the forces behind what's going on out there, say in my case in the Great Lakes. So that's kind of the distinction there.

Stuart Carlton 3:03
Sounds like super nerdy stuff. That's good.

Carolyn Foley 3:05
That was a great answer. Super exciting.

Stuart Carlton 3:11
Hydrodynamic says, Alright, that's good. So here, we're here to talk about line five today, which is, so it's an oil pipeline. It it, it runs under the Straits of Mackinac, right. And it delivers crude oil from Western Canada, through Michigan and into Ontario. Is that Is that how that works?

Dr. Eric Anderson 3:28
Yeah, it goes. So your origin is up in western northern Canada. And then I don't know where it actually becomes technically line five. But essentially, it runs from you know, the the western end of Lake Superior when we get into the Great Lakes region, and so near superior Wisconsin or Duluth, across the up right along the shoreline of southern up so along like the northern end of Lake Michigan, and then it gets to the Straits of Makena. And it it splits into two pipes at that point dives down into the water. So when it's when we say when you hear under the Straits of Mackinac, it's in the water, it's not below the ground, but it rides along the bottom of the lake and then resurfaces on the Lower Peninsula side of Michigan and makes its way to Sarnia, Ontario,

Stuart Carlton 4:19
right and I said the Straits of Mackinac didn't Oh my god, the state needs to end and this just started

Carolyn Foley 4:24
you did and I actually was gonna call you out on that nicer and just kind of hit Oh,

Stuart Carlton 4:30
I can't read anything.

Carolyn Foley 4:33
So this this fits in really well with you know, your a hydrogen emesis you were talking about, like the movement of the water and you mentioned that the the, the pipe is actually in the water when it goes kind of through that Can you can you tell us a little bit about that area where the pipe is in the water and what the importance is to the broader Great Lakes in terms of water moving around and things like that. Yeah, it's

Dr. Eric Anderson 4:56
so I've heard it say said by a colleague that It's the most dynamic area and the Great Lakes again, network dynamics. Um, but really, I think the reason that he said that is the currents are wild there. There's a lot of movement, fast movement that has, I think, been something noteworthy for people for a long time, as we found, you know, French explorers wrote about it in the 1600s, when they were trying to go through there. And of course, Native Americans have been dealing with that for a long, long, long time before that. But essentially, the Straits of Mackinac connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, the way that I picture it. So first, you have these two massive lakes, some of the world's biggest lakes in Michigan and Huron connected by this very narrow bottleneck, the streets are about, you know, five kilometers wide, maybe at the narrows point. And they're about 90 meters deep. So it's like, it's like an old river channel. When the lakes formed, initially, Michigan kind of dumped into to here on through a riverbed. So there so at the bottom it there's this very deep, narrow river channel, and it's kind of like a V shape, if you think of the the transect there. But you have these two giant lakes, and whether the atmosphere is acting on both of those legs all the time. So the way I pictured is if, if you have, if you can imagine two different water beds. So I think about it connected by some little, you know, section that connects the two water beds, if you were to jump on one of them, all that water would rush through that little bottleneck into the other waterbed. And that's what's going on in Michigan and here on so when the wind blows on, on one leg, or atmospheric pressure is pushing down on one leg, it's forcing that water to move around. And when that has to go through the stretch, you're now pushing again, this massive amount of water through a small area. And so when it goes through there, it has to accelerate and it moves much faster through that zone. So which means the currents are a lot higher than what you see in the open lakes. It's almost like river currents. Or if you want a visual picture of the water, the rapids say going over Niagara Falls, that's the speeds that you have going through the Straits of Mackinac at certain times when waters rushing back and forth through there. So it's, it's an important area to navigation, you know, if you want to get into Lake Michigan, from any of the lakes, you got to go through the Straits of Mackinac. It's important in just movement of water from the Great Lakes to the ocean. So this is how Lake Michigan water gets, you know, into here on down through Erie, Ontario, and eventually out to the Atlantic. But it's not just a one way transaction there. Because if you're going to go back to that water better analogy, which I'm not even sure I like that analogy, but we'll use that. If you think about that the water's going back and forth, right, it doesn't care which which bed, the wind is blowing on. And so it's not just Michigan water moving into here on all that's, that's the ultimate fate of Lake Michigan water lake here on water is being pushed into Lake Michigan through the straits, and then maybe eventually back out and even superior water. So superior drains down St. Mary's River, into Lake Huron, some of that water might be sucked through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan, before it eventually makes its way back down to the Great Lakes into the Atlantic. So it's really important important to the way water moves to the Great Lakes, important to navigation. It's important to, you know, the tribes that have lived around that area for a very long time. It's important to tourism, and it's if you haven't been up there, it's just a beautiful spot, it's it's really is, you know, are inspiring to look at the streets. So in a number of ways, it's important to a lot of things we care about. And because it's so dynamic up there, that water that moves in and out of the streets, really has a far reach. And maybe that leads into some of the the reason why line five has been such an issue.

