Podcasts about Maumee River

Wars often evoke images of grim battlefields, valorous deeds, and tragic losses. Yet, there was one war in American history where the most significant injury was a sheriff's deputy stabbed with a penknife, and the fiercest “battles” featured taunts shouted across a river. This was the Toledo War—a boundary dispute between Michigan Territory and Ohio in 1835 and 1836, which historians aptly describe as a “comic opera.” The Toledo War wasn't fought over grand ideals or clashing empires. Instead, it revolved around 468 square miles of disputed land known as the Toledo Strip, a narrow ribbon of territory along what is now the Ohio-Michigan border. To outsiders, the stakes may have seemed small. But to Ohio and Michigan, the Strip represented economic opportunity, political pride, and regional dominance. Toledo, located at the confluence of the Maumee River and Lake Erie, was poised to become a key hub for trade and transportation in the rapidly growing Midwest. Control over the Strip wasn't just about land—it was about securing a prosperous future.

Zack George joins me for the first in person interview! Zack runs Fish N Fowl Adventures, providing layout hunting experiences for diver ducks on Lake Erie as well as walleye fishing in the Maumee River and on the main lake of Lake Erie. We discuss his start in the industry, how he progressed to where he is today and his involvement in Duck Unlimited. Check out Zack's website at https://www.fishandfowladventures.com/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/toomanyhobbies/donations

The Ohio Field Leader travels to northern Wood County and Eckel Grain Farms and Cattle Company located just outside of Perrysburg, Ohio. Dusty visits with Nathan and Nick Eckel about their operation and the challenges and opportunities that present themselves when farming on the edge of suburbia and near the epicenter of the water quality issues in the Western Lake Erie Basin and Maumee River watershed. Along with their brother Nolan, these farmers combine grain farming, raising livestock, and educational research along with service to the agriculture industry as a part of their everyday life.

In this episode of the Ohio Ag Net Podcast, host Matt Reese of Ohio's Country Journal and Dusty Sonnenburg of Ohio Ag Net talk with Alan Sundemeier, CAP Coordinator and OSU Extension. Alan discusses the Conservation Action Project (CAP) and an upcoming program. The project started more than 35 years ago and aims to support seven counties near the Maumee River with conservation practices to protect Lake Erie.    More in this week's podcast:    Matt Bambauer, Bambauer Fertilizer and Seed: Matt discusses grain storage and monitoring of it with the ever changing Ohio weather.     Intro 0:00 Matt Bambauer 3:58 Main Conversation, Alan Sundemeier 10:25

Thank you to Naptime Nancy Drew for joining me this week (around the 15 minute mark) and thank you the listeners for tuning in to a BRAND NEW EPISODE OF WHO KILLED...? I want to take you back to August fourth 1981 when a young secretary named Cynthia Anderson disappeared from Toledo, Ohio. With a population over 350,000 people, Toledo sits next to the Maumee River which disperses into Lake Erie. SOURCES: https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Cynthia_Anderson https://charleyproject.org/case/cynthia-jane-anderson https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/08/04/Woman-s-disappearance-a-mystery-after-30-years.html https://www.clermontsun.com/2020/05/13/marc-hoover-the-disappearance-of-cynthia-anderson https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/4ggcul/cynthia_anderson_had_nightmares_about_being/ https://philosophyofcrime.com/the-disappearance-of-cynthia-anderson/ https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Law-Enforcement/Investigator/Ohio-Missing-Persons/Missing-Adults-1/Anderson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWg68QUUaBM https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naptime-nancy-drew-podcast/id1461714222 https://twitter.com/naptimenancydrw?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I had seen pictures and heard of people catching smallmouth bass on the local river near my home (The Maumee River) and decided to go see if I could find them myself. Here's how it went.  Buy me a coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/Aptitudeoutdoor More Aptitude Outdoors here: https://bit.ly/2YLp82N Get 10% off Absolute Aid Products: https://bit.ly/3px2Jnt Discount Code: APTITUDE10 

Find out if any signs of peril appeared around Fort Miami shortly after Colonel Dudley's Troops had achieved unprecedented success. Learn about a choice Colonel Dudley made and whether it was for better or worse involving his 800 Man Force. Discover if acts of barbarism occurred including whether or not Accountability Procedures were instituted. Learn where Tecumseh stood when it came to acts of barbarism. Find out how Brigadier General Green Clay's 400 Man Unit fared after landing safely along Maumee River's South Shore. Go behind the scenes and learn what was asked of Brigadier General Green Clay's 400 Man Force after returning to Fort Meigs. Learn what course of action British Colonel Henry Proctor engaged in come early evening May 5, 1813. Find out the significance behind May 6 involving both sides. Learn if Colonel Proctor faced displeasure from within involving Indians & Canadian Militiamen. Go behind the scenes and discover what unravels on May 9, 1813. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/support

Discover how long it took British Colonel Henry Proctor to go about gathering troops & supplies at Fort Malden. Get an idea of how big Colonel Proctor's forces were prior to officially arriving South along Maumee River. Learn if an advanced party of Mounted British & Indian Scouts made their way across Maumee River from Fort Meigs come April 26, 1813. Discover what unfolds come April 27 involving Colonel Proctor's Flotilla. Compare & contrast American Side's response to British & Indian Scouts Missions between April 26-27. Discover what Captain Hamilton of the Ohio Militia performed on April 28 and how his findings got interpreted by General Harrison. Find out exactly just how many rounds of ammunition General Harrison had readily available for Fort Meigs at his disposal. Determine if both sides were ready for combat by May 1. Go behind the scenes and learn what takes place between May 1-2 including each side's strategical approaches. Learn how General Harrison went about splitting up Brigadier General Green Clay's 1,200 Man Force. Get an in depth analysis behind what took place May 5 for the American Army given Colonel William Dudley divided forces into multiple columns. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/support

Find out if General Harrison received news of defeat at River Raisin on January 22, 1813. Discover how many American Troops escaped River Raisin Battlefield unharmed. Learn about Brigadier General Winchester's undoing at River Raisin Battle. Go behind the scenes to learn about a council meeting on evening of January 22 involving General Harrison and his Field Officers. Determine if General Harrison had to contend with any unpredictable weather in midst of proceeding towards Portage River. Go behind the scenes and learn what the general did once after officially arriving at Maumee Rapids. Learn about an incident which took place on morning of February 16 that raised red flags including Harrison's response. Discover what new concern Harrison had by early March 1813 from a weather standpoint. Find out if Harrison had to take a brief leave of absence. Learn if Harrison had to contend with Militiamen's Enlistment Terms expiring including when reinforcements would arrive. Get a timeline of what takes place between early to late April and whether or not a fort is standing tall along Maumee River. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/support

Can you reverse Hashimoto's thyroiditis? Or you may be asking, what exactly is that?    What if your thyroid issues weren't just thyroid issues but an autoimmune disease and you didn't know it? Could the fatigue and hair loss you've experienced be fixed with changes in lifestyle?    Often unfortunately, it's still not all that clear that your food, nutrition, toxic exposure, or ability to detox have a significant impact on your thyroid. My guest today shares her own story and we deep dive into tips for reducing heavy metal consumption and testing to ask for and why.    My Guest: Dr. Jen Pfleghaar is a double board-certified physician in Integrative Medicine and Emergency Medicine. attended medical school at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. She then went on to residency at St Vincent's Mercy Medical Center for Emergency Medicine. Dr. Jen spent one year flying with Life Flight as a flight physician. She now works at local emergency rooms in the community and her office in Perrysburg, OH practicing Integrative Medicine. She is a graduate of The University of Arizona: Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine's two-year fellowship program. Dr. Jen loves speaking and lecturing to physicians at conferences including the AOA (American Osteopathic Association). She hosts the podcast The Integrative Health Podcast with Dr. Jen. Her own health history of Hashimoto's (which is now in remission) sparked her interest in Integrative Medicine. She is very passionate about helping patients with chronic diseases and teaching them now to let the body heal itself. She is a published author of the book- Eat. Sleep. Move. Breathe A Beginner's Guide to a Healthy Lifestyle. She is a board member of IDA- Invisible Disabilities Association. Her hobbies include spending time with her husband and four children, being in nature, paddle boarding on the Maumee River, and reading all things.    Questions We Answer in This Episode:  Why did you become an Integrative Physician and  What is your personal history with Hashimoto's? Why are we seeing more autoimmune diseases, especially thyroid autoimmune problems? What about mothers- why are they susceptible to thyroid disease? What can listeners do to start healing the thyroid?   Connect to Learn More About Dr. Jen's Summit:  flippingfifty.com/Healthythyroid     On Social:  Website: https://www.healthologybydrjen.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/integrativedrmom/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzezGvF02SNufzc7YJBpj5g Other Episodes You Might Like:  My Thyroid and Adrenals: Navigating Midlife Hormones: https://www.flippingfifty.com/my-thyroid/ A Conversation with the Thyroid Fixer | #517: https://www.flippingfifty.com/thyroid-fixer/ Resources:  Flippingfifty Protein:  https://www.flippingfifty.com/protein Sunlighten Saunas: https://www.flippingfifty.com/sauna The Flipping 50 Cafe: https://www.flippingfifty.com/cafe/ Blood Sugar Monitoring: https://www.flippingfifty.com/myglucose Details: join for $149/year and $75 for 3 sensors for a month  

Learn exactly which state jumped the bandwagon in calling out for volunteers shortly after Congress declared war on Britain. Discover what surprise Indian Forces had up their sleeves come September 5, 1812 including how American Troops counter responded. Learn which commanding post the U.S. Government gave William Henry Harrison on September 17, 1812. Go behind the scenes and learn all there is to know about Harrison's planned out invasion for retaking Michigan including Fort Detroit. Get to know Brigadier General William Winchester and the challenges facing troops under his watch. Learn how Virginia & Pennsylvania Militia Companies fared before and after making their ways into Ohio. Discover what had become of Brigadier General Winchester's Troop Forces Situation along Maumee River by Mid December 1812. Determine if it's fair to say that food accessibility along Northwest Territory lacked abundance during Winter 1812-1813. Learn about a place in Michigan called Frenchtown including primary objectives for American Troops under Brigadier General Winchester's command. Find out whom was current British Commander at Fort Malden in midst of American Forces aiming to retake Michigan & Fort Detroit. Go behind the scenes and get an in depth analysis as to what takes place between January 18-23, 1813. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kirk-monroe/support

Joe DeMare talks about censorship around the train wreck in Columbiana county. Then about spotting a river otter on the Maumee River and the resilience of Nature. Next he interviews Sandy Bihn about the upcoming hearing on the Ohio EPA"s proposed "regulation" of pollution from farm fields and CAFOS that are causing Lake Erie's deadly algal blooms each summer. Spoiler, the regulations will do nothing. Rebecca Wood talks about Charles Young, the first superintendent of National Parks, an African American, and Teddy Roosevelt's right hand man in overseas military excursions. Ecological News includes: Mexico banning geoengineering; the discovery that global warming killed pretty much everything in the Permian era; and NAML opposing Fukushima dumping radiation into the Pacific. 

I met Chad at a Backcountry Hunters and Anglers event this year while kayaking on the Maumee River. He has turned into a great hunting buddy and is always avid to get out there to go after ducks, squirrels, deer, fish or anything else that pops up. Learn about hunting in NW Ohio here. Buy a Knife from Malone Knives: https://bit.ly/3VmikEh Get 10% off Absolute Aid Products: https://bit.ly/3px2Jnt Discount Code: APTITUDE10 Buy me a coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/Aptitudeoutdoor More Aptitude Outdoors here: https://bit.ly/2YLp82N  

The legendary football rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan arguably has its roots in a 19th century border dispute that saw both sides call up militia armies to gain control of Toledo and the Maumee River. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebook.com/ohiomysteries Audionautix- The Great Unknown The Great Phospher- Daniel Birch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Open Hearts and Ousted Demons Acts 16:11-24 Our Theme as we have gone through the Book of Acts has been – “God's extraordinary power working through ordinary people!” The conversion of an “_______ and Out” woman V. 11-15 Not only was she successful and not born again yet, she was _______________________ and not born again yet! So whose the first person Paul leads to Christ in Macedonia? A woman from _______ __________, where he had wanted to go! Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart! -Psalm 37:4 The conversion of a “________ and Out” woman V. 16-24 If people are profiting off of your ____________________ condition, in a sense you are owned by them, and ultimately, Satan! Love is our greatest motivation, but sometimes we have to simply _____________ God first, do what we're called to do, and remember how much we love reaching out to others as we are ministering! Perhaps because Paul had already experienced persecution, he may have been a little reluctant to go there. Oh wait, that's too often how WE ARE! But when we worry about the ramifications of sharing the gospel in a secular context, we need to remember what's at stake for those oppressed by Satan. Paul often took a ___________________ whipping to secure an eternal soul! “Mrs. Turner, the wife of the Agent, and her sister Mrs. Hackley were half Indian and helped the McCoys greatly in contacting the local Miamis. It was not long before Mrs. Turner became convicted of her sin and professed faith in Christ. Apparently she had longed for the gospel to enter her heart and life but had thought that as she was an Indian, she was ineligible to be loved by God. Dr. Turner, however, had scruples about his wife being baptized but gave them up after several months. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hackley professed conversion and asked to be baptized. This was arranged for June 18th. At 10 AM on that day, McCoy gathered his family, workers, and pupils, besides the newly converted and their families, on the banks of the Maumee River and preached on the subject of baptism. A number of whites and Indians not directly connected with the missionary base attended the meeting. At the river side, all sung a hymn McCoy had written for the occasion.” -Isaac McCoy, Apostle of the Western Trail, p 86-87 < Glad Tidings, so the angels sung, Until the heavens with gladness rung; Glad tidings late my soul replied, for me my Lord was crucified. “The news shall spread through all the earth.” So sang the host at Jesus' birth. Ye gentle waves, I call on you to say, is not the promise true? This very stream was lately stained With blood from strangling soldiers drained;* Now, strange to tell, the Prince of Peace in it displays His sovereign grace. Ye oaks, which shook while cannons roar'd, now bow your heads and praise the Lord; Tell the wild man beneath your shade why Christ in Jordan's stream was laid. Those warlike towers on yonder wall,** like those of Jericho, must fall, While deathful weapons dormant lie – shout, saints, the Ark is passing by. Ye winds, which spread the news of death, no longer breathe offensive breath; But the glad tidings loud proclaim, “Here saints rejoice in Jesus' name.” Sure all who hear will join and sing, Glory to God, our Christ is King. Still let the Gospel spread abroad, Till all the world shall worship God. -Isaac McCoy, 1820 *In a former battle near Fort Wayne, the corpses were so numerous that they damned the river; **The fortifications around Fort Wayne

On this week's Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, questions and explanations about the increasing frequency of melting ice falling from the Mackinac Bridge cables, creating hazards for motorists and the need to close the bridge for many hours at a time. This video illustrates the danger. As this record shows, closures because of falling ice have happened with increasing frequency. First, Matt Chynoweth, chief bridge engineer at the Michigan Department of Transportation, explains what causes the big chunks of ice to come crashing down and the challenges other bridge operators across the country and world have had in managing the problem. In Toledo, the Ohio Department of Transportation has been forced to close the Veterans Glass City Skyway over the Maumee River because of falling ice.  Chynoweth also explains the challenge in striking a balance between the cost of delays to travelers and the expensive solutions being discussed elsewhere. Later, James Lake, MDOT North Region media relations representative who also supports the Mackinac Bridge Authority, talks about his efforts in explaining the issues to media outlets and social media users.Podcast photo: Ice builds up on the iconic green Mackinac Bridge cables.

Joe DeMare interviews Jim Witer with the Wood County Park District about an interesting series of lectures the Park District is presenting including the story of four people who kayaked the length of the Maumee River. Rebecca Wood tells us the story of the Deer Mother, the pagan goddess who wore a red and white suit and flew through the air on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. Ecological news includes the proposal by some in the European Union to magically use taxonomy to turn fracked gas and nuclear power into "clean" energy sources, updates from Fairy Creek and the Wet'suwet'en tribe and more!

In this new Summit Session Spotlight I'll shine the light on another person who got creative with the outdoors right in their own backyard. This week's spotlight is on Paul Fuzinski, host of the Aptitude Outdoors Podcast, who decided to paddle the 137-mile Maumee River from end to end simply because "he could". Not because it was some sought after local accomplishment to achieve but simply to do something fun and different in the outdoors right in his home state. All it takes is a little creativity, and some will, to have an outdoors adventure wherever you call home.

We talked about Chris recently after he shared his remarkable experience at the Oliver House. I said he basically moved on from his 'relationship' with the Collingwood Arts Center after catching on camera what he did at the Maumee River spot.  For the video to sync up with what Chris talk about GO HERE.  It wasn't superheroes, nerdy or mental health stuff, but I geeked out peppering Chris with questions about the after life and much more! 

THANK YOU TO THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR, BEST FIENDS. Download the 5-Star Mobile Puzzle Game in the Apple App store or Google Play.Thank you to Naptime Nancy Drew for joining me this week and than you the listeners for tuning in to a BRAND NEW EPISODE OF WHO KILLED...? I want to take you back to August fourth 19-81 when a young secretary named Cynthia Anderson disappeared from Toledo, Ohio.With a population over 350,000 people, Toledo sits next to the Maumee River which disperses into Lake Erie.SOURCES:https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Cynthia_Andersonhttps://charleyproject.org/case/cynthia-jane-andersonhttps://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/08/04/Woman-s-disappearance-a-mystery-after-30-years.htmlhttps://www.clermontsun.com/2020/05/13/marc-hoover-the-disappearance-of-cynthia-andersonhttps://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/4ggcul/cynthia_anderson_had_nightmares_about_being/https://philosophyofcrime.com/the-disappearance-of-cynthia-anderson/https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Law-Enforcement/Investigator/Ohio-Missing-Persons/Missing-Adults-1/Andersonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWg68QUUaBMhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naptime-nancy-drew-podcast/id1461714222https://twitter.com/naptimenancydrw?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

I interview Abigail King, Lauren Conklin, and Yolanda Alvarez of Save Maumee at one of the organization's newest project sites.  Save Maumee is a fantastic grass roots organization working to restore riparian habitat associated with the Maumee River.  To learn more about what Save Maumee does, and how you might help, visit https://savemaumee.org/.  

Theater, concerts, arts festivals all seem like a distant memory with the ongoing pandemic of 2020. That means Crystal Phelps, of Toledo's Arts Commission, had to get creative this year in planning and executing Momentum, a three-day festival of music and art in downtown Toledo, Ohio, centered on our revitalizing waterfront along the Maumee River. Listen in to hear how the arts festival is shifting gears to continue to bring one of the last festivals of the summer to Toledoens. 

Toledo Harbor Lighthouse was established in 1904 in the western end of Lake Erie, marking the entrance to the Toledo Shipping Channel and the approach to the Port of Toledo on the Maumee River. The buff-colored brick tower has a steel framework, and the total height of the lighthouse is 85 feet. There’s also an attached one-story fog signal building. The building’s distinctive Romanesque architecture has led some to liken it to a gingerbread house. Resident keepers staffed the lighthouse until its 1966 automation. Toledo Harbor Lighthouse. U.S. Lighthouse Society photo. Sandy Bihn (Great Lakes Echo) Circa 1910 postcard; USLHS archives. Today the lighthouse is in the care of the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Preservation Society, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization with more than 500 members. Under the provisions of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, ownership of the lighthouse was conveyed to the Society in 2007. Sandy Bihn is the founder and president of the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Preservation Society. She was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ohio Environmental Council in 2017.

