Re-posting Bob Power's email. It seems his expertise has narrowed out some solutions: Please take a look! ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <[log in to unmask]> Date: 27 March 2014 00:41 Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] bad-weather bird troubles To: [log in to unmask] Hi Pow, 1. Heating - OUT. requires too many BTUs/hour per square foot of surface. 2. Pressure based - probably your best chance. Most communities use a bubbler system to keep water open. Coe Lake in Berea is a good example You could get operating costs from the City of Berea, I would think. Lake Isaac in Strongsville is another. Pumping water from the Cuyahoga around the Cold Coast Guard station is a possibility, and you could use a wind turbine to do that. 3. Chemicals?? No, the EPA would not let you pollute the waters of Lake Erie, even if you think the chemicals are "safe". There have been some experiments with melting ice using black pigments to absorb solar energy that you might want to investigate. But what black pigments are "safe"? 4. Nanotechnology - not in my lifetime, and you'll still need a permit when it's closer to reality. 5. Motor-Propeller combinations - a subset of alternate 2, somewhat viable; could be connected to a wind turbine. Permitting issues since the system would be submerged. 6. Shelter with IR heating - doable but you still need a power source. And would the birds go to it? So unnatural...Birds need to see predators coming from a long way off. 7. Breaking down the ice manually - at first I thought this might be a decent idea, but if the lake is frozen over, where do you put the ice you've cut up? Just pushing it into an area with open water won't gain you anything. You'd have to put it on shore or start stacking it on top of existing ice. Bob > ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]