Carolyn Foley 8:56
So I just want to back up. So first off the mention of water beds. I know you said you're not sure you liked that analogy, but I instantly took me back to like when I was seven years old, and I was like, Man, these are so cool.

Dr. Eric Anderson 9:10
I'm not sure there are water beds anymore. I wonder that.

Stuart Carlton 9:13
Oh, my dad has a waterbed. In fairness. It's been in his room since he moved into his current house in like 1992.

Carolyn Foley 9:22
But so I just wanted to say like a couple of years ago, when I was starting it, we were trying to find some facts about Lake Michigan. And one of the facts we wanted to talk about was like the amount of time that a droplet of water hangs out in Lake Michigan.

Stuart Carlton 9:35
Oh wait, do you know this? Well,

Carolyn Foley 9:37
I mean, because I can do the thing. No, we shouldn't do anything. But we

Stuart Carlton 9:41
got to sit here we go. It's a great lakes factually a Great Lakes factoid it's a great factoid about the Great Lakes. Carolyn, what's your Great Lakes factoid?

Carolyn Foley 9:52
My Great Lakes factoid is that it's either that the amount of time and Eric's gonna correct me on this the amount of time that a droplet of water hangs out in Lincoln Michigan use either like 97 to 99 years or 66 years, or something like that, right? Dependent because the modeling like you think that like, okay, down around Chicago stuff is sort of hanging out there. But when you like people didn't necessarily think about everything that's happening at the streets. That's like, the water's coming back and forth in Florida splashing all over the place. So Eric can correct me if I said either one of those wrong because when I went looking for it, I found multiple answers that were really different. I was like, What the

Dr. Eric Anderson 10:29
heck yeah, I don't have the, you know, those numbers could be right off the top my head. But I think what that calculation is based on the numbers I do have in my head, so like the net flow from Michigan to here on is something like one to 2000 cubic meters per second, like an annual net like movement of water from Michigan to Iran. But the straits moves water back and forth at like 80,000 cubic meters per second. So like, the oscillation is so much more than just the net trickle into here on. And I think that gets at that question of like, how long is water hanging out in there, and then straights really mess things up?

Stuart Carlton 11:05
So so we talked about all this water and why this is such an important area in terms of like, you know, recreation and water, hydro dynamicity and all this stuff. But so why is there but so under there is where this Enbridge line five is that's where all this oil flows through. And I did look it up, it's about 540,000 barrels a day, which is roughly a Deepwater Horizon oil spill per week of oil going through there. I happened to know because I started working for sea grant as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill anyway. And so So is it just the convenient place to put it is there because you can go under the lake as opposed to having to go under ground? It's easier in their, you know, with their cities and things like that? Do you know why it is they chose that area, you know, such an important area for the pipeline?

Dr. Eric Anderson 11:51
I don't know that, the reasoning behind that. But my guess is that, you know, that's the shortest point to get across, right. So that the least amount of underwater pipeline that they they could use to get down to Sarnia. And the probably the least amount of pipeline. Yeah, the other option is to, if you don't want to cross the Great Lakes is to go on the north side of superior and down through Ontario that way to Sarnia. And that's probably just a longer route. So the decision is probably like this is our shortest way in in the least amount of underwater, you know, pathway that we got

Carolyn Foley 12:25
to take. At North Laurel, you have been involved in some modeling to see like, what would happen if there was a rupture in the pipeline, right? And where the water would go, based on the types of information you were talking about earlier? Can you tell us a little bit about how how the models are created, or how they have been created and maybe refined over the years?

