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Sustaining Lake Superior: An Extraordinary Lake in a Changing World
A compelling exploration of Lake Superior’s conservation recovery and what it can teach us in the face of climate change
Lake Superior, the largest lake in the world, has had a remarkable history, including resource extraction and industrial exploitation that caused nearly irreversible degradation. But in the past fifty years it has experienced a remarkable recovery and rebirth. In this important book, leading environmental historian Nancy Langston offers a rich portrait of the lake’s environmental and social history, asking what lessons we should take from the conservation recovery as this extraordinary lake faces new environmental threats.
In her insightful exploration, Langston reveals hope in ecosystem resilience and the power of community advocacy, noting ways Lake Superior has rebounded from the effects of deforestation and toxic waste wrought by mining and paper manufacturing. Yet, despite the lake’s resilience, threats persist. Langston cautions readers regarding new mining interests and persistent toxic pollutants that are mobilizing with climate change.
Lake Superior, the largest lake in the world, has had a remarkable history, including resource extraction and industrial exploitation that caused nearly irreversible degradation. But in the past fifty years it has experienced a remarkable recovery and rebirth. In this important book, leading environmental historian Nancy Langston offers a rich portrait of the lake’s environmental and social history, asking what lessons we should take from the conservation recovery as this extraordinary lake faces new environmental threats.
In her insightful exploration, Langston reveals hope in ecosystem resilience and the power of community advocacy, noting ways Lake Superior has rebounded from the effects of deforestation and toxic waste wrought by mining and paper manufacturing. Yet, despite the lake’s resilience, threats persist. Langston cautions readers regarding new mining interests and persistent toxic pollutants that are mobilizing with climate change.
312 pages, Hardcover
Published January 5, 2018
20 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 19, 2019
Although this is a scientifically accurate book in describing the spread and accumulations of toxins in plants, animals, fish snd people, it is kind of a slog to read. I had hoped for more of the people impacts of these toxins, but the author concentrated heavily on the degradation of the lake itself and the impacts on fish. Still it was interesting to me having grown up in. Minnesota, attended college in Duluth, having vacationed in the Boundary Waters area, and having seen some of the open pit taconite mines in person,
July 25, 2018
i was a little skeptical about purchasing this when I saw that it was published by yale. by that I just mean I thought it might be overly academic for me. while the text heavily footnoted, Langston provides an accessible look at environmental problems of the past and projects some thoughts for the future.
in particular readers will learn about the impact of 19th C pulp mills, 20 C mines and current problems with chemicals.
in the few spots where Langston gives herself permission to be personal describing the geography or her relationship the landscape, I think she shines. I would have loved the book to be framed in that light.
great read though.
in particular readers will learn about the impact of 19th C pulp mills, 20 C mines and current problems with chemicals.
in the few spots where Langston gives herself permission to be personal describing the geography or her relationship the landscape, I think she shines. I would have loved the book to be framed in that light.
great read though.
October 19, 2025
Excellent analysis of the challenges that the greatest lake has been through, how they were dealt with and her current new challenges and threats. It really makes you think about how is it that we allow this destruction of the water and land that sustains us, how can we treat it so callously? Why do we keep making the same mistakes with the mining industry and ships bringing in more invasives.
November 5, 2018
NF
235 pages
Very interesting, informative and upsetting. What
are we doing to our environment and the amazing
fresh water of Lake Superior.
235 pages
Very interesting, informative and upsetting. What
are we doing to our environment and the amazing
fresh water of Lake Superior.
July 11, 2019
Interesting and scary. Thank goodness for people willing to wrestle with the government.
July 24, 2020
Lake Superior holds over 12% of the world’s drinkable fresh water! It is a critical human resource!
Over the last century and a half this critical resource has been ignorantly abused to foster USA’s national growth. The book is a deep study of the efforts of humans to build America and how that effort effected the lake.
To build houses and wooden supports for mine shafts, between 1873 and 1898, Wisconsin’s saw mills processed 60 billion board feet of lumber, devastating forest and leaving just 13% of Wisconsin’s forest of native white pines remaining! This deforestation muddied streams, clogged swamps and devastated wildlife, killed fish and destroyed many spawning areas effecting the lake!
What came next were paper mills requiring dams of rivers to produce electricity that was needed to make paper but which also silted rivers upstream, damaged downstream spawning areas. produced toxic chemicals, mercury and dioxins, and pulp filament which entered the streams and rivers that flowed into Lake Superior!
Then came mining of taconite, a low grade iron ore, which resulted in dumping of tailings into the lake. One day’s deposits contained; “1 ton of nickel, 2 tons of copper, 1 ton of zinc, 3 tons of toxic lead and chromium, 25 tons of phosphorus, and 310 tons of manganese.” Also deposited were very high levels of asbestos that effected drinking water pulled from the lake and that potentially caused malignant tumors in humans!
Pollution from those industries are finally more carefully regulated and some of those dangers have now been mitigated.
Now comes climate change!
