Ten Threats: Pollution Hot Spots

  • Ruddiman Pond has been listed as a Great Lakes 'Area of Concern' for more than 18 years. (Photo by Michael Leland).

For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Our guide
in the series, Lester Graham, says one of the threats identified by experts
across the region is known as “Areas of Concern.”


For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:


Picture what you might think one of these heavily polluted sites looks like.
Did you think of a big park in a quiet neighborhood, with lots of tall
trees, and a bandstand next to a lagoon? No? Well, welcome to McGraft Park
in Muskegon, Michigan, the home of Ruddiman Pond, one of the most polluted
spots in the Great Lakes.


“This little lagoon here is a sediment basin. It is a sediment trap.”


Rick Rideske is a research scientist at the Annis Water Resource Institute
in Muskegon. It studies the quality of Michigan’s lakes and rivers.


“All of the contaminated sediment from the upper part of the watershed has made
its way down here and is being deposited. They are taking out, in some places,
15 feet of contaminated sediment.”


Beginning in the 1930’s, heavy industries began setting up shop along
Ruddiman Creek, a few miles from the park. Many dumped their toxic wastes
into nearby storm sewers, which emptied into the creek, and flowed toward
Ruddiman Pond. Toxic heavy metals like chromium and lead, along with
hazardous chemicals like PCB’s, settled to the bottom. It’s been a long
time since the pond has been safe for swimming.


Rideske points to a yellow sign nailed to a tree next to the pond. It says,
“No entry. Hazardous substances.”


“If you look at that sign over there, that sign was put up in maybe 1997, 98.
You can see the tree has grown over the sign.”


But beyond that sign is some hope for Ruddiman Creek and Pond. Workers are
scooping toxic mud from the bottom of the lagoon. The material is trucked
to a landfill licensed to receive toxic stuff like this. The project should
be finished by next summer.


Ruddiman Creek and Pond make up one of 43 pollution hot spots in the Great
Lakes that the U.S. and Canada call Areas of Concern. So far, two in Canada
have been cleaned up. Ruddiman Creek is one of only three in the U.S. being
cleaned.


David Ullirch would like to see that work move a lot faster. He directs the Great
Lakes Initiative. It’s a group of mayors and other officials from the U.S. and
Canada that works to preserve the Lakes.


“This is a serious problem, not only in terms of a threat to the natural environment,
there are public health issues associated with them and often, even worse, is that
they are a stigma to those areas, whether it is Waukegan Harbor, or Gary, Indiana, or
Ashtabula Harbor, these are things that these cities have had to live with for
years, and it’s time to get them cleaned up and get on with it.”


The government is supposed to provide 270-million dollars over five years to
clean up the Areas of Concern in the United States, but so far, congress
has appropriated only about 35-million dollars. That relatively small amount
of cash has limited the number of cleanups that can be started, and it frustrates
Dennis Schornack. He’s the U.S. chairman of the International Joint Commission.
It’s a watchdog group that monitors the water quality treaty between the U.S. and
Canada.


“These areas were identified back in 1987, and only two, both of which are in Canada,
have been delisted since that time. At that pace of progress, it will be 400 years
before we are so-called clean, and I think that is very disappointing.”


In the case of Ruddiman Creek, they’re glad at least one site is being cleaned up.
Rick Rideske of the Annis Institute says the fact that it’s in a neighborhood park
played a big role in attracting the attention, and government cash needed to clean
it up.


“It really took the local residents, public advisory council, we have a Ruddiman
Creek Task Force, which is made of local people from this neighborhood. They called
frequently state representatives, federal representatives. Getting this site on the
priority list was a community effort for a lot of people.”


