EPA Ship the Lake Guardian docks in Marquette’s Lower Harbor

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - An EPA research vessel docked in Marquette’s Lower Harbor Thursday morning. The Lake Guardian, a 180 foot-long, 959 ton ship left Milwaukee a couple days ago and is taking samples from Lake Superior.

The ship is on its way to the Keweenaw Peninsula and then the Apostle Islands to sample lower food web life forms like plankton. The ship has 3 on board laboratories, used to analyze samples they collet. They’re also looking at long-term trends for contaminates.

“We’re seeing a lot of declines in mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, which people call PCBs, and we’ve noticed significant declines from throughout the long-term trends,” said Chief Scientist for the Lake Guardian, Brian Lenell.

The project is funded through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The testing should be completed by this Sunday.