Can ice on the Great Lakes be a good thing?

[News]

A frozen Great Lake doesn't sound like a pleasant thing, especially for any business needing to load or unload cargo to or from a ship. But it can help the economy in other ways as shown by maintenance activities in the port of Milwaukee, Wisc.

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[niagaramusky]

Full Ice Over of Lake Erie is a good thing for Buffalo,NY,the Niagara River and Eastern Lake Erie.For Buffalo it shutsdown the lake effect snow bands that can dump 3" an hour of the white stuff.In the spring when the Ice breaks up and flows down the Niagara River the bait fish schools from way out in Lake Erie follow the Ice flow to the river,bringing large perch and walleye to our end of the lake and into the river,So the Charter Fishing Industry will have a great year.Also having Ice on Lake Erie later into the spring will help in keeping Algae levels down in the Western part of the lake,with it starting much later in the season.If the water temps stay cooler at the peak of the season there will be less dead water spots in central basin of the lake and less fish kills.

So for the fisherman and enviromentalist Ice covered Lake Erie is a good thing,trade off we may have to pay a little more for items that were transported via shipping!

Capt Larry D. Jones