Last fall, Department of Environmental Protection staffers Don Benczkowski and Matt Walderon made an interesting discovery. During a visit to the mouth of Eight Mile Creek in Erie on Oct. 22, they came across a collapsible Thermos cooler that contained an old lunch, a hotel key card, prescription work glasses, and contact information for Glen and Lisa Campbell of Ontario, Canada.

Benczkowski and Walderon set out to contact the Campbells to see if they could return the lunchbox. They learned that Glen Campbell was working on a Great Lakes freighter docked in Sarnia, Ontario in March 2014. During his time on the freighter, his cooler went missing.

The Campbells now know what became of the lunchbox, and were stunned to find out that it had traveled more than 365 miles through the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, and finally deposited on Shades Beach near that mouth of Eight Mile Creek in Lake Erie.

The traveling lunchbox illustrates an important lesson about water flow and how pollution travels.

Fortunately, Benczkowski and Walderon were recently able to return the lunchbox to the Campbells.

(Reprinted from the April 16 DEP News.  Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)

4/20/2015