[jeffmcmahan]

I'm deeply blessed to live on and own ~100ft of Lake Erie's shoreline. I can hear her waves now. Like all the Great Lakes, she is an inland ocean, enormous, inviting the misapprehension that she will dilute an infinite amount of anything you could drain into her. Alas, around here we know the history: not that long ago the surface of Lake Erie caught on fire and no one could figure out how to put it out. So let's remember that we're doing better than we once did. My backyard is daily frequented by bald eagles chasing one another. The place is in many ways healthy.

At the same time, it's quite clear that it's still not good enough - particularly the algae blooms centering on the mouth of the Maumee river (near Toledo) which turn miles of the lake into something looking and feeling like bright green paint every so often. It doesn't come near my place, but you can imagine how I feel when I picture a hundred square miles of toxic green sludge, juxtaposed with Michigan and Ohio Republican politicians proposing "self-regulation" as the solution...

[thisisnico]

I live quite close to you, fellow Ontarian here. Windsor is where I call home. I plan one day to own a house on the lake, nothing else like it.

[jeffmcmahan]

I'm a Michigander - across the water from Amherstburg and a tick south.

[svnpenn]

Cant you just say "the waves"? Calling it "her" once is fine, but four times is creepy.

[jeffmcmahan]

It's weird to say 'her' once and then switch pronouns. But I hear you. You're picturing me with a peg leg. :)

[unethical_ban]

Here's an HNer who knows that gendered pronouns exist for many inanimate nouns, and thinks that it's okay.

edit: Just to make sure I'm understood, I mean to say "I think it's okay", not to mock the OP who used the pronouns. More directly and non-sarcastically: "Using 'her' for bodies of water is not wrong".

[screye]

We have already seen 1 great water body lose to human hubris : L̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶B̶a̶i̶k̶a̶l̶ (edit: Aral Sea).

Aral Sea volume (1960) - 1000 cubicKm

Lake Erie volume - 500 cubicKm

So yeah, If L̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶B̶a̶i̶k̶a̶l̶ (edit:Aral Sea) can go down, so can the great lakes.

[porb121]

Do you mean the Aral Sea? Lake Baikal has not been lost at all.

[screye]

Ah this, is embarassing. Yes, I meant the Aral Sea.

edited to reflect error.

[OrbitRock]

Lake Baikal is so large and ancient that it’s a major global hotspot for freshwater diversity, hosting entire families found nowhere else.