Rideske and people who live near McGraft Park are looking forward to celebrating a
small victory in the fight to restore the Great Lakes, and they’re looking forward to
taking down that yellow warning sign next year.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

Related Links

Pollution Cleanup Program Underfunded

A new federal fund designed to clean up pollution hotspots along the Great Lakes is being underfunded. Money promised from Congress is coming in much smaller amounts than originally pledged. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:

Transcript

A new federal fund designed to clean up pollution hotspots along the Great Lakes is being
underfunded. Money promised from Congress is coming in much smaller amounts than
originally pledged. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:


The Great Lakes Legacy Act was passed by Congress in 2002… with a promise of 54 million
dollars a year for five years to clean up some of the 31 so-called “Areas of Concern”… the most
heavily polluted areas along the Great Lakes.


But in 2004, the first year money was allocated, only 10 million dollars was released by
Congress. Even so, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Scientist Mark Tuchman says this is
money available for clean up now… a change from the notoriously slow Superfund process.


“This is a focused program. The focus is on contaminated sediments at AOCs. So we’re
optimistic that this program can start making a significant dent in the contaminated sediment
problem in these Great Lakes sites.”


Congress is allocating 24 million dollars for Great Lakes clean up projects in 2005. That’s still
less than half the annual amount promised.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

Related Links

A ‘Down Payment’ for Sediment Clean-Up

Congress has approved a plan to clean up some of the most polluted spots in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Congress has approved a plan to clean up some of the
most polluted spots in the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The Great Lakes Legacy Act authorizes 270-million dollars over the next
five years to clean up pollution hot spots known as Areas of Concern.
Matt Doss is with the Great Lakes Commission, which lobbies
Congress on behalf of the eight Great Lakes states. He says Congress still
has to approve appropriations for the Act.


“It’s an important victory, but we need to get the money to
implement the bill. And, secondly, I think people need to
recognize that this is a very important down payment on
getting this work done.”


The actual cost of the clean up of the areas will be much higher.
Doss says if this money shows measurable results, it will be easier to ask Congress for more in the future. Although 270-million sounds like a lot, other areas have pulled in a lot more. For instance, the Florida Everglades
recently pulled in nearly eight billion dollars for clean up projects there.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Long Road to River Recovery

  • Aerial view of industry along the Fox River. Photo by Great Lakes United.

One of the rivers that flows into Lake Michigan is polluted so badly that it’s being treated much like a Super Fund site…an environmental disaster. It’ll be decades before it’s cleaned up, and some environmentalists think it might never be cleaned up properly. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

One of the rivers that flows into the Great Lakes (Lake Michigan) is
polluted so badly that it’s being treated much like a Super Fund site –an
environmental disaster. It’ll be decades before it’s cleaned up. And some
environmentalists think it might never be cleaned up properly. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of fish splash)


It’s late at night. The moon’s out. And the fish are flopping on the Fox
River. In downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin, Robert Hageman and a few of his
friends have been fishing. A couple of the guys are bragging about the big
fish they caught. But they’re not taking any home with them tonight.


LG: “Had any luck?” RH: “Yeah, I caught 23 fish.”
LG: “And wwhat did you do with them? RH: “Let ’em right back.” LG: “why?” RH: “Because it’s dirty. Fox River’s dirty.”
LG: “What have you heard about the Fox River?” RH: “The fish ain’t good for you. They can’t hurt you, but they ain’t good for you.
(friends in background say “PCBs, man.”) “yeah.”
LG: “What do you know about PCBs?
RH: “I don’t know nothing about it. That’s why I ain’t eatin’ them.” (all laugh)


Hageman and his friends are right when they say there are PCBs in the Fox
River. But apparently they haven’t heard that eating fish from the river
probably can hurt you in the long run. There are 60-thousand pounds of
PCBs, or poly chlorinated byphenyls, in the 39 mile run of the Fox
River. Of that, 50-thousand pounds – that’s 25 tons – is in the sediment of
the last seven mile stretch just before the river flows into Green Bay and
on into the rest of Lake Michigan. It’s that final stretch where Hageman
and his friends have been fishing.


