Climate Point: What do ice fishers do when there's no ice?

Low ice cover. Less snow. And a ski resort closing midway through the season?

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to stories about climate, energy and the environment. I’m Dinah Voyles Pulver on Paste BN’s national climate and environment team.

It’s been a warmer than normal winter for much of the nation, as predicted. Ice cover in the Great Lakes stands at a historic low as a whole. 

What’s an ice fisher to do when there’s no ice? The options have been limited on the Great Lakes this winter. One bait and tackle shop is feeling the pinch, writes Keith Matheny with the Detroit Free Press. 

While fishers in the spring, summer and fall might be deterred by a rainy, windy, chilly day, ice fishers will go out in anything, said John Bacarella, owner of Sportsmen's Direct, a Harrison Township bait and tackle shop just outside of Lake St. Clair Metropark.

Only one thing stops these anglers: no ice. And for the second straight winter, Bacarella is struggling with that. "It's been brutal," he said.

The five lakes stood at 2.92% ice cover last week. Based on records dating back to 1973, they're usually at about 40% ice coverage collectively at this time of year.

Meanwhile, this graphic representation of snowfall in the West shows the declines in snowpack. 

In Montana, the Teton Pass Ski Area west of Choteau announced it was closing, citing a lack of snow, warmer temperatures and financial issues. Owner Charles Hlavac posted a six-page letter on the area’s Instagram account.

A river recovery begins 

In the Pacific Northwest, Debra Utacia Krol with the Arizona Republic checks in on the Klamath River after crews blasted the concrete plugs from two decommissioned dams. 

The water that once covered more than 2,000 acres of land has begun to recede, revealing artifacts like old farm equipment, foundations and bridge pilings left over from pre-dam days.

Tribes, environmentalists and their allies celebrated the shrinking waters as an essential next step in what they say will be a decades-long process of restoring one of the West's largest salmon fisheries and a region the size of West Virginia back to health. Yurok tribal member and fisheries director Barry McCovey was amazed at how fast the river and the lands surrounding the Copco dam were revealed.

"The river had already found its path and reclaimed its original riverbed, which is pretty amazing to see," McCovey said.

Coal ash dangers

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is acknowledging the dangers posed by the radium in coal ash, the byproduct of burning coal for electricity, reports Sarah Bowman at the Indy Star.  

The agency reports the cancer risk from exposure to the material widely used in construction could be as much as 35 times higher than previously known or revealed. And that becomes a bigger problem because no one knows where coal ash was dumped because tracking wasn’t required. 

The ash, filled with potential contaminants, is often stored in large pits or impoundments called "ponds." Indiana has the most in the U.S., with more than 80 at 16 coal plants across the state, containing more than 100 million tons of the toxic waste.

Endangered species concerns 

Already this year, two of the nation’s most endangered whales have been found dead. One North Atlantic Right Whale had Maine fishing rope embedded several inches deep in the tissue around its tail, federal officials reported. The second, a juvenile born last year, had been injured in a vessel collision. A third, a calf born this season, was so critically injured in a vessel collision that it’s not expected to live. Two of the 16 calves born this season have disappeared from their mothers’ sides. 

A decision by a federal judge in Washington DC was hailed as a victory for the endangered Florida panther because it requires the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take back responsibility for federal wetlands permitting in Florida. 

A push to extend endangered species protection to horseshoe crabs is gaining traction, reports Kristian Jaime at the Salisbury Times in Maryland. At least 23 environmental advocacy groups are backing the request, citing declining populations due to overharvesting and habitat loss. The crabs lay their eggs in the spring along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. 

Ban the bag backlash

Do you take multi-use bags shopping with you, or accept the single-use plastics at the store? Elizabeth Weise on Paste BN's national climate team delves into the complicated picture behind this question, exploring the success of and opposition to bag bans. The story closes with a little primer on the number of times a bag needs to be reused.

Read on for more, including some remarkable results as the nation attempts to pivot away from fossil fuels. Some of the stories below may require a subscription. Sign up and get access to all eNewspapers in the Paste BN Network. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox for free once a week, sign up here.