News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz On Tuesday, Melissa Weber is seen standing in a Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS) boat, Echo, near its sonar mapping equipment. Echo is one of three boats that TBNMS is using to map the sanctuary.

ALPENA — Melissa Weber, a hydrographer with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), has helped map over 2,000 linear nautical miles of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS) this summer.

Weber told The News that mapping the Sanctuary was funded by GLERL, and TBNMS has been using three separate boats to map Sanctuary waters. She explained that sonar technology on the boat enables crews to capture images from the bottom of the lakebeds. The mapping initiative this summer will contribute to Lakebed 2030, an initiative of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to map all five Great Lakes by 2030.

Weber said that mapping not only helps TBNMS find new shipwrecks, but it also gives researchers a snapshot of the health of the Great Lakes.

“We’ve accomplished a lot,” Weber said. “The overall goal is for the habitat mapping, so looking for where fish habitats are, where we might be able to recover those resources, and improve the overall health of the Great Lakes.”

Weber added that TBNMS will share data collected from mapping the sanctuary with National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), a branch of NOAA that supports the stewardship of marine resources in the United States.

“They’re also helping us evaluate the health of the Great Lakes and combat some zebra muscles, looking where we might be able to reestablish good fish populations or habitat, and just hopefully eventually reduce the zebra muscles in the Great Lakes,” Weber explained.

Weber said that over the winter GLERL will analyze the imagery and data collected to determine what lies at the bottom of Lake Huron. She explained that the data will also be cross-referenced with known shipwrecks to determine changes and conditions.

“Hopefully we’ll have some cool things to talk about, that the Sanctuary will announce in the right time,” Weber said. “We’ve got to make sure we protect the resources.”

Weber said that the lake has treated them well, though not without some challenges.

“Definitely one of our hardest challenges during the season is combating wind and waves because you want good data quality,” Weber said. “There have been days where you get four-foot seas out there and there’s a small craft advisory … while it’s unsafe for us to be out there, it’s also a data quality thing.”

Weber explained that as the boat drives through waves, it can create air bubbles that disrupts data collection. She added that there haven’t been any major technical issues with the sonar technology so far this season.

“With any multi-computer systems, you do get technical difficulties,” Weber said. “Luckily, we’ve been able to diagnose those and solve those … nothing that stopped us from working.”

Weber explained that crews driving the boats try to get in eight hours of mapping each time they are out in Sanctuary waters. She said they call the process “mowing the lawn.” However, one of the boats does not have a bathroom, which she said can make the day challenging. She said fatigue is also a hurdle for crew members.

“It makes for a really long day,” Weber said.

Weber will give more updates about the mapping project during her lecture at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. If the federal government shutdown lasts till the time of the event, TBNMS will have to either reschedule or cancel the event.

Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.