The Environmental Protection Agency says seven paper mills along the Fox
River are the likely polluters. The EPA says PCBs were produced as a
by-product of the paper manufacturing process, and from the 1950s to the 1970s
they were dumped into the river. Now, the agency intends to make those
mills pay for cleaning up the contaminants.


Dennis Hultgren works for Appleton Papers, and is a spokesperson for a group
that represents the seven companies. Hultgren says the paper mills want to
clean up the pollution. But they don’t want to pay more than they have to.


“What we want to do is make sure that the money that we do spend
is spent wisely and it does the most environmental good for the region. And
so, we have one chance to do it right and we want to do it right the first
time.”


The paper mills have been working closely with government agencies to try to
determine where the PCBs are concentrated and how best to clean up the
pollution. Some of the companies have spent millions of dollars on tests in
the river. Just recently, Hultgren’s firm offered 40-million dollars… ten-million dollars a year for four years… for data collection and preliminary clean-up tests. The government agencies praised the decision and some environmental groups voiced their approval. But a local grassroots group, the Clean Water Action Council of Northeast Wisconsin, does not approve. Rebecca Katers is with the council and says it’s a delay tactic by the paper mill companies.


“It makes the company look generous. But, in fact, they should be doing this anyway. They should have done this ten years ago.”


Giving the money now, Katers says, only manages to delay legal action
against the company for four more years. Besides, she says, while
40-million dollars might seem like a lot of money, the estimated clean-up
could cost as much as 30 times that amount.


The Clean Water Action Council says this money and the government’s
willingness to accept it are representative of the cozy relationship the
companies seem to have with regulators. But Katers says the state and
federal agencies are forgetting about the people who live here. She
bristles when she hears the government agencies talk about how close they
are to the paper mills.


“They talked at the announcement about ongoing discussions they
have on a daily basis with the paper industries on this issue. But, they
haven’t met once face-to-face with the public. They haven’t held a public
discussion or debate on this issue.”


And it appears there won’t be many opportunities in the future. Although
the Fox River is not a Superfund site, the EPA is generally following the
process used for Superfund sites. The EPA says that means the public can
submit comments in writing. But there won’t be a lot of public discussion
until the EPA actually has a proposed plan. Katers thinks the people
should have a voice a lot earlier in the process.


But, the paper mills’ representative, Dennis Hultgren says it’s better to
let the experts work first.


“It’s complicated. For the normal citizen, it’s going to be very difficult to comment on it because they’re going to be looking at the technical merits
of their comments. And a general citizen, not having been involved, it’s going to be very difficult to have germane comments.”


The companies say they’ve been studying and testing and they’ve found
disturbing the sediment by trying to remove it proves that the PCBs should
be left in the sediment, allowed to slowly break down… a process called
natural recovery. And where there’s risk that sediment laden PCBs might
be disturbed by the river’s currents, engineered caps could be put in place.


The Clean Water Action Council says the paper mills tests were designed to
end up with that conclusion because that would be the cheaper way to deal
with the PCBs. The council wants the PCBs removed from the river and
disposed of safely… a much more expensive job.


The acting regional administrator for the USEPA, David Ullrich, says
there’ll likely be some combination of natural recovery, capping, and
removal. But, Ullrich says none of that will happen anytime soon. It’s a
big job, and it looks as though it will take up to ten years to deal with
the PCBs. And Ullrich says that’s just the beginning.


“The actual recovery of the resource, getting fish contaminant
levels down to acceptable levels and getting the PCB loadings to Green Bay
and out to Lake Michigan down, could take a longer period of time than that,
perhaps up to twenty years.”


And over that 20 year period, experts say that contamination will
naturally spread farther and farther into Green Bay and Lake Michigan.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

TOXIC SEDIMENTS THREATEN HUMAN HEALTH (Part 1)

Dozens of rivers and lakes in the Great Lakes region contain contaminated sediment. In the first of a three part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports on the severity of this problem facing the region:

Transcript

Dozens of rivers and lakes in the Great Lakes region contain contaminated sediment.
In the first of a three part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports on the severity of this problem facing the region.


(ambient sound – digging for worms)


A woman who only gives her name as Marsha is digging for worms along the shore of Muskegon Lake in Western Michigan. She says worms at the bait store are too expensive, so she comes out here every week or so to look under rocks and dig up night crawlers from the damp and silty soil on the lakefront.


(more ambient sound – more digging)


The Norton Shores resident says she fishes in the lake, and eats what she catches. While
she will eat the animals that live in Muskegon Lake, she says she has to be very careful
around the water. Marsha says she is seeing a doctor because of rashes and burning skin
that cropped up after spending too much time in the lake:


“I don’t stand in it anymore. I used to stand in it, but it was burning me, I was getting big burns. And then I started getting them on my hands. Now I have to wear gloves on my hands when I fish and touch the water.”


One possible reason for her skin troubles could be the massive amount of contaminated sediment in the waters – pollutants that have entered the lake over the past one hundred
years. Many of those pollutants settled in the sediment and silt that rests at the bottom of the lake, but some are also spread throughout the water itself. Muskegon Lake is one of 43 places that have been designated by the federal government as areas of concern in the Great Lakes Region. These toxic hot spots are bodies of water where pollutant levels are considered dangerous. Tanya Cabala is an activist with the White Lake Public Advisory Council, a citizens activist group trying to clean up contaminated sediment. She says years of Great Lakes residents allowing large industrial plants to locate right next to lakes and rivers is taking its toll.


“Where we live, we made some deliberate choices in past decades to chose jobs and development and those kinds of things over protecting the environment. There was the attitude that you couldn’t have both.”


Cabala says a major focus for her group is to educate people on the dangers of toxic
sediment in the Great Lakes region. Amy Mucha is an analyst with the U.S. EPA. She
says levels of PCB’s, mercury and dioxins pose many long-term health risks to people
who eat the fish or drink the water from these areas, or even come in contact with the
water.


“Impairment of reproductive ability, we have seen some of that in monkey studies. There have actually been some studies of children in the Great Lakes area in Michigan showing that women who ate contaminated fish out of the Great Lakes – their children had reduced IQ, children had reading difficulties and other kinds of learning difficulties.”


Mucha says since many of the health problems caused by polluted sediment take years to
manifest themselves in people, it is difficult to convince the public that there is an immediate need to fix the problem. The federal government has known about toxic sediment problems for more than fifteen years. That’s how long ago Congress first designated the Areas of Concern. Scott Cieniawski is with the U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes Office. He says since then, only one million cubic yards of sediment have been dredged from the Great Lakes toxic hot spots. That’s less than two percent of the estimated total of sixty million cubic yards of polluted sediment. Cieniawski says there is still a lot of work to do and projects to fund.


“We have to find a way to start coordinating at all levels and get the funding and get the technical people involved and actually start cleaning up. Because I think we know where the contamination is for the most part, and now its time to go get it.”


But Cieniawski says now could be a turning point in the battle to remove toxic sediment.
He says the research is done and an opportunity exists for a major effort to begin taking
action. But dredging toxic sediment sites faces many problems. Companies that are often responsible for the contamination are fighting efforts to clean the sites in an attempt to avoid the blame and cost involved. And the numerous layers of government agencies are contributing to a very fragmented, and often under funded, effort to solve this problem that still plagues many bodies of water in the Great Lakes region. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

BARRIERS TO CLEANER SEDIMENTS (Part 2)

Contaminated sediment is a major problem in the Great Lakes region. Dozens of lakes and rivers are lined with sediment full of chemicals that are killing plants and animals and poisoning area residents. In the second part of our series on contaminated sediment, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports on some of the major obstacles facing those who want to clean up the toxic hot spots:

Transcript

Contaminated sediment is a major problem in the Great Lakes region. Dozens of lakes and rivers are lined with sediment full of chemicals that are killing plants and animals and poisoning area residents. In the second part of our series on contaminated sediment, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports on some of the major obstacles facing those that want to clean up the toxic hot spots.

(ambient sound – White Lake)


It is a clear and cool day on the shores of White Lake in Western Michigan. While
the crisp wind and blue waters may make this lake seem clean and clear, this is one of the
43 areas of concern in the Great Lakes region – places the federal government has designated as containing dangerously high levels of pollutants. Even with that government designation, there is not always a consensus that there is a problem at a particular location. Rick Rediske is with Grand Valley State University, and has studied dozens of contaminated sediment sites. He says while pollution standards have been set for water and soil, there are no standards for defining contaminated sediment. He says since there are no rules on how many parts per million of pollutants like mercury or lead are acceptable in sediment, there is not a definitive answer to basic questions about the safety of a body of water.


“You can put together reasons why you think there’s a concern about the
sediment contamination, and somebody else can look at it too and put together a totally
contrary position by looking at other factors and twisting them a bit. So there is a lot of
wiggle room when you are operating in a situation where there is no numerical criteria.”


That means a company that has been polluting a lake or other body of water for years can
mount a reasonable defense to avoid blame for contaminated sediment – and in turn avoid
paying for the clean ups that often total tens of millions of dollars. Rediske says he
doubts there will ever be standards on polluted sediment levels because the material’s
very makeup is so complex. Michael Palermo is a contaminated sediment expert with
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He says for years, researchers have focused on ways
to clean up polluted air, water, and soil.


“But sediments don’t really fall clearly into any of those categories. There are aspects related to all three of them, and so magnitude of the problem and the nature of the problem, I like to think of it almost as a fourth environmental medium.”


Coming to a consensus on what areas are contaminated is just the first of many hurdles
that must be overcome before a site can be cleaned. Then communities have to decide how to
treat the contaminated area. Options include putting down a cap over the polluted area,
dredging and removing the sediment, and removing the pollutants from the sediment while it is
at the bottom of the lake or river. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, and there
can often be a protracted fight over which method is best for a particular site. One of the
most recent examples is the Hudson River. General Electric, which legally dumped PCB’s into
the Hudson until the late 1970’s, has fought for several years the possibility of dredging
portions of the river. GE officials claim the PCBs are now locked up in the river sediment, and dredging will only serve to release those chemicals back into the water. The EPA however recently ordered limited dredging, saying methods that would contain the PCBs in place would not work. GE continues to fight that decision. Even when a community can agree that an area needs to be cleaned, and agrees on a method to do it, there is the issue of money. Those groups often look to the government for help, and are often disappointed. Cameron Wilson is a staff member for Michigan Congressman Vern Ehlers.


“There are federal resources for dealing with contaminated sediment. But the issue from a nationwide perspective is so vast and issue is controversial and complex that I don’t think we have begun to scratch the surface on what we need.”


Wilson says Ehlers, along with other members of Congress in the Great Lakes region plan to reintroduce legislation to specifically fund cleaning contaminated sediment sites in the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, many of the funding problems could perhaps be solved if there were a cheaper way to remove contaminated sediment from lakes and rivers. A new Illinois Company may be headed in that direction. Peoria Dredging LLC is a new company that is developing a non-hydraulic dredger and sediment transportation system.


But this new technology is in its infancy. The new company hopes to have a full sized
prototype ready for testing in two years. Company officials say the success of the project is also dependent on federal funds to help development. The same federal funds that many
Great Lakes communities would like to see used to clean toxic hot spots with technology that
already exists. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

U.S. Urges Canada to Spend More on Lakes

The Canadian government is releasing money to clean up some problem areas in the Great Lakes. Although Canada now spends millions of dollars a year on overall cleanup, this additional money would be targeted specifically toward the cleanup of highly polluted areas known as hot spots. It’s probably not a surprise that some environmentalists in Canada don’t think it’s enough money. But the U.S. government also wants Canada to come up with more money to clean up pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Canadian government is releasing money to cleanup some
pollution hot spots in the Great Lakes. It’s probably not a surprise
that some environmentalists in Canada don’t think it’s enough
money. But the U.S. government also wants Canada to come up with
more money to clean up pollution. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham Reports.