Dr. Eric Anderson 12:44
Yeah, so it starts really with observations of what's going on with the hydrodynamics. So with that, you know, currents basically, but water levels and temperatures and all the different physical aspects that we care about. And Clurel started measurements in the streets in the 70s. And there's probably measurements before that, by the Army Corps of Engineers, I'm guessing with, with maybe the design, even of the pipeline, but in the 70s, Noah made some measurements of currents they did so again in 1990. No models have the streets yet in there. And then we started to do it, since I've been at global in maybe about 10 years ago, started taking more measurements of currents and temperatures in the streets. And that was to get a better sense of really what's what's happening there. So the the measurements in their 70s told us that the flow is oscillating give us a sense of what that looks like how often that happens. In the 90s, it confirmed that with kind of a newer technology. And but to build a model, we needed a little bit more data. And we needed year round data. Both of those were just field campaigns that lasted for part of a year, a few months. And so we started putting out measurements to take current current measurements throughout the water column at a few different locations in the straits year round. So every hour getting an understanding of what the currents are doing from the bottom of the lake to the top. Same thing with temperatures and other conditions. So that's the kind of stuff that we need to use to, I guess, check the model. But in general, how these models work. These are models that have the basically physics equations, physics processes written into computer code, and we tell you know, based on what we know about physics, we say this is how water would react to certain wind conditions or atmospheric conditions. These models then, are broken into little chunks, so little pieces that make up the lake surface. So imagine, I guess pictures, say Lake Michigan, and if you broke it into, you know, a million little triangles. That's what these models look like. And in each one of those triangles, we solve a bunch of physics equations to say how the water will move in reaction to say, whatever the winds that's happening on the surface. And that's how these models are. So that that information is passed from one triangle to the next. And that gives you a prediction of what's going on in the lake. When we do that, you know, we can just trust it. Or we can say we better check it against observation. So, in this case, we build these models. And then we check them against all kinds of measurements from around the lakes. So not just in the streets, but but all over in the streets, in particular, because it's so important to many aspects. And because the currents are, are, there's a lot of action up there, these measurements are really critical to understand if we're getting that component, right. And so we use that to check the model, if we need to make changes, if there's some mismatch, you know, that it becomes it becomes like an investigation, what's wrong with the model? Where's, you know, where's that error coming in, and we try to fix it. You know, it's a continual improvement process that will last well beyond my career. But that's really the the backdrop there. So the straits, you know, in context of the Great Lakes as a whole, the straits is probably one of the most observed locations in the Great Lakes from a physical standpoint. So currents and water temperatures, even waves. We have more data there just in the last few years, and we have nearly anywhere else,

Carolyn Foley 16:23
which sort of makes sense based on how important it seems to be to not just line five, like we're talking about line five, specifically today, but a bunch of other things, too.

Stuart Carlton 16:31
So part of the deal with these models is you want to be able to predict what would happen if there were some sort of rupture or spill related to line five, right? Is that all you use them for? Do you use the models for other things related to like dynamics, etc?

Dr. Eric Anderson 16:42
Great question. Yeah. So these models are actually designed to before we started, even considering the line five rupture in the place, they would serve there. So no operates these types of hydrodynamic models for, for the oceans for coastal oceans. And we have our own set here in the Great Lakes. And these are run in what we call operational mode, which is there the official model output that gets turned into a forecast. So if you see a forecast for water temperatures, or ice, or water levels, or there are current forecasts, most people don't look at them. But that's comes from these models. And that's, you know, part of NOAA is bread and butter is to great these types of forecasts. So we've had these models in the Great Lakes, providing real time information on hydrodynamics for about 20 years, the streets were a gap there. So until about 10 years ago, the our Lake Michigan model just pretended like there was a wall at the Straits of Mackinac in St. Moritz lecture on model. And so we didn't have any means to predict what would happen at the streets. Our initial effort was to start including the streets and these models. And so we started taking these observations. And that was only about a year or two before I even heard about line five, kind of in that process of building this model. So we would have forecast conditions for the Coast Guard for commercial navigation, kind of the more common stakeholders. In that process, somebody approached me and said, you know, there's an oil pipeline down there. And that started the process of really expanding the utility these models then for things like spilled transport,

Carolyn Foley 18:20
when you tried to apply these models to like, if there was a spill, what did you find in terms of if there? If there's a rupture in the, you know, in the pipe that's underneath the water? What would happen? Where would the oil go?