The question is whether Lake Superior will remain a very cold, low productivity lake with limited nutrients, resulting in the clear and high quality drinking water it now does? Water temperatures in the lake are now rising at twice the rate of air temperatures in its basin! Future winters will average more rain than snow compared to the past, causing increased nutrient run off potentially causing algae blooms and a diminution of water quality!
The future of this unique, highly valuable, “precious to humans” resource is at risk! Global efforts to mitigate global warming are imperative to save the Lake Superiors asset for the world.
There is now very little that remains in local hands to manage. All that can be done is advocacy in national and global forums to educate policy makers to the danger of losing this critical resource to global warming!
This book is a well researched and footnoted document and is required reading for students and policy makers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, Nationally and Globally!
Political leaders need to understand the risk and protect this critical world asset!
Over the last century and a half this critical resource has been ignorantly abused to foster USA’s national growth. The book is a deep study of the efforts of humans to build America and how that effort effected the lake.
To build houses and wooden supports for mine shafts, between 1873 and 1898, Wisconsin’s saw mills processed 60 billion board feet of lumber, devastating forest and leaving just 13% of Wisconsin’s forest of native white pines remaining! This deforestation muddied streams, clogged swamps and devastated wildlife, killed fish and destroyed many spawning areas effecting the lake!
What came next were paper mills requiring dams of rivers to produce electricity that was needed to make paper but which also silted rivers upstream, damaged downstream spawning areas. produced toxic chemicals, mercury and dioxins, and pulp filament which entered the streams and rivers that flowed into Lake Superior!
Then came mining of taconite, a low grade iron ore, which resulted in dumping of tailings into the lake. One day’s deposits contained; “1 ton of nickel, 2 tons of copper, 1 ton of zinc, 3 tons of toxic lead and chromium, 25 tons of phosphorus, and 310 tons of manganese.” Also deposited were very high levels of asbestos that effected drinking water pulled from the lake and that potentially caused malignant tumors in humans!
Pollution from those industries are finally more carefully regulated and some of those dangers have now been mitigated.
Now comes climate change!
The question is whether Lake Superior will remain a very cold, low productivity lake with limited nutrients, resulting in the clear and high quality drinking water it now does? Water temperatures in the lake are now rising at twice the rate of air temperatures in its basin! Future winters will average more rain than snow compared to the past, causing increased nutrient run off potentially causing algae blooms and a diminution of water quality!
The future of this unique, highly valuable, “precious to humans” resource is at risk! Global efforts to mitigate global warming are imperative to save the Lake Superiors asset for the world.
There is now very little that remains in local hands to manage. All that can be done is advocacy in national and global forums to educate policy makers to the danger of losing this critical resource to global warming!
This book is a well researched and footnoted document and is required reading for students and policy makers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, Nationally and Globally!
Political leaders need to understand the risk and protect this critical world asset!
November 11, 2018
I have just read this book for the second time, and marvel once again at the extraordinary care taken by Dr. Langston in presenting, in great depth, the history of human use and abuse of our most precious resource in the Upper Great Lakes--Lake Superior. Industrial level logging and mining operations in the Superior watershed region, are industries which took and are still taking advantage of the quantity and quality of its "pure" water. Under Langston's careful scrutiny, they are called out for what has to be the most common 'power' word in the book: POLLUTION in its many guises and transformations.
She documents the efforts of those who have tried to stem, halt, or block such disregard for this valuable resource, and the energies that have been brought to this endeavor, not always in vain, but most often with little success, either. Clear heroes are the American Indians of the region, who value the water, the land, the flora and fauna, and stand as the protectors of same. They are exercising their treaty rights, which while often abused, have been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
I can think of no-one to whom I would not recommend the reading this book, twice or more times. For our politicians it is an absolute MUST READ. Yes, it's long, yes; it's slow going; it has to be, so that the message sinks in: Lake Superior is a unique treasure, and should not be subjected to abuse by anyone. It will benefit all who come to it, but it cannot take unsustainable use and abuse, as has been happening over the years since European colonization. Change in our human behavior is imperative.
She documents the efforts of those who have tried to stem, halt, or block such disregard for this valuable resource, and the energies that have been brought to this endeavor, not always in vain, but most often with little success, either. Clear heroes are the American Indians of the region, who value the water, the land, the flora and fauna, and stand as the protectors of same. They are exercising their treaty rights, which while often abused, have been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
I can think of no-one to whom I would not recommend the reading this book, twice or more times. For our politicians it is an absolute MUST READ. Yes, it's long, yes; it's slow going; it has to be, so that the message sinks in: Lake Superior is a unique treasure, and should not be subjected to abuse by anyone. It will benefit all who come to it, but it cannot take unsustainable use and abuse, as has been happening over the years since European colonization. Change in our human behavior is imperative.
July 7, 2018
"...history teaches us that unregulated corporate interests have never protected the common good." It's difficult to know that some things never change. The issues environmentalists were advocating for 100 years ago met the same resistance that we do today: corporations argue that we 'need more research' before we make any hasty decisions that might cost them money and politicians appease them to stay in office, while we wait for the most vulnerable among us to be irreparably harmed and then prove that their harm came from corporate pollution. Then maybe it's time to act. Maybe. If it's not too expensive. And if taxpayers foot the bill.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews