There’s more concern about lower water levels in the Great Lakes, both due to increased drainage, and possibly global climate change. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
There’s more concern about lower water levels in the Great Lakes, both due to increased drainage, and possibly global climate change. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
More data from a privately-funded study show long ago dredging on the Saint Clair River near Detroit may be one of the reasons for low water levels in Lakes Huron and Michigan.
Another study by the US-Canada International Joint Commission is looking at what to do about the higher flows out of the lakes. But hydrologist Roger Gauthier, of the Great Lakes Commission, adds a long warming trend to the list of factors affecting levels in Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior:
“We’ve had below average snowfall. We’ve had very little ice cover in terms of thickness or duration. Much warmer lake temperatures.”
Less ice cover leads to more wintertime evaporation. Experts say trying to fix the drainage problem and control global warming should be goals.
Near record low water levels on Lake Superior are causing some headaches for
boaters. Mike Simonson reports:
Transcript
Near record low water levels on Lake Superior are causing some headaches for
boaters. Mike Simonson reports:
Great Lakes water levels have been low. It’s partially due to evaporation from
lack of ice cover in the winter. Two years of drought around Lake Superior hasn’t
helped. That lake is a foot and a half below its long-term average, and the lowest
since 1926. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Superintendent Bob Krumenaker
says they’ve got problems:
“Our docks are generally high out of the water. Some of them
are hard to reach from a small boat. Some of them have spaces underneath that
none of us have ever seen before that are really not friendly places for small
boats.”
Except for taking the unusual step of dredging, Krumenaker says there’s not a lot
they can do:
“We’re all getting a good education this year that the old phrase “the Lake is the
boss” is indeed true.
Boaters can find the shallow water spots on the National Park Service Apostle
Islands website.
Some teachers say today’s students know very little about where their food comes from, or why they should worry about the health of local fish and wildlife. And they say that makes subjects like biology and ecology boring. It also reduces students’ interest in protecting the environment. These teachers are finding a way to bring science home. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:
Transcript
Some teachers say today’s students know very little about where their food comes from, or why they should worry about the health of local fish and wildlife, and they say that makes subjects like biology and ecology boring. It also reduces students’ interest in protecting the environment. These teachers are finding a way to bring science home. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:
(waves)
In the Great Lakes region, home is never far from the water…
(teachers yelling to each other)
And these science teachers aren’t far from home either. They’re at the Lake Michigan shoreline pulling out a 150 foot net to catch fish. The teachers are getting an in-depth look at environmental issues near their homes in Michigan. And in return, they’ll weave those topics into their lessons this fall.
Today, their task is to catch a sample of fish, identify them by species, and to figure out whether those types of fish can survive in polluted waters. In the end, they’ll decide whether to let a hypothetical development group build a marina here. Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologist Todd Kalish built the scenario based on proposals he’s seen.
“This is a diagram of the proposed marina. They’re going to have to dredge about eighty cubic yards of sediment, and they’re also going to construct seawalls.”
Kalish says dredging will stir up sediment that can hurt some types of fish. Simply labeling fish will get some students’ attention, but Kalish says teachers can get more interest from more students by combining that lesson with his marina proposal. And it will also teach students how the environment is affected when we build things.
This training is the brainchild of Mary Whitmore, a curriculum developer. She’s using students’ local communities to inspire them to care about science, and she’s using science to inspire students to care about their communities. Whitmore’s setting up similar trainings in a lot of towns. She says investigating each community separately is a lot of work, but it’s necessary.
“My attitude has shifted completely from focusing solely on teachers – which I did for many, many years – to suddenly realizing that unless communities become meaningfully engaged with their schools, educating young people is going to become an increasingly difficult problem.”
Whitmore says that’s particularly true with life sciences. She says the subject’s ultimately about diagnosing and solving problems. And just talking about what some scientist has already figured out or simply labeling a fish misses the critical point for students. Who cares?
Whitmore says that’s especially true today when fresh water seems to come from bottles, instead of from a stream or a creek and produce at the grocery store rarely comes from a local farm. She says these days we’re not really connected with the environment that keeps us alive. But Whitmore says with the help of local environmental groups and other community partners, teachers can fit those lessons into the standard curriculum.
“As a high school teacher, I know I have to teach about, let’s say, ecology. And so, what I’m going to do is use water as a theme for my teaching about ecology. And I’m going to still be teaching the state standards and benchmarks in science. But I’m going to be doing it in a way that is much more meaningful for my students.”
Whitmore says teachers who attended her first training last year changed how they teach. They’re doing projects that mean something to students. One’s working with students to build rain gardens, others are raising salmon.
Teachers here today say it was already their goal to incorporate local issues in the classroom, but some say they couldn’t effectively teach on local issues because they didn’t understand those issues themselves. Christie Jenemabi Johnston teaches seventh through twelfth grade. She was impacted by a tour of the local wastewater treatment plant.
“Yes, I know how water treatment is done, and the essentials and the mechanics of it. But I never really took it to heart as far as what it meant in my immediate surroundings. And it just – it makes a big difference now.”
And she says knowing those things can help her students to get involved in their community. Of course in the end, if this model is to be truly successful it has to grab the attention of students, not just teachers. While the teachers were taking fish from the nets, a couple elementary-aged children were swimming nearby and they came over to see what was caught.
“Come on and look!”
“Wanna see ’em?”
“How big?”
“Oh, just little baby ones.”
“I don’t know are they all baby fish just because they’re little?”
If these kids are any indication of student response in the classroom, the programs just might work