Dr. Eric Anderson 18:33
So you know, because the currents are, are oscillating back and forth, right? If that waterbed analogy, so they lose on a pretty regular period, every few days, the water will reverse from from one direction to the other in the Straits of Makena. But the direction of if there was a director of the direction of the oil depends on when that happens, right. So if the currents are moving eastward, it's gonna immediately shoot eastward for a while, and then it's going to reverse and go westward again. And so there's this and initially, it all depends on the, say, the exact minute or hour of that rupture. But eventually, it's going to be spread in both directions. And because the currents are so high there, it's going to make pretty far headway into each leg. I don't have exact number on your top my head, it kind of depends on the amount of time if there's a spill response, you know, there's also evaporation on the surface that, that, that can happen as well. But you know, well into Michigan, well into Lake Huron, and really quickly, too. So, you know, over a matter of a few hours or a couple of days, you're gonna have a pretty massive spread in that region.

Carolyn Foley 19:40
Do you have a sense of how and and I acknowledged that this is a super tricky issue, and anybody who wants to go out and read about it, they're, you know, there are people who depend on this pipeline for their livelihoods all over the place. And there are lots of people who are saying, you know, the risk of a rupture is too great.

Stuart Carlton 19:57
Or the consequence perhaps rather than, you know, right, it's a lot Probability high consequence thing, isn't it? Or.

Carolyn Foley 20:02
Right, right. But But I guess, do you have a sense of how different groups have used the information that's available to them? Through the work that you and your colleagues at Clairol have done?

Dr. Eric Anderson 20:14
Yeah. So the, all this model output, and in the fact that these models themselves are, you know, for the public, so this, these predictions have gone into a spill exercise conducted by Enbridge, and by the Coast Guard, in 2015, it was used to, you know, give some estimation of a hypothetical spill and allow them to prepare and respond for that. So it goes to both, you know, both of those groups that has gone to studies that have come out of academic partners, looking at worst case scenarios of spills, and in the the impacts to, you know, the region and various degrees. This is the currents, the model currents that have supported those. So really, I think, you know, I can't say this for certainty. But anytime, if you've seen any kind of trajectory or hypothetical spill around the straits, it's probably come from these models, at least the current components. And so that's been given out to everybody. So you know, the, that information that gets used for policy, you know, is is built on at least in one component, these types of models. And it used to get across industry from, you know, different levels of still responders, Enbridge themselves and environmental groups too.

Stuart Carlton 21:39
And so this is interesting. So you've created this really powerful model, right, that people are using, they use them in exercises, kind of these fire drill or oil drills, I guess, right? And, you know, you have people using them in industry and government and things like that. So we talk about modeling a lot on this show. And one of the things that I'm always interested in is like how well these models are validated, I think in the real world, and you sort of alluded to that. But But when people have gone through different exercises, or have you done any, I guess, have you done any real world tests? And if so, how was the model done? Or? Or is there ways that you've adapted the model based on real world tests? You know, what, on the ground? How well does this seem to work?

Dr. Eric Anderson 22:17
As a part of the design process these models is initial, we call it a high end cast, right instead of a forecast. But so going back to historical year, running that year, and comparing it to observations and say, like, How good would the model have done, and NOAA has certain standards that models have to meet in order to become an operational model to provide forecasts and I should say these forecasts are then what's used if there was a spill tomorrow, the currents from this model will be guiding spill responders on, you know, how they'll be part of the information they use to decide how to respond. So there's that that hind cast piece where we test the model and validate it and go through a vetting phase, then once it's run in real time, so this model is run every few hours in perpetual forecasts, real time conditions, there's ongoing verification. So we have observations out there right now that we can compare to all the time, and that allows us to track if the model starts to drift from reality. Or if there was, again, if there was a spill responders could look at, like how well is the model been tracking the last few days, and they can use that to, you know, provide some amount of confidence in what they might, you know, expect the the quality of the forecast to be? The other thing is that we do ongoing campaign. So we've released drifter buoys in the Straits of Makena. Which are these little sailing kites that go in the water and they move with the currents. And they have GPS trackers so that satellites can tell us where they go. And then we say, Okay, did the would the model have tracked that, right? If I dropped a hypothetical buoy in the model and allowed it to move, does it move in the same direction as that. And so we're always doing these little tests. And so in that sense, there's continual verification, improvement also happens. So these models are our lake models, they're models of the water, the input they need to run is what's happening in the weather. And that's also a NOAA thing. So no one's running weather models. So any improvements in weather models over the Great Lakes is essentially passed on to these lake models. So if we get better wind forecasts, say next year, we're going to have better hydrodynamic forecasts next year. And so there's there's that kind of assembly line style improvement to something that would help, you know, in a store response,

Stuart Carlton 24:33
so we always need more and better computers, essentially even still, right. And so I didn't realize it like operational model. That's interesting. It's like a term of art essentially. Right. And that's something that no one needs. I'm reminded of that George Clinton album from the 90s the awesome power of a fully operational mothership. Well, the senior the operational fully operational model, so that is interesting. The other thing running I my master's degrees in fisheries biology, I got the University of Georgia and the guy was working with there was studying, I think was striped bass. And they wanted to study how the eggs would flow through the Savannah River. And they there was this like the 90s was a time of like gimmicky experimental sodas, you know, you had like Crystal Pepsi. Okay, soda, if anybody remembers calling one 800 I feel okay, you could call up and, and there would be these funny recordings. But there was this other one called Orbitz, soda, which was produced by Carolyn's favorite company clearly Canadian, and it had like, these little floating balls in them. And, and so he figured out that these have the same specific density as striped bass eggs. And so he released a bunch of Orbitz soda into the Savannah River and tracked it that way. So, you know, if you're looking for new way to validate your models, you might be able to find some old orbits,

Carolyn Foley 25:45
you can get a permit, if

Dr. Eric Anderson 25:48
we do on occasion have done die studies, you know, not in the streets, because it would take a massive amount of dye to do to do much the drifter buoys do a decent job. But you know, becomes a problem people see dye, they get concerned that something is wrong, which is, you know, a good reaction. And so those are a little bit trickier to do. But those are our common in rivers. And so we've done that, you know, coastlines or or St. Clair River, places like that.

Stuart Carlton 26:14
Well, look, this is really interesting, actually. It's fascinating stuff. And it sounds like important work. And I'd love to hear about kind of the relationship. You know, how government stuff feeds into feeds into industry and whatever reminds you the importance of government science, but that's actually not why we invited you here on teach me about the Great Lakes today. The reason we invited you on teaching about the red lasers, that's two questions, the first of which is this. If you could choose to have a great doughnut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which would you choose?

Dr. Eric Anderson 26:39
I think a sandwich could do a lot more for me. You know, I just I don't think I think the ceiling on the greatest donut is is just too low. I'm ready to go a sandwich.

Stuart Carlton 26:51
That's a great answer. I mean, it's it's totally true. Right? So are you are you are you oh man in Arbor then a Clairol? Is that is that your so next time I'm in Ann Arbor, gonna visit my friend Maria Les Mills, and I'm going to take Maria out to lunch and I'm gonna get a great sandwich. Where should I take Maria out to lunch?

Dr. Eric Anderson 27:11
I mean, the classic answer is probably Zingerman's Deli. What everybody gives. And that's, you know, I support that. I think that would be fun.

Carolyn Foley 27:18
Okay, but what's, what's your non classic answer?

Dr. Eric Anderson 27:22
So I used to like I haven't been there in a while because of the pandemic, but the temp a Reuben at Old Town tavern.

Stuart Carlton 27:29
Yeah, it's a good place to get I love a good Tempe Ruben. What was the name of the place? There was a place that games were not a business. I guess I was the only one. Dave Rubin. All right, well, I'm gonna go to Old Town tavern to get myself a temporary. Yeah, that sounds good. And the second question is this. So you are and let me get this right. You are a physical scientist? Yes. But more specifically, you are a hydro dynamicists? What is it that makes you good at that job? Right? What are some key skills for your type of work?

Dr. Eric Anderson 27:57
So most of the work revolves around computer modeling and computer programming. So that's like a huge piece of it. And then interest in, you know, the physics, the physical side of things. So that's probably the the skill set behind that, I think, but you know, I started this job, I don't know, 13 years ago, I can't remember. And I didn't have a background in this type of stuff. So I was a fluids modeler, but did not work in environmental or Great Lakes or had an Amex or anything like that. But I had the, like, the modeling and physics skill set, and I just learned on the job here. So I'd say more. So it's, it's like the enthusiasm about those things. Right. So if you're, if, if the movement of water through the Straits of Makena. Is is exciting, that with some programming skills is is the magic recipe, I think,

Stuart Carlton 28:44
Well, Dr. Eric Anderson hydrodynamics has with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, NOAA in Ann Arbor, right down the street from Zingerman's. Where can people go to find out more about the work that you do maybe these models or something like that, as your website? Is there a social media feed? Something along those lines?

Dr. Eric Anderson 29:00
Yeah, there's both you can go to global.noaa.gov. To check out a lot of the research that we're doing here in the Great Lakes. You can also find links then to social media that Clairol and NOAA partners are putting out.

Stuart Carlton 29:13
That's perfect. And if you're listening right now, you can go ahead and look at your podcast feed and we'll have that in the show notes. Or if not, you go to teach me about the great lakes.com/ 34 Number three, four, because this is episode 34. Well, Dr. Eric Anderson, thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

Dr. Eric Anderson 29:30
Thanks, Stuart. Thanks, Carolyn. This is great.

Stuart Carlton 29:48
You know, Carolyn, I'm so appreciative of you bringing that issue up line five, because I honestly hadn't heard about it until we started talking about it for a potential episode. And I mean it. You know, it's in the news right now because there's a big international dispute. Get over whether or not to shut it down. And we're trying to get some guests even talking about that, because I think it touches on so many things that are so important.

Carolyn Foley 30:07
Right? Yeah. And I think the deal right now is that the state of Michigan said they have to shut it down, they do have a permit to build a tunnel underneath that, like it wouldn't it would no longer be in the water. So like the company has permit to, I believe they have a permit to like, basically build an encasing tunnel, so that it wouldn't just be in the water. And like if somebody strikes it, or whatever it would it would leak. But it's it's so so tricky for so many different reasons. And it's a huge deal on both sides of the border right now.

Stuart Carlton 30:40
And it's rapidly evolving to so it's an issue worth following. Because yeah, it's tricky. It's it's important. It runs through an environmentally important area. And economically, you know, everything, everything about us important, but I mean, we're also still an oil driven society. All right. All right. And so that's a lot of oil, that it brings in a lot of energy and a lot of jobs. So it's, it's, you know, if they're easy answers they would have they would have done those already. Right, for sure.

Carolyn Foley 31:05
So what did you learn today?

Stuart Carlton 31:06
What did I learn today, I learned just like the basics of outline five, which I didn't even know. And I learned that the hydrodynamics in the Strait of Makena, where the Big Mac bridges are really complicated and interesting, and frankly, exciting. In certain definitions that weren't so I learned a ton. How about you?

Carolyn Foley 31:26
Yeah, I mean, I love geeking out about stuff like this. I think everybody who listens knows this by now. But he's also you know, he's absolutely right, that it is a beautiful, beautiful spot. We try to go up there every summer and basically spend a week just sitting and staring and lovely.

Stuart Carlton 31:43
sitting and staring. The ultimate goal of parents everywhere. It's just to get them. Hello, everyone. Great. All right. Well, a couple of announcements whereby a couple I mean one announcement teaching we have three links for club. We've already announced this once or twice, but in case you are unaware of it, we're going to be reading and discussing Dan Egan's Death and Life of the Great Lakes this summer, it's only one book sounds like to just one. And so if you want to start, you know, if you want to take part in our book club, go ahead and read it. And, well, we're gonna be reading it this summer, probably talking about it early fall, we're gonna tie it in with some work we're doing with some graduate students. But we're gonna take listener calls and comments. So go check out the book, read the book. It's a classic for a reason. Or at least that's what they told me. I haven't actually read it yet. But I assume it's a classic for reason. And if not, well, then I'll tell you that because you know, honestly, in podcasting, very important. Absolutely. Anyway, well do the thing, Carolyn, let's get out of here. All right.

Carolyn Foley 32:39
Are you gonna play music?

Stuart Carlton 32:40
I am. I got this loop thing. I'm just gonna roll with it ready and Bada bing bada boom.

Carolyn Foley 32:47
Teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. I encourage you to check out the great work we do at i Sea Grant. I am Sea Grant. Other students will teach me about the Great Lakes charters Carolyn and Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport. This show is edited by the awesome Queen Rose. Really appreciate and I encourage you to check her work out at aspiring robot.com If you have a question or comment about the show, please email it to teach me about the great lakes@gmail.com or leave a message on our hotline at 765496 I I S G, you could also follow the show on Twitter. Thanks for listening and keep greating those lakes.