Canada’s environment minister David Anderson recently announced
the equivalent of more than twenty million U.S. dollars would be
available to communities to clean up several badly polluted areas
in the Great Lakes over a five year period. The program is called the
Great Lakes sustainability fund. John Shaw is the manager of the
fund. He says this is extra money to be used to clean up 16 pollution
hot spots called “areas of concern.”

“So we fully expect to be allocating resources across all of the
‘Areas of Concern,’ working with the municipalities and the province to improve sewage
treatment plant effluent, control stormwater and combined sewer overflows, rehabilitate fish and
wildlife habitat, as well as work with the landowners in watersheds and that would include
agricultural operations to improve their environmental quality and how they manage things.”

While other money will be spent on the lakes. The Great Lakes
Sustainability Fund is the bulk of environment Canada’s efforts to
clean up the nation’s heavily polluted “areas of concern” in the
Great Lakes.

Environmentalists in Canada say the money is long overdue. They
point out this is not new money but replacement money. John
Bennett is with the Sierra Club Canada. He says the 20-million
dollars restores funds that were cut by parliament in the mid-1990’s.

“It’s a very good sign to see that Mr. Anderson and the federal
government is now getting back into funding this work. It’s really up to the
provincial government now to get in and match the fund.”

Bennett says 20-million dollars is nice but really it’s just a drop in
the Great Lakes.

“It’s still not enough to meet the problems. You know, the
Great Lakes is the most important body of water in North America and Canada is
willing to spend 20-million dollars U.S. to keep it clean? I don’t think it’s enough.”

But the Canadian government says its Great Lakes Sustainability
Fund is just the start. The fund’s manager, John Shaw, says matching
money from municipal and provincial governments can triple the
amount to be spent on pollution cleanup in the “areas of concern.”

“I guess there’s always a desire to have more, but I think the
important thing with the Fund is that we can fund approximately a third of
the project and look for two-thirds of the funding from the other partnerships.”

Across the border meanwhile…the US government would like to see
the Canadian government pay a lot more for cleanup of the “areas
of concern.” While the Canadian federal government is putting up 20-
million dollars over five years. The Environmental Protection
Agency is asking for two-and-a half times that much each year to
clean up the pollution hot spots on the U.S. side of the border. Carol
Browner is the EPA’s administrator.

“We would welcome any financial-enhanced commitment that
Canada would make in this arena. I think that it is clear that the
United States has been leading the way in terms of financial commitment,
seeking in just one budget year alone an additional 50-million dollars for cleanup
in the Great Lakes. We would like to see an equal partnership.”

However before Browner will boast too much about the US money
to clean up the “areas of concern”. She points out congress has not
approved it and, in fact, its future doesn’t look good.

Meanwhile an organization that represents the eight Great Lakes
states says the 20-million over five years from Canada and the
proposed 50-million a year from the US should only be viewed as a
first step to cleanup the Great Lakes’ problem spots. Michael
Donahue is the executive director of the
Great Lakes Commission.

“I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought that this was a
one-time fix. I think what it is a, uh— should be viewed, hopefully, as
the first of many commitments to work in partnership with the provinces and
with the U.S. state and federal governments to get the job done over a period of time.”

In fact just last month a commission that monitors whether the US
and Canadian governments are keeping their commitments to a
water quality agreement between the two nations reported the two
governments had to step up their efforts. It warned if they don’t
there can be little hope of fully restoring and protecting The
Lakes.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.