Excellent, if sobering, history of trade, recreation and ecosystems on the Great Lakes. Also covers related changes in the rest of the country, including the Mississippi basin and Lake Mead. Very readable and interesting!

Dan Egan is reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, focused specifically on the Great Lakes. This book focuses primarily on the ecosystem, from pristine (famed lake trout) to heavily invaded (the ale wife and later quagga mussels) to some form of recovery (white fish evolving for a new food source). He also focuses on the history of canal projects to open up the lakes for commerce, or clean up Chicago sewage.

While primarily an American story, the Canadian angle is also mentioned. The politics of multiple states and provinces trying to deal with ecological problems is daunting. Comparing the nuisance cost of porting goods or cleaning boats to the billions spent repairing the damage is shocking. Fresh water is a focus towards the end of the book, including water grabs by Atlanta, California and others. An excellent quote from the book, showing the scale of what we are talking about here:

“Roughly 97 percent of the globe’s water is saltwater. Of the 3 percent or so that is freshwater, most is locked up in the polar ice caps or trapped so far underground it is inaccessible. And of the sliver left over that exists as surface freshwater readily available for human use, about 20 percent of that—one out of every five gallons available on the planet—can be found in the Great Lakes.”