WAKE - The Treaty of Paris 1763 was signed between the French king and the English king ending the French and Indian War/Seven Year War in Indiana. The treaty awarded all French territories in  North America east of the Mississippi to the Brits. That included Indiana for those of you who are geographically challenged. It was a horrific disaster for Pontiac’s  “Indians First” movement. The Indians would no longer be able to pit the French humans against the English humans in North America.  WHAT - Looking in the rear view mirror of the period between 1763 and 1765 indicates the woeful British attempts to go down a negotiating rabbit hole with the Indians for peace. There were flare ups with the Indians led by Chief Pontiac. Many battles ensued with death counts and carnage increasing on both sides. The British couldn’t get their signal of peace to the Indians through the noise of war. The British over and under for success with the Indians was not good during this period.  WHY- That was until 1765 when the Brits hired George Croghan a fur trader and Indian negotiating blue chipper from Pennsylvania. Croghan became the OG Mac Daddy of Indian negotiators for the British. Croghan (an Irish bright) who had been trading with the Indians spoke their language and understood their culture. He brought down the firewall between the British and Indians.                                                  WEAVE - He met with Pontiac and Indian leaders several times once at Fort Ouiatenon (Lafayette, IN) and then Fort Detroit. He convinced Pontiac’s entourage to go to New York to sign a peace treaty with his Indian Affairs boss to end the conflict. Pontiac agreed - went to New York in 1766 and  signed the huge sell off “Peace Treaty” and came back to the banks of the Maumee River to what he thought would be an easy retirement.  Pontiac’s polling numbers crashed. His fellow Indians were upside down furious with him. The Indians felt he had negotiated against their interest, and was a sellout taking money and gifts for himself from the British. The Indians accused him of selfishly throwing them and their lands under the bus even though he claimed not.    The British called on Pontiac one last time in 1769 to Fort Chartres to settle a local tribal dispute. He was tomahawked upside of the head to death by a Peoria Indian from - Peoria. An explosive coverup theory was the assassin was enlisted by the British to do the fatal deed because Pontiac was becoming a nettlesome issue (Pontiac Derangement Syndrome) with the Indians. The Brits thought Pontiac was harming the new found British/Indian relationship.    WARN - Pontiac was dead! But the genetic code of a conspiracy theory thrived among the Indians.   What happened to the infamous George Croghan who had befriended Pontiac? Well, he became filthy rich and famous. The American Revolution for independence from British rule was about to begin after the Boston Massacre of 1770. Indiana readied for American settlers, but remained a hot zone with the Indians inspired by the British. It would continue for decadesThe end of Hoosieroon Podcast #21 thanks for listening. Cp Sent from my iPhone              

Tuesday April 7th (00:00) Floyd’s not feeling great. Shopping trips yesterday. The dogs did not go out this morning. (8:37) Throwback song choices and a song from artists who are bored at home. (14:03) Seagate may get COVID patient overflow. Maumee River access points watched. BG and UT doing online only for summer classes. Good signs says Dr. Fauci. British PM in ICU. Kroger using customer limits. (20:50) Carol Baskin WILL NOT be on any new Tiger King episodes. Lady Gaga putting together a mega event. (28:17) Great work by Deet’s for our healthcare workers. What’s that sound in Floyd’s apartment. (35:15) Sandy Spang is on with us to explain how small businesses can get money from the stimulus. (47:29) More bored at home songs from familiar artists. A New Orleans legend helping his hometown. (53:15) The first ever Pandemic Panel! (59:19) Kim from the Zoo has what’s going on with them even as they’re closed. (1:08:48) Meghan and Harry name their foundation.

Wildwood Anglers is a fly fishing shop located in Sylvania, Ohio and is owned and operated by Brad Dunkle. On this episode Brad retells some of his favorite fly fishing adventures from guiding out in Colorado and we discuss gear, boats, hair raising mountain lion run-ins and disclose some of our favorite things about the Maumee River. We also welcome back Ryan Martin who gives us his perspective on fly fishing in Michigan and Ohio and drinks a ton of beer with me. 

Bill Hoefflin is a career naturalist who has worked at Maumee Bay State Park, Metroparks Toledo and currently at the Wood County Park District. He has an in depth knowledge of the outdoors and a passion for teaching about wildlife and nature. On this episode we discuss our 137 mile Fort to Port Kayaking Trip along the Maumee River, we try to understand why some people are terrified of the outdoors and we talk a LOT of smack. 

Linda Butler (a photographer who's been documenting the effects of climate change for a number of years, most recently focusing on the Great Lakes), and Lynn Whitney (associate professor of photography at BGSU, whose celebrated work consists of black and white photographs of Lake Erie) discuss merging the worlds of fine art and environmental activism.  Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University, and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas. Intro Song Lyrics: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Scheffer, associate professor of English and American cultural studies, and the director of ICS. Today, I have the honor of being joined by two women photographers who bring together the worlds of fine art and environmental activism. We have with us Linda Butler, and Lynn Whitney. Linda is a photographer who's been documenting the effects of climate change for a number of years, most recently focusing on the Great Lakes. Lynn Whitney is an associate professor of photography here at BGSU, whose work is in the permanent collections of the Toledo Museum of Art and Yale University. Much of Lynn's work consists of black and white photographs of Lake Erie. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome, and thanks for talking with me today. To begin with, I'd like each of you to talk about how you came to your current landscape work about the Great Lakes, and what motivates you to do this particular work at this time. Linda, you start us off? Linda Butler: Well, I'm going to be a little nervous too, so we'll work through it, but, I guess, my main concern as a human being right now is what's happening to our planet. And, global warming is causing things like unusual storms, and I think this part of the country, for instance, the Maumee River with all its flooding, and the problems flooding causes to the lake itself, because fertilizer is being washed off the fields and going into the lake, I mean, it was an ideal setting to take photographs in. And, it's been a very rich experience for me to work at this end of the state, although, I worked actually around all of Lake Erie. And, I'm tracking both things like renewable energy projects, and which governments are doing more in that area, as well as really heavy industry that uses a lot of energy to make steel or concrete, and finding out where the carbon dioxide is coming from, and, it's heavy industry, and it's also from coal running power plants; coal. Linda Butler: And, if you go around the lake, there a lot of ways that coal is being delivered to barges and so on. And so, it's really evident all around the lake, but less so in Canada, because, the coast of Canada has much less industry, and also the Government of Canada has put a lot of money into renewable energy. Jolie Sheffer: So, in your work, you really show how the Great Lakes are the best and the worst of the current state of climate change and industrial effects on the landscape in some. Linda Butler: Well, I can't comment on the other lakes, because I really know Lake Erie, but there's a lot to learn from Lake Erie and how we're using this water. Jolie Sheffer: What about you, Lynn, how did you come to ... This is a long term project, so what is your story been and getting interested in the lake? Lynn Whitney: My story is interesting, because my story begins with the Maumee River and the bridge construction that happened over the Maumee River. I was commissioned to photograph the bridge that was constructed there, the Veterans Memorial Skyway, from the Toledo Museum of Art, and the river, obviously, factors deeply into that work. After that commission was complete, I was asked by The George Gund Foundation in Cleveland to submit work for a possible commission, and received one which involves Lake Erie, the coastline on Cuyahoga County. I graciously accepted that, because it was a huge honor to be given that commission, particularly because the photographer who had completed Lake Erie before me ... These are all for annual reports, which are really snoozy to read, so the designer ... And Linda also was commissioned by The Gund Foundation; we've shared quite a few stories about that, but the designer was very interested in perking up those annual reports with photographers whose work he respected, and which could break up the sort of snoozy reading that generally, annual reports are. Lynn Whitney: So, anyway, the photographer who came before me making work about Lake Erie was Frank Gohlke, a member of the new topographics movement in photography, and to which I ascribed a great deal of my own practice. And so, it was, like, yikes, coming after him and wanting to, both honor his work, so I would search out where he made certain photographs and go back and re-photograph those places as a way of just getting launchpads for myself, and that mushroomed into just me looking at human interactions with the coastline. I have a very deep interest in American culture studies, because that was my first degree, so, I'm always incorporating themes and issues that revolve around our culture, relative to the lake. So, did I answer it? Jolie Sheffer: Yeah, that's great. Unfortunately, as we're talking about, we live in a time where the effects of climate change are very noticeably harming our environment. We've had that very close to home in terms of the water being toxic, because of algal blooms a couple of years ago. So, in your work, where do you see, and in what ways do you see climate change affecting Lake Erie? What kinds of things were you trying to document, or are you trying to document in your work? Lynn Whitney: For me, climate change and what's happening to Lake Erie is always in my background of my head. However, I don't necessarily point it out with the images that I make. The good ones maybe suggest some crisis there, but they also suggest our ignorance, or our ... Not ignorance, but maybe just, it's just too big for us kind of feeling. It's just too big of a problem kind of feeling for most of us regular folk. And so, I think, if I could say that I suggest those themes, I guess that's what I would say to answer that question. It's certainly in the background of my head when I make my photographs, but I don't necessarily go out and say, "There are the zebra mussels, and there's the algae bloom," because I can't make pictures like that. So, anyway ... Jolie Sheffer: What about you, Linda? Linda Butler: So, I would say that my work on this project has been more explicit than that. I mean, I consciously went around the lake and looked for renewable energy projects, which, of course, are so important because they give us energy that is not related to burning coal, and burning coal is the reason we have more carbon dioxide in the environment. And so, it turns out that Canada has been much more proactive in terms of renewable energy. The Government of Ontario, in particular, put up 5000 wind turbines that gets the breeze off the lake, and as a result of that, they were able to shut down the largest coal burning power plant in the Northern Hemisphere. I mean, that's a big deal. And then, five years later, they completed a conversion of that plant to solar power, and that just opened this year. Linda Butler: So, some of this stuff is evident in my photographs. The intellectual stuff, though, is not, so I don't have a picture of that array of solar panels. But, the other direction that I've taken is trying to figure out how climate change is affecting the farmers in the region. And the farmers have been blamed for having too much fertilizer, and when rains come, the fertilizer goes into the rivers, and blah, blah, blah. Well, getting to know a farmer and trying to figure out how he is dealing with this issue, it becomes clear that one of the problems is, they're having extreme weather events in a way that didn't happen in the past. He said, "When I was a kid working on my dad's farm," which is now his farm, "we just didn't have a four inches of rain, or three inches of rain in a single 24 hour period. That didn't happen." Linda Butler: And that's ... Climate scientists are always very careful to say, "I don't know if this event was caused by climate change or not." But, the weather is becoming weirder and weirder. And so, I think of it as climate weirding as opposed to climate warming. And, I think of the world being encased in a huge glass bowl, and the ball is formed by carbon dioxide molecules, and when the sun comes in and heats the world, the heat can't get out, like being in a hot car, or a greenhouse. And, on these farms that have three inches of rain that come down at once, they just can't handle it with the normal ways they've learned to deal with getting rid of water from their farms. And, this farmer that I got to know recently, he said he couldn't even plant this year. I mean, he put in some cover crops, but he couldn't get in his corn. Jolie Sheffer: We had such a wet, wet season that most of the corn crops and soybeans too, I think, couldn't go in. Linda Butler: So, this is a huge loss for farmers, but it's also a horrible problem in terms of runoff. And so, it's interesting to see from a farmers point of view working with this today, what some of the experimental projects have been to help farmers deal with this. Jolie Sheffer: We're going to take a quick break. Thank you for listening to the Big Ideas podcast. Speaker 3: Send us the following. Speaker 1: If you are passionate about Big Ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome back. Today I'm interviewing Linda Butler and Lynn Whitney about their photographs of Lake Erie. So, this is for both of you; how much research and learning about the lakes or climate change have you done for your separate photo series? Does data play a role in your work, Linda? Linda Butler: So, when I started out, I hadn't paid much attention to Lake Erie, frankly. And, I got hold of some history books at a used bookstore, and I read a lot about what people suffered, particularly in this area, because there was the Great Black Swamp, and people got mired in it, and stayed, even though it was so wet, and they got malaria, and all of the things that happened to the poor migrants that decided to go West from here. And so, I do read history, and I ... How do you find a good photograph is another issue, and sometimes it's truly good fortune; the stars are aligned. And, one of the photographs that I really love is a photograph of, I call it luminescence, where there's an image taken from a high cliff, looking down at the lake, on the first day of spring, when there was a big melt of the ice. There was no snow on the lake, and there's a perfect reflection of the sky on the photograph. Linda Butler: Well, that's an unusual occasion. I couldn't have predicted finding that, but as luck has it, and just being out there and working, sometimes you stumble on something that's really great. And, I think, I can't remember ... I guess one of the mottoes I live by is, just do it. It's the Nike motto, I think, but it applies to photography as well. I mean, if you're worrying about things and you're at home, guess what? You're not making change happen at all. But, if you're out there taking photographs, I mean, some of the photographs will move people to think differently about their environment and what's happening to it. And so, that's one of the things that I love about photography, is it's such an accessible medium, and it's repeatable. So, if I give a photograph to you, it's not the only one I have. And so, I can use it in other ways. Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Lynn? Lynn Whitney: Research. My research is ... I don't know, it's Robert Frost who said that when you walk in a field, it's the birds that stick to your stocks, it's the things that you bring with you. My research; I have some knowledge about the area just by being here, and I'm reading and have read most of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes- Jolie Sheffer: By Dan Egan? Lynn Whitney: Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative). But I'm not researching per se, I'm really interested in the life that's along the lake, and as Linda was saying, it's really about serendipity; where I land up is where I land up. I'm often going to Magee Marsh, I'm looking at, thinking about the population of birders that come in from all over the world and how that represents world peace. Everybody gets along, everybody's helpful with one another, and everybody's looking at these really elusive creatures that are storing up their food to fly across this great big lake, and it's just miraculous to me to have those kinds of events transpire right in our backyard, and that people know about it and people care about those birds that are diminishing. Lynn Whitney: And so, my research, I wouldn't say is really traditional, it's, I read a lot of fiction, I read poetry, I just bring to my practice those words, and thoughts, and music, and try to incorporate that in how I see. Jolie Sheffer: What do you think photography does to communicate our changing environment and our relationship? A lot of what you're talking about is communities and people's relationship to the landscape. What role do you think the arts play in shifting, if not public policy, public awareness? Lynn Whitney: A lot. My work, no, I don't find my work to be very activist, but I do find that I ... My hope is that I slow the world down a little bit, and make people, or help people to consider, not make people do anything, but just help people consider what they're looking at. It's like, if I went to church it would be like that, just calmly-looking, and considering, and being internally changed by having done so. I think ... Is that right? I mean, is that the question I'm answering? Jolie Sheffer: Yeah, yeah. Lynn Whitney: Okay. Oh, I often get off track, you can take that out. So, that would be my answer to that question. Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Linda? Lynn Whitney: I think you have a lot to say on that, Linda. Linda Butler: So, I think I'm a bit more of an activist with my photographs. So, in the project that I did on Lake Erie, I'm very concerned about global warming, and I wanted the photographs to capture some of the causes of global warming that were affecting the lake. And so, I looked for that material in factories around the lake, coal burning power plants, I found out a whole lot of them, [crosstalk 00:18:53]- Jolie Sheffer: But how did you find them? What was your research process for that? Linda Butler: Well, I went around the lake. "Look,..." Jolie Sheffer: Your feet. Linda Butler: "...they have dirty smoke. It's coming from somewhere." And, "Where is it coming from?", trying to get close to it, and so on. And, some of the work was very conscious. So, I saw an incredibly huge refinery in Detroit, and it's on the main I-75, and it's not a place you can readily stop. And, it was a specific time of year, because there was a sunset going on, as well as the cold making the smoke more relevant you could actually see it. And so, I went back with a friend, a year later, and she zipped in with her little Fiat, and I was in the rider's seat. I jumped out of the car with a tripod, I took a photograph really quickly, jumped back into the car, and before police could stop us, we zipped off and tried to not be squished by one of these big trucks that was passing. Linda Butler: So, that was a really conscious effort to get a specific photograph that had to do with global warming. Jolie Sheffer: Do you use your photography to teach viewers? So, we've talked about this a little bit, but explicitly about that idea of teaching, and, if so, what are you hoping people take away? So, Lynn, you were talking about a more of a affective contemplative response, but you are also a teacher teaching students; teaching undergrad and MFA students at BGSU. So, what are you striving to teach them about creating fine art photography about their relationship to the world, and what they can do with their work? Lynn Whitney: I strive to teach them to be present and honest in their approach, and I teach, I hope I teach that, through the history of photography, students learn other artists and how they've approached this medium, but everybody has to really come to it from a place that feels genuine, and relevant to themselves. And, I teach, I think, students to really care about the medium, and about the world and it's place, the mediums place in it. It's a really aggressive tool. We often shoot, we take, we do all those words that are very loaded, in my opinion, which is another word that's aggressive. I try to change the language around the medium, so that there's more of a community that students are involved with in the world, and can then bring that experience alive in an artifact. Lynn Whitney: I don't know if I really got to the point, but I think it's a difficult question what you're asking, because, people hear in different ways, people take in in different ways, and I really hope that they're at least getting a part of what I just said, which was to really use this medium in an empathetic, and honest, and genuine way. Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Linda, what role does your photography do in trying to teach, or engage, or educate audiences, viewers? Linda Butler: From the beginning, this body of work, I thought, would be able to travel to different sites. And so, I was thinking of it as being a traveling exhibit, and it's become that. And so, when it's a traveling exhibit, I go with it and have an opportunity to talk to people. The photographs in this exhibit are attached to captions, and the place of where the photograph was taken on the lake is identified in the caption. So people can really look at a photograph, see where it was taken, and place themselves on the lake. And, it's been interesting. I've had a number of traveling exhibits. This one, people are pausing longer over the photographs than I've ever seen before. And I think the captions are very intriguing to them, but also, the aerial photographs give a completely different point of view of places that are familiar. Linda Butler: So, if they see that the city of Cleveland, they try to find themselves in it, or ... For instance, one of my favorite photographs in this body of work is called mixed real estate, and its Oregon, which is right at the mouth of the Maumee River, and there is just a strange conglomeration of things that are there that relate to coal and global warming, but also, nice houses right next to the coal, or a golf course. And, it's just a strange mixture, and I think that's kind of fun to see a site that you're so familiar with, but in a different way. But, I think also, my talks, I really spend a lot of time figuring out what message that I'm really most concerned about, and really talking about that, and persuading people to, if they care about these issues like of global warming, to talk to other people about it, their friends, their huge group of friends, and also to vote, vote for people who are supporting renewable energy, and are not taking corporate contributions that will persuade how they vote in legislature. Jolie Sheffer: I want to now turn to our studio audience for some questions from BGSU students. Jacob Church: Hi, I'm Jacob Church, and this question's for Linda. So, in your work a lot, there are these really nice aerial views often, and, I think, formulae and compositionally, they're really pleasing in that sense, but the issue itself, I know is troubling. How do you deal with that in your work, or have you struggled with that in the past? Linda Butler: Let's see. Okay. I'm attracted to beauty, and I consider some of the things that are ugly that I photographed, I mean, or are really spewing carbon dioxide, to be quite beautiful and worth looking at. And, I don't mind that they look beautiful in my photographs, because it gets people to look closely at them. So, the amount of coal and iron ore that's on the [da-zag 00:26:46] island, is really relevant too, when we think about using steel in our lives. I sure deal with that a lot. I drive a car. We're all participating in global warming in one way or another. And so, I think having images of how it happens helps people understand that we're all in this together, and we need to figure out other ways of managing how we create energy. Linda Butler: That's not quite the right answer to ... So, another thing is, I do have quite a few beautiful landscapes of, for instance, marshes, and wetlands. And, I particularly wanted to get those images, because the Great Black Swamp used to look like that, and, I think, for people to realize that it was an giant sponge at one point in the life of the state, not just in one point, in hundreds and thousands of years, it was a Great Black Swamp. And, now it's cornfields, and, guess what? The change in that use of the land has had an effect in terms of how water runs off of it. And so, I think to photograph these beautiful swamps and marshes is relevant to the message that I have. Lynn Whitney: I would just add, I think the beauty in Linda's work is so incredibly there, there, that it allows for an access to it that one might not necessarily be provided with if it wasn't like that. I mean, you have these aerial photographs that, to me, are just incredibly rich with information, and presents the way we've used the land and the way the land is being used, and engages the viewer to take part and be a participant in, and recognize their own participation with the issues. And I think that's what is so compelling about your exhibition; the information is rich and dense and complicated and scary, and yet you kind of mediate that with these photographs that bring that sort of tension alive, and make our awareness that much more acute, and maybe, hopefully, will activate people's feet so that they do get out and vote, and they do get out in march, and they do get out and do things to help with the crisis. I'm really, really proud of your work. Linda Butler: Oh, thank you. Clara Delgado: Hi, I'm Clara Delgado, and my question is for both of you. I guess my question is, how do you deal with human emotion, and/or ambivalence, apathy, to climate change in your photographs? Lynn Whitney: I deal with it a lot. I mean, I think my work is not specific about climate change, though it's there in some veiled way. It is veiled, probably, in me. I care very deeply about climate change, but I'm probably not effectively making a difference with my work in that regard. And the human emotion, I have several photographs where people are pictured, and their relationship to the lake is in the same way that mine is, which is, there's the lake as your backdrop, or your theater, or your stage, and you're in the foreground performing some activity that has something to do with the lake, in terms of your enjoyment of it, or in terms of it's just there. And so, it's suggested that, the issue of climate change, because that lake is rising, is part of the picture, but not necessarily pointed to in a way that makes that point come across. I guess I expect my viewer to already be open to those issues, which is probably not a good idea, but ... It's a tearful. Linda Butler: Well, something that Lynn said earlier about sort of meditative way of looking at the landscape, is something that I also do. I don't think I take good photographs if I'm holding up a big bat and trying to knock somebody over the head with the message. The good photographs have to persuade on their own. And, I think, when I take what I consider to be a really good photograph, is so often coming from a meditative state. I don't like to have people with me when I'm taking photographs, I like to not talk, I like to respond to what I see, and really try to figure out, "How do you pursue to create a photograph that's really well composed out of this?" And, really, just thinking about that; being there in the moment, and trying to work with what's there. Linda Butler: And, maybe, on a given subject, I'll take 20 photographs. It's easy to use a digital camera in that way, because you can take a lot of material, it doesn't cost anything. And then, go home, quickly look at it on the computer if I'm close, and I didn't get it, if my focus is bad, or I've made some technical mistake, I can often go back, and maybe it's a new experience when I go back, but the meditative attitude without an agenda is really important. Ann Toberly: My name is Ann Toberly. I have a question for both of you. Given that you've photographed over many years, both of you, there's been times when you've had limited access to different areas, and, have you ever been denied that area and went ahead and taken the photograph, or what is your perspective of private property, and once the photograph is out, whether or not you should print if it wasn't necessarily given permission? Jolie Sheffer: Do you have that experience? Lynn Whitney: That's a good question and one that everybody needs to pay a lot of attention to, is private property, and, basically, the legality of what we do. I have taken a lot of risks, I'll be honest with you, in my lifetime as a photographer. I've done things I probably should not have done. In my bridge project, just to cite an example, the early days of the bridge project were very different from after the accident where workers lost their lives. In the beginning, I did not need an escort, after the accident, I did. The escort's time schedule limited my ravenousness for the subject matter, and I got restless, and I pushed my limits a little bit with that too much. I don't recommend being me with some of those things. With the Lake Erie work, I am very sensitive to private property. I always ask if I can go, if there's an individual who's out that I can ask permission of. Lynn Whitney: And, if I'm permitted to make work there, I'm always bringing work back to the individual who permitted me to be there. That way you establish yourself as, "I meant it, and here it is, and this is what I did." And it wasn't, in my opinion, anything that might shame them, or do something that was negative towards them. And if it was, in their eyes, because you never really know how what you see and what you understand about what you're seeing is the same for the other person, they have every right to say, "No, that's not, that's not." And I will then not show it. Linda Butler: So, to some extent in my Lake Eerie photographs, I got away from needing permissions by going into the air. And so, with some of the places that would be considered private, I mean, by the company's probably, I got access in another way. And anybody can take a picture of that from the air; who's in an airplane? So, it's not like they own the airspace in my opinion. And so, I don't see any moral conflict with that. With private property, I'm much more sensitive. And so, I knew that I needed to take photographs of a farm, but I didn't have access to a farm in this area. And I was reading the same book that Lynn has read about The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, and the man who wrote it had listed some of the people's names who he approached who were farmers in this area. And so, I started calling them, and nobody called me back, so I called again. Linda Butler: And, finally, somebody actually did call me back. And so, I drove from Cleveland to talk to him, and it was a courting process to some extent. He wanted to know what I was going to do with the images, and he didn't want to be involved with something that wasn't on the up and up. And, we developed a great relationship. I mean, he's a wonderful innovator in how he uses fertilizer, and he's a leader, I think. Probably why Egan interviewed him in the first place, but it's been a really great relationship. Now, sometimes I've gone down a lane that is marked "no trespassing" in order to get to the lake, and I've been chased by a couple of people who say, "You're not supposed to be here.", basically, even before I get out of the car. And, there is ... I don't know, I kind of feel, the lake is a public lake, so people don't own that, and if I'm not really doing anything wrong on their property, like going down a private road, I don't really think that's a moral sin, but if I'm involved with photographing their property, and they don't consent, that's not good. Jolie Sheffer: You're both really talking about the ethics of photography, and that it is a relational practice, and needing to have a set of guidelines for how you engage with others. Linda and Lynn, thank you so much for being here with me today. I really appreciate getting to learn about your work. Jolie Sheffer: Our producers for this podcast are Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza. Research assistants for this podcast was provided by ICS intern, Eishat Ahmed, with editing by Stevie Scheurich. This conversation was recorded in the Stanton Audio Recording Studio in the Michael and Sarah Kuhlin Center at Bowling Green State University.        

Dr. Shannon Orr (Professor of Political Science whose research focuses on environmental policy, director of the Master of Public Administration Program at BGSU) and Dr. Tim Davis (Ryan Family Endowed Professor of Biology, member of the Lake Erie Research Center and the Environmental Protection Agency Subcommittee for Safe and Sustainable Water Resources) discuss algae blooms, water quality science, and policy in Lake Erie.       Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas. Intro Song Lyrics: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS. Jolie Sheffer: Today I'm joined by two BGSU faculty members. Dr. Shannon Orr is a Professor of Political Science whose research focuses on environmental policy. She was recently recognized for her outstanding community involvement at the 2019 Faculty Excellence Awards, which lauded her for 100 service learning projects, among other activities. Dr. Orr is the director of the Master of Public Administration Program at BGSU. Jolie Sheffer: Dr. Tim Davis is a Ryan Family Endowed Professor of Biology, whose research focuses on algal blooms and aquatic ecosystems. He's a member of the Lake Erie Research Center and the Environmental Protection Agency Subcommittee for Safe and Sustainable Water Resources. Dr. Davis was recently honored in Washington DC for his work in the prevention of harmful algal blooms. Jolie Sheffer: Shannon and Tim, thanks for joining me. Dr. Tim Davis: Thank you. Dr. Shannon Orr: Thanks for having us. Jolie Sheffer: Tim, you've done substantial research regarding harmful algal blooms, especially around the Great Lakes region. How did you come to focus on that area in biology? Dr. Tim Davis: I mean honestly, it kind of started my senior year of undergrad. I was at Southampton College at Long Island University, and I went to the South Pacific with a research professor to do a winter term study abroad course, and even though you're supposed to have a project, I didn't have one. So I just started working with that faculty member, and he was working on algal blooms and we were doing some work with damselfish in Fiji and Solomon Islands. Dr. Tim Davis: So I started working with him, and then when I got back to a university, I joined his lab. Harmful algal blooms seemed to be a hot topic. Water quality is always something that's been a area that I think is really important, living and growing up either near the Atlantic Ocean or in the Great Lakes. I just kind of took off from there, and harmful algal bloom seemed to be popping up everywhere, and it presented a great opportunity to conduct meaningful science that would be applied to society. I thought this is a good way to spend the rest of my career. Jolie Sheffer: Shannon, your background is in environmental policy. How did you become interested in water issues in our region? Dr. Shannon Orr: Well, it was really because of the students when I first started teaching at BGSU. When I came here I had been working on climate change, and specifically looking at the United nations and the treaty negotiations that were going on around climate change. I was teaching in my very first semester, my very first class at BGSU, I was teaching an environmental policy class. I was using a lot of references to climate change. I had moved here from the Canadian Rockies, and so a lot of my examples were kind of Rocky Mountain based, Western Canada, Western US. Dr. Shannon Orr: And then the students started talking a lot about Asian carp, and they had so much passion for the issue and the concerns and threat of Asian carp as an invasive species posing a threat to the Great Lakes. So, I started reading about it based on their interest and then I got really captivated in it. Then I kind of caught their passion and then I started to become more involved in issues around kind of water quality, Great Lakes invasive species, from a social science perspective. Jolie Sheffer: So both of you are obviously doing important work on the Great Lakes and water quality. So, what does it mean? What are some of the particular issues that are maybe unique or distinctive in the Great Lakes compared to the South Pacific or the Rockies or other places. What do you think is distinctive about the issues locally? Do want to start us, Tim? Dr. Tim Davis: Sure, I can. Well I guess taking a step back, harmful algal blooms are not unique to the Great Lakes. They're happening pretty much on every continent except Antarctica, so they're a global issue that have regional implications. What's really kind of unique about this area is that we hold about one-fifth of the earth's available fresh surface water, and we rely on our surface water resources so heavily, especially for drinking water. That because of our actions in the watershed, we're impacting the water quality of the water that a lot of us are consuming. Right? Even in Bowling Green here, we drink water coming directly from the Maumee River that's obviously been treated. Dr. Tim Davis: So, when you look at the amount of fresh water, which is a finite resource, we need to take care of it, we need to protect it. The fact that we live in an area where we have to substantially treat our water even though there's such a ... It's not a quantity amount, it's a quality issue. To me, that's where it differs a bit from other areas where a lot of other areas are dealing with water quality and quantity issues. We don't have a quantity issue, especially right now. Our lakes are really high. We have a quality issue, and it's one that was self inflicted. Jolie Sheffer: Could you talk a little bit about what some of those causes are to our watershed problems? Dr. Tim Davis: Sure. So, the algal blooms in the lake are essentially the visual symptom of an unhealthy watershed, right? So when we look at our watershed, we essentially live in what was the Great Black Swamp. However, we've converted most of that area into agricultural land because it's very good agricultural soil. The problem there is that in order to farm, farmers routinely add fertilizer, nitrogen, phosphorus, to their land, and not all that gets taken up by the plants that they're growing, and if you don't apply it at the right time or there's a large rain, it can run off into our big river, especially the Maumee River and end up in our lake. Dr. Tim Davis: These algal blooms, they're essentially microscopic plants. They need sunlight, water, and nutrients to grow. Well, they have a lot of water, the sun's not going anywhere, and we're giving them an abundant of nutrients, so therefore we're going to see these blooms and they're going to continue to occur into the future unless we fix our watershed. If we fix our watershed, we'll fix our lake. Jolie Sheffer: Shannon, in terms of Asian carp, what are the particular conditions in the Great Lakes that are making this an issue here? Dr. Shannon Orr: So, building off of Tim's great answer just now about the science, now I turn and look at the politics and why can't we solve problems of water quality and why do we have these problems around Asian carp? So much of it is about competing interests. So, if we look at Asian carp in particular, Asian Carp are an invasive species that actually we brought to the US into Arkansas for treatment of aquaculture ponds. So one of the things about Asian carp is that they have a voracious appetite, so a great, clean, green alternative in the 1970s as an alternative to chemicals to clean these aquaculture ponds. When we brought them in, people said, "Well, they won't survive and thrive in the US, so it's fine, and they won't escape," but nobody told the carp that. So some epic flooding happened, the carp swam out of their aquaculture ponds, entered the water systems, and they've been slowly moving ever since closer and closer to the Great Lakes, and so now they're just a couple of miles away from entering Lake Michigan. Dr. Shannon Orr: The reason why it's so hard to stop it, it seems kind of easy and people say, "Well, why don't we eat them? Why don't we catch them?" It's a little bit more complicated than that, which we can go into later, but one of the biggest issues is that we have all these competing interests around water. So, we have farmers, we have the fishing industry, we have the barge industry, which is really dependent on using the lock system to transport goods. So then we have economic interests, particularly in the Chicago region. Even just here in Lake Erie and looking at the water quality issues that Tim was just talking about, we have farmers, we have homeowners, and then at the same time we also have competing political jurisdictions. Dr. Shannon Orr: So we're talking about the Great Lakes. So we're talking about the United States and we're talking about Canada. We're talking about multiple states and we're talking about the province of Ontario. We're also talking about counties and cities and tribal communities, and all of these different political jurisdictions have different ideas, different solutions, different ways of making decisions, so trying to solve our problems are really challenging in the Great Lakes region. Jolie Sheffer: Could you talk a little more, Shannon, about kind of what some of the approaches are to solving the Asian carp problem? Dr. Shannon Orr: Sure. So, there's lots of ideas out there about trying to solve the Asian carp problem, and technology is often cited as kind of an option. The big extreme option that is being proposed and seriously looked at is actually creating a wall. So we put up a wall and we stop the carp from being able to enter into the Great Lakes. So, very expensive proposition. It's about a 20 year timeline according to the Army Corps of Engineers. It would work, but the barge industry is against it because we have a billion dollars worth of goods transported along those water systems, so putting up a wall eliminates the barge industry and create some major problems for the shipping industry about how do we get the goods from one side of the wall over to the other. Dr. Shannon Orr: There are some technological options for that are being proposed, but they're all very expensive and have very long timelines, and the carp aren't that far away. Some people have proposed fishing and eating them, for example. I actually got to go Asian carp fishing, hunting actually, with a bow and arrow, which was pretty fun, but there's so many carp and they're actually pretty hard to catch on a large scale. There is a very government subsidized fishing industry for carp. Illinois has put in a lot of money to support the fishing industry, specifically for carp, and the processing industry. So, what do you do with all the carp once you catch them? So, one of the proposals has always been, "Well, you know what humans are really good at is eating things into extinction, and so why don't we do that with carp?" Dr. Shannon Orr: One of the problems when we think about a North American diet is that when we tend to eat fish, we tend to eat it as a filet, so we like a nice fish filet on a plate that you cut with a knife and fork. In Asia fish is often served as fish balls, fish cakes, fish that's flaked, and then served that way. The problem with Asian carp is it's really, really bony, and so people describe it as a very mild tasting fish, but in order to actually cut out a filet, there was a restaurant in Chicago that tried to do it. They're like, "We're going to eat the fish. The carp, we're going to make people like it." They realized that by the time they cut out a filet, they would have had to serve it at the price of a lobster, and who's going to pay lobster prices for kind of a mild white fish that's called carp, which we don't think of as a very good eating fish. So, the eating solution is a little bit challenging. Dr. Shannon Orr: There is an industry that's sending the carp back to Asia, kind of irony, because they're promoted as a clean fish, not a lot of pollution, a safe a healthy alternative. It's also being turned into fertilizer. There's pet food. My parent's dog is a huge fan of the Asian carp treats. Dr. Shannon Orr: So, those are some of the kind of the major solutions that are being proposed. Right now we have electric barriers that are in place that kind of, when the fish swim up to the barriers, they get kind of a tingle. It doesn't kill them. They get the sensation from the barrier which repels them so they turn away. It's not a perfect solution, and there are concerns that perhaps fish have gone through, that metal bottom boats disrupt the current so then fish could swim under a boat as it moves through the barriers. So those are some of the solutions, but there's no consensus yet about how to actually stop the carp. Jolie Sheffer: Tim, what are some of the solutions being investigated for the algal bloom issue? What are some of the approaches that you're studying? Dr. Shannon Orr: Sure. So what I always start out by saying is that there's no in lake solution. We have blooms that have these surface scums. Those big green surface scums that look like paint being spilled on top of the water, and they can be over 700 square kilometers, so they're huge. Four times the size of the district of Columbia. So really, really big events. There's nothing we can do in the lake. Once the blooms are formed, they're there, and there's nothing we can sprinkle on the lake. What we need to do is folks in the watershed, and that's difficult. Because we have to work with our agricultural community, and not that they're difficult to work with, but a lot of farmers work on razor thin margins, so there's just not a lot of money. A lot of the solutions, we talk about for R's, right place, right time, right depth, and right amount for fertilization on fields, and yo that's a good solution but a lot of the technology to get there is expensive. Dr. Shannon Orr: Governor DeWine just introduced the H2Ohio Initiative, which is a really great piece of ... it's a good bill because it provides $170 million dollars up front, and if we are able to get another round, if it's refunded again for five years, in total it's about $900 million in financial resources coming in to solve this problem. But we need to figure out one, how to use less fertilizer on farms, which there's about a third of the farmers that are always doing pretty much everything they can. There's a third of the farmers that would if they were incentivized to do so, and then of course there's a third that just are kind of stuck in their ways and are kind of recalcitrant to change. Dr. Shannon Orr: We really need to work on reducing the amount of runoff and reducing the amount of nutrients in that runoff, and that's going to be particularly challenging because climate change is going to make that more challenging. So, climate change is going to impact precipitation patterns. Right now, this past spring is a great example. We had a lot of rain over extended period of time and there was a lot of farm land that didn't get planted. So even though we had a lot of rain, we had a lot of runoff, and this was the fifth biggest bloom in recorded history. The amount of phosphorus that came in was about 30% less than what it would have been if all fields had gotten planted and fertilized. Dr. Shannon Orr: So, changing precipitation patterns is going to change farming practices, and climate change is going to continually impact our ability to fight the nutrient overload coming into the lake, and it's only going to get more difficult so we need to act quickly and aggressively. Dr. Shannon Orr: Again, it's a political issue. It really is. Farmers don't want to get regulated. There's a lot of folks that are worried about that we're going to turn into the nest next Chesapeake Bay, where there's a lot of regulations. So, we have a lot of scientists both at BGSU and across state of Ohio who are working with the agriculture community to implement new strategies, implement different ways of farming or just bringing back cover crops, for example. Winter cover crops can help stabilize soil, stabilize nutrients, reduce runoff. Dr. Shannon Orr: We have a lot more large animal farming operations. We call them CAFOs. It's consolidated animal feeding operations, and there's a lot of manure that is associated with that. So then what do you do with all that manure? Because manure is expensive to transport. Because a lot of it, manure is like 97% water. So if you can get rid of the water, you can transport that manure. It still has the nutrients, but that's expensive. So we're working on technologies to try to solve that issue. Jolie Sheffer: Tim, you're a member of the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors and part of the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Subcommittee. How have you applied what you've learned in this position to your work as a Lake Erie center researcher and your work at BGSU? How are they informing each other? Dr. Tim Davis: I would say a lot of what I've learned through my research at BGSU has helped me more inform and advise EPA on their larger national policies, their national goals for their water research. So EPA is not just a regulatory agency, they also have research. What are their national goals going to be? What are their overarching goals going to be? So we take the expertise that we've built up through my work at BGSU and help them kind of define what their goals are for the next three years. Dr. Tim Davis: But then we can also kind of take what we know is important to EPA and then apply it when we're trying to apply for grants or assisting other colleagues in what's important to EPA, because we help advise them on ... They give us topics what they think are important. We help clarify and better define what their research is going to be, so we know what's important to them. And if we know it's important to them, we can write grants that BGSU researchers can help them do their work better, and it also helps BGSU and our research portfolio and individual faculty members. But it's really that that give and take. So we can take the knowledge that we've gained through our research here and help them, and then take the information and what we know is important to EPA and be able to apply it in our grant writing. Dr. Tim Davis: That helps us, quite frankly, maintain our research labs and, and help get students involved in research, which is something that we're all very passionate about. Jolie Sheffer: Shannon, you do a lot of work with students in your role with the Master's of Public Administration program. Can you talk a bit about how your students are connecting some of these policy issues with partners in the community? Dr. Shannon Orr: Oh yeah. That's a really part of our Master's of Public Administration program and the classes that I teach. A lot of it is that I want to give students the opportunity to make a difference. Our tagline for our MPA program is Education for Public Service. I also want students to understand that as individuals, they have a lot of power, and I want them to care about things and be engaged in their communities. Regardless of what careers they go off and pursue, that they can go out and do really great things and make a difference, and do impact studies and evaluations or strategic plans and help to make our communities better and stronger. One of the things that I really emphasize a lot in my classes is the idea of stakeholder collaboration, and really sitting down and listening to different perspectives, different ideas, bringing together different actors that so many of our decisions have to be made from that lens. That it can't just be people working in isolation or groups combatively arguing and yelling about solutions and decisions and the future. Dr. Shannon Orr: Aristotle defined politics as the search for the good life, and so that's kind of why I'm a political scientist, because I love that idea. People have different ideas about what the good life is. People have different ideas about what a Great Lakes should be, and so I really want my students to embrace the idea of listening to all of the different stakeholders involved in these issues and finding ways to come together and to create solutions and make meaningful, positive impact. Jolie Sheffer: We're going to take a short break. Thanks for listening to the Big Ideas podcast. Introduction: If you are passionate about Big Ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu. Jolie Sheffer: You're listening to the Big Ideas podcast. I'm here talking with professors Tim Davis and Shannon Orr. I'd like to ask next about some of the particular projects that each of you have on. So Tim, you're a part of a team at BGSU that received funding in October for a project titled Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Blooms. What are you learning from that project, and how are you hoping that that will directly be applied to solving some of these problems? Dr. Tim Davis: I'm really excited about this recent award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. This is a three year proposal or grant that we are taking technology. So, this is technology that allows us to measure these algal toxins. So, the toxins that caused the Toledo water crisis in 2014, it allows us to take these units out into the field. These portable rapid toxin detection devices, take them out in the field and measure toxins right in the field. These units that we're going to be using are about the size of a tissue box, about the size of a Kleenex box, and we have these cartridges that help us quantify the amount of toxin in a sample. What's really fantastic about that is that we're linking this advanced technology that's easy to use and rapid with citizen science, or community engaged science. Dr. Tim Davis: So we're working with water treatment managers, we're working with beach managers, we're working with the phytoplankton monitoring network, which is a volunteer network that's run through NOAA, and we are working with charter boat captains that are out on the lake every day. We're distributing these units to all of our partners, all of our community partners, and they're going to be out on the lake and they're going to take a sample. We're going to teach them how to do this, of course, and they're going to extract the toxins from the sample, then they're going to analyze it. Then they can go to their mobile phone, we're developing an app where they can open our app, it'll download their coordinates of where they are on the lake, and they can upload their data, which gets put into a central server. Dr. Tim Davis: So as scientists, we know that partnering with community stakeholders who really want to be part of the solution is a great way to expand our research. Because there's no way we can ever have enough students to do everything we want to do, but we definitely have enough stakeholders. So by partnering with them, we are going to be able to track the toxicity, or the toxin contraction of the bloom, in ways that we've never been able to do before, and that's really exciting. Dr. Tim Davis: So we're combining this new technology with citizen science, and hopefully be able to build a better picture of how the bloom is changing in its toxicity over time, over the course of a bloom season, which will then help us to better be able to predict when the bloom is going to be most toxic, least toxic, and that's really important for water managers. Because right now we can predict where it is, we can predict where it's going, we can even predict how big it's going to be on a seasonal scale, but we can't predict toxicity, and that's the one thing that we really need to improve on, and this work and partnering with citizen scientists is going to help us do that. Jolie Sheffer: Could you talk about that project in terms of its interdisciplinary scope? Because it sounds like you're not just talking about working with biologists, but there's also computer science. Talk about the scope of the project from a disciplinary perspective. Dr. Tim Davis: Yeah, absolutely. So, all of the work that we do is cross disciplinary. We have chemists, we have biologists, we have engineers who had to design this technology, and then of course, we have the computer scientist. So we're seeing this interdisciplinary work become more and more prevalent in our field, and quite frankly, it's allowing us to do work better than we have when we were working in silos. When we were just working with biologists or chemists. We were able to make gains. There's a lot of work that was done that was fundamental, and we build off of all of that previous research, but by combining these groups, not only are we able to do more, but we can now take these big data sets and actually analyze them in ways that we couldn't previously. That's really important, because scientists, we always get dinged for saying, "We need more data," but really we have a lot of data, it's how do we analyze all that data now? Dr. Tim Davis: So gathering data, we have been gathering data for years. Analyzing all those data to understand longterm and big trends, that's where the biological sciences is kind of really exploding, and it's an exciting time to be part of this work. Jolie Sheffer: How does interdisciplinarity function in the work that you're doing, Shannon? Because, you are also kind of really connecting different disciplines. Dr. Shannon Orr: Yeah, and so my work on Asian Carp, which is a book manuscript that I just finished, really draws on the work of biologists and the work of political scientists, but also the work of economists and sociologists, so I'm kind of bridging all of those disciplines to really look at the issue from what we would call a policy analysis perspective. So, I'm not trying to kind of advocate for any particular solution, it's to lay out kind of the complications and the political jurisdictions, the competing interests involved in the issue that really make it so hard to solve. Dr. Shannon Orr: So I'm not sure the book is kind of like, it's not really uplifting, because [inaudible 00:26:03] I think the end of it is, that it's just really hard, but what I hope is that people can see that the richness and the depth that comes by pulling in interdisciplinary approaches and understandings of an issue like an invasive species. I was doing an early interview when I was first starting to think about this project, and doing it as more than just something that I was adding to a class, and I had a biologist say, "Well, why would a political scientist write a book about Asian carp?" And so I said, "Well, it's all about kind of the decision making and the economics and the different interests in the barge industry versus the environmentalist's," and then he said, "Oh yeah. No, I get it. Like that really, really makes sense." Jolie Sheffer: What are some of the lessons that scientists, policymakers and others have learned from past mistakes in water conservation, and how are some of those lessons learned guiding current research and policy? Dr. Tim Davis: What we're learning now, what we've taken away from the success that we had in the late 70s into the 80s, and then the subsequent kind of failure is that one, we know that we can clean up Lake Erie. We know that it's possible to bring Lake Erie back to a spot, maybe not where it was pre-industrial revolution, but at least back to a state that doesn't have these annual algal blooms that are so large and toxic and disruptive to the environment and to the economy. We realize that one, it's going to take long term monitoring, so we are going to have to, once these policies get put in place, once we have these remedial actions that are put in place, we need to continue to monitor to make sure that what we're doing on the land is actually getting translated to results in the lake. Dr. Tim Davis: Even after we hopefully achieve those results, we're going to have to continue to keep our eye on the lake to make sure that things don't sneak back up on us the way that they did. So, we've learned a lot. We learned a lot from our failures. Sometimes we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. But I would say we have a much better idea now of what we need to do. Sometimes the problem comes in more of the political arena where we're in this for a career. Hopefully we have this solved before the end of my career. That would be ideal. But the politicians, it's a two or four year cycle, so sometimes priorities change. So it's continuing to say, "Hey, we've cleaned this up. We've made progress. There are other issues that are always going to come up and that need attention, but it doesn't mean that we take our eye off of the issue that we used to have just because we're not having it anymore, because that's what we did in the past and it crept back up on us." Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Shannon? Dr. Shannon Orr: I think I would say three things. I think the first one would be, as Tim said, the importance of monitoring and evaluation, and particularly looking at how government policies come into place. That's not the end of the story. So now we need to look at longer time horizons and we need to see how, as Tim was saying, has the lakes changed, but we also have to be open to the idea of making mistakes. That perhaps we've made mistakes. Dr. Shannon Orr: That would be my second point, would be learning from arrogance. I think the carp is a good example about that, right? So we bring in the carp and then we say, "Oh, well they're not going to escape," and then they, in fact, do. I think a lot of the mistakes have been made because of a failure to think about longterm thinking, so that would be my third reason what we need to learn from our past mistakes. Dr. Shannon Orr: It's very hard for politicians to be able to say, "I stopped Asian carp from coming in 20 years," because they need to be reelected now. One of the things in political science we say is that politicians are motivated primarily by two things, which is claiming credit and avoiding blame, and it's hard to get a lot of credit for doing things like not letting a species invade the Great Lakes. Because it didn't happen, nobody knows what efforts it took to stop it. So I think keeping those in mind about those three things, I think. Jolie Sheffer: Both of you have mentioned, in different ways, the role of students and ordinary people in both creating these problems and also solving them. For each of you, what would you say are some of the things that local citizens can do to help with some of these water issues in the region? Shannon? Dr. Shannon Orr: I would say to be educated and to read about them, because, I mean, this impacts our daily life, right? I always tell my students there's no alternative to water. We need it for cleaning, we need it for drinking, we need it for cooking. So learning about, do you know where your water comes from? Right? Thinking about water treatment systems. Thinking about the issues that are facing the Great Lakes. We live in 2019, it's not hard to do a Google search using good sources, so I encourage people to stay informed, and if you're upset, to call your local representatives. Because they need your vote, they will listen if you call. Now they may not always agree with you, but it's that public record of individuals in the community, interest groups, whatnot, everybody standing up and making their voice heard, and there are ways in which you can do that. You can just pick up the phone and call a representative. You can send them an email. You can attend a public forum. You can vote. Dr. Shannon Orr: I mean, all of those things really make a difference. I think they are things that, yes, we're busy, you've got to get your kids to dance, and make dinner and go to work and do all of that kind of stuff, but a little bit of action can make a big difference. And because water is such at the heart of our lives and particularly here in the Great Lakes Basin, it's about more than just drinking and cooking and cleaning, it's also about livelihoods and economic development and the wellbeing of this region. Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Tim? What would you recommend for citizens who want to do something? Dr. Tim Davis: There was a study that I saw, at least a slide from a presentation, where they polled Democrats, Republicans, Independents, what their top three priorities were. Number one was always the economy, but regardless of whether they're Democrat, Republican, or Independent, in this region the second was health of the Great Lakes. So as Shannon said, politicians listen. They don't always listen to scientists, sometimes they don't always listen to their constituents, but if you have enough of them, a lot of them know it doesn't matter what side of the coin they're on, they're not going to get elected if the Great Lakes aren't in their platform somewhere and health of the Great Lakes. Dr. Tim Davis: But if you want to get involved, there are many ways to get involved. Whether it's trying to join one of these phytoplankton monitoring networks or any other environmental group, best thing you can do, I'm just going to agree with Shannon on the too, is just educate yourself, because there's nothing worse than someone who's kind of half educated making statements that they think are fully informed. Right? So fully inform yourself, because there are no enemies in this solution. It's not a blue versus red, it's not urban versus rural. We are all in this region. We all live here, we all drink the same water, we all use the same resources. Jolie Sheffer: We have some students who'd like to ask you a few questions. Courtney Keeney: I'm Courtney Keeney, and I am a graduate student in the NPA program. I was just wondering if you could both talk more about the best ways to communicate with each other, especially with contentious issues. This one with Lake Erie, but also other issues in general. Dr. Shannon Orr: It's always hard when you have people on different sides and you're trying to bring together passionate environmentalists and farmers who it's their livelihood and they're just trying to provide for their families, and to bring together really different interests together. I think one of the most important things to do is to create forums in which people feel comfortable sharing their views. Not creating hostile situations where people yell at each other, but trying to find the things that truly are in common. Dr. Shannon Orr: No one wants to drink contaminated water, right? Nobody wants the lakes to have algae problems. I mean, we all agree on that, right? So if we can start from some of those. And at the same time, we all need to eat food, so we need the farmers, we need healthy lakes. So, starting from those bases, instead of saying, "Well, one interest is evil or the other one is." That doesn't get to anywhere, right? I think creating mechanisms to bring together people who are willing to actually discuss and engage in the issues in kind of respectful ways where we really truly listen, and people are willing to be open minded and perhaps change their minds on either side. I know that's hard, and in 2019 it's very easy to be very isolated and to kind of only connect with people who share the same views and perspectives that you do. But to be challenged and to really listen and to see what we all have in common, which are clean water and healthy food. Jolie Sheffer: Do you have any recommendations perhaps, for young scientists and how to their knowledge and their priorities in ways that the nonscientific community can be more responsive to? Dr. Tim Davis: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's one of the biggest gaps that we have currently is that as scientists, we don't communicate our science well, because part of it is how we have been trained, right? We're trained to write scientifically. We're trained to present scientifically. We're working on developing science communication courses so you can take science and drill it down. We don't say dumb it down because people aren't stupid. You need to be able to package it in a way that you can communicate it to people that may not have taken a science course since they graduated high school, because their occupation doesn't require it. Dr. Tim Davis: It's practice. Everyone has friends who aren't in the sciences. Talk to your friends about what you do and if they don't understand you, keep talking to them until you figure out a way to get across your research in a way that they can understand and appreciate. Because we always say if people don't appreciate what we're doing, if they don't understand it, they're not going to care about it, and they're just going to write it off. Dr. Tim Davis: We can't be seen as just being in our ivory towers. For decades scientists, especially in academia, we are sitting in these ivory towers and we just look down and say, "Well, this is what science says, therefore that this is what you have to do," and a lot of it is somewhat in comprehensible. Even some of the science that goes on, I don't fully understand. So, practicing talking to people, getting people to care about our science, because we need them to care about what we're doing and see how it's actually going to be positively impacting the Great Lakes. Because if they understand and care, they're going to be more passionate about finding these solutions. Dr. Tim Davis: I would say also to young scientists, just listen. We are in an age now where it's so easy to voice your opinion on so many different platforms, and sometimes everyone has an opinion and maybe not everyone should have an opinion. We're all guilty to some degree of that, and I think the best thing that we can say is just listen. There's a lot of knowledge out there where you can not just inform, because again, in the way that we teach science, A is you get nothing wrong. Sometimes I feel like we're training these robotic know-it-alls. It's okay to be wrong and it's okay not to know something, and it's okay to listen and continue to learn. If we can do that, that's great. I've learned so much from my friends in the agricultural community that I didn't know before, and it's made me a better scientist and it helps inform the work that I do. Jolie Sheffer: Tim and Shannon, thank you so much for talking with me today. For more information on the water quality of Lake Erie, please visit the Ohio Department of Natural Resource's webpage on conditions. You can visit that at coastal.ohiodnr.gov/howslakeerie. Jolie Sheffer: You can the Big Ideas podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Our producers for this podcast are Chris Cavera, Marco Mendoza. Research assistance for this podcast was provided by ICS Intern Emma Vallandingham, and editing was provided by Stevie Scheurich. This conversation was recorded by AC Luffel in the Stanton Audio Recording Studio in the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center at Bowling Green State University.  

Ryan and I discuss walleye fishing on the Maumee River, what it's like to make a T.V. episode, why you should get your kids outdoors and times we we have cried in our tent from being woken up by bears and coyotes. 

Monday October 28th (00:00) Something or something is conspiring against Floyd seeing Hocus Pocus. This time it was me. (7:50) The candy corn martinis were 95% successful. (16:59) Someone took Floyd’s Salted Caramel Crown Royal bag. Today’s Manic Music Mix. (21:26) The Stegosaurus is back at TMA today. Man swims to Maumee River island to avoid police. OHSAA changes its hijab rule. Floyd on football! (30:58) Stranger Things won’t be back for a while. Jennifer Aniston apologies. Chance on SNL. Jazz club interrupted by stars. (40:45) Woops we messed up the Ashanti thing. A couple of the Kanye songs, then Kanye or Jesus Tweet. (51:15) What helps you sleep, what gives you anxiety, does your match, match your libido and more in the PFOL. (57:00) Ben Affleck stumbled off the wagon. Joker barely wins the box office. James McAvoy got secretly married. Jared Padalecki got into quite a fight. (1:06:33) Mercury retrograde, watch out Scorpios. (1:16:18) Calls with Janet. (1:21:15) She’s been with him 10 years, when will they get married. (1:26:42) Final segment with Janet, signs and MLT.

What is Applebutter Fest? It's historical reenactments, pioneer ​demonstrations, crafts, live music, food, and family fun along the beautiful Maumee River!There are no participation fees other than a $15 per vehicle parking fee that provides the operating funds for the Fest. Parking in the official lots is sincerely appreciated! Please review the village traffic restrictions and parking availability.

Riparian silver maple-sycamore forest along the Maumee River

Cottonwood stand along the Maumee River with white noise from Providence Dam and wind

The Northwest Ohio Conservative Coalition (NWOCC) is sponsoring theTenth anniversaryTax Day Tea Party RallyMonday April 15, 2019 5:30pmRiverside Park207 W. Front StreetPerrysburg, OHSpeakers include: Bill ZouharyJoni KingTom Waniewski (Toledo City Council)State Rep. Derek MerrinBob Densic (Rossford City Council)Tiffany Densic (Rossford School Board)NWOCC board membersLinda Bowyer,John McAvoy andJeff Lydy. Please note the location change from previous rallies. Hood Park is undergoing renovation so this rally is being held one block west of Hood Park (overlooking the Maumee River).“The public is invited to bring their signs, enthusiasm and patriotism to celebrate conservative principles in the United States and help commemorate ten years for being ‘Taxed Enough Already’” said Linda Bowyer, chair of the NWOCC.For more information about these events, please email nwohioconservativecoalition@gmail.com or call Linda Bowyer at (419) 276-0664.To learn more about the Northwest Ohio Conservative Coalition, please visit www.nwohiocc.com.

We interview Eric Weimer with ODNR about the Walleye Pike run happening now in Lake Erie, the Maumee River, and other places around the Lake. We discuss Trump's claim that wind turbines cause cancer and read the letter from the future.

What is Applebutter Fest? It's historical reenactments, pioneer demonstrations, crafts, live music, food, and family fun along the beautiful Maumee River! Join us from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.There are no participation fees other than a $15 per vehicle parking fee that provides the operating funds for the Fest. Parking in the official lots is sincerely appreciated! Please review the village traffic restrictions and parking availability.

This episode was recorded LIVE, courtesy of the Relatively Speaking podcast at the Thrive Tribe 419 podcast's Holistic Health Fair in Defiance, Ohio on April 14th, 2018. In this passionately-delivered episode, you will learn how our diets directly impact our health and well-being, how to decifer wording on food packaging, and what side of the GMO debate you might land on. Dr. Jennifer Pfleghaar is an emergency medicine physician board certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. She has worked in the Mercy Healthcare system serving the Toledo community since 2008. She is a graduate of the emergency medicine residency program at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, where she was a flight physician with Life Flight. She is a 2008 graduate of Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, PA. Currently, Dr. Pfleghaar is pursuing a fellowship in Integrative Medicine at Arizona University. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family (3 children), running and paddle boarding on the Maumee River. Her interests include avoiding GMOs, cloth diapering, baby-wearing and extending breastfeeding. Dr. Pfleghaar owns Pflegmed, an inegrative medical practice and Perrysburg Yoga in Perrysburg, Ohio. Check them out at www.Pflegmed.com Special thanks to our podcast sponsor: www.DeepRootsWellness.com, a Holistic Approach to Mental Health and to our episode sponsor: www.Naturally-Simplified.com, for all your organic, non-toxic body and home care needs. Music: bensound.com

Step back in time and listen to Cesar Chavez, Robert F. Kennedy, Benjamin O. Davis, Betty Friedan, and Erma Bombeck at Ohio Chautauqua 2018, presented on the banks of the Maumee River in Rossford Ohio. Ohio Chautauqua 2018: Modern Legends is a five-day community event the whole family will enjoy. Enjoy living history performances, music, and education at this free one-of-a-kind cultural event.

Join Dr. Jennifer Pfleghaar, Rose, and Matt as they discuss integrative medicine, the anticipated evolution of standard health care, (caring for the whole person), as well as back-to-school healthy lunch ideas and immune protection. Dr. Jennifer Pfleghaar is an emergency medicine physician board certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. She has worked in the Mercy Healthcare system serving the Toledo community since 2008. She is a graduate of the emergency medicine residency program at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, where she was a flight physician with Life Flight. She is a 2008 graduate of Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, PA. Currently, Dr. Pfleghaar is pursuing a fellowship in Integrative Medicine at Arizona University. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family (3 children), running and paddle boarding on the Maumee River. Her interests include avoiding GMOs, cloth diapering, baby-wearing and extending breastfeeding. You can find IntegrativeDrMom on Facebook and Instagram, and at www.IntegrativeDrMom.com for more tips on natural, healthy living. Check her out online! She has some fantastic ideas. Dr. Pfleghaar and Matt recommend trying a meditation app to help relax and reduce stress. Dr. P likes the "Calm" app and Matt enjoys "Headspace." Until Oct. 1st, 2017, you can try an Emotional Freedom Techniques session with Matt for 50% off by emailing MHSpecialist@gmail.com Music credit: www.bensound.com

Episode 12 of the Toledo Matters Podcast - Joe Napoli, President and GM of Toledo Mudhens, Walleye, and Hensville ——————————————————— With Bob Tucker, Danny Woodcock, & Nathan Lewis ——————————————————— Fun Times in the 419: 3/17 - St. Patrick's Day Rooftop Party Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and be the FIRST to party on the new High Five Rooftop on top of the Fleetwood Building overlooking Fifth Third Field, the downtown Toledo skyline and the Maumee River. The event will feature multi-level entertainment, live music, drinks and great food. 3/18 - Beer and Wine at Top of Nine Raise a glass and be the FIRST to have a great time on the Top of Nine rooftop party deck, with great views of Toledo’s Warehouse District and Fifth Third Field. This event will feature a tasting of select craft beers and wine, as well as a sampling of some of the premium menu items at the new Nine restaurant at Hensville. 3/19 - First Concert @ Hensville Park It’s the FIRST concert at Hensville Park! Enjoy live music along with delicious food and beverages while strolling through the main lawn, as well as the Fleetwood Room and Patio located next to the park. Get a VIP ticket and have access to the Armory and High Five at the Fleetwood Building, with great indoor and outdoor views of Fifth Third Field. 4/7 - Mud Hens Opening Day Opening Day Block Party, Opening Day Beer Bash, High Five Opening Day Rooftop Part, Top of Nine Opening Day Rooftop Party, and the Hens first home game!! So much happening on this Opening Day, it's more like Opening Weekend! ——————————– Today’s Guests: *** Joe Napoli *** * President & GM of Toledo Walleye * President & GM of Toledo Mudhens * President & GM of Hensville *22nd Century Committee Member Favorite thing: Fossil Park Hull-Wolcott House & (OF COURSE) the Metroparks Follow:@Mudhens, @ToledoWalleye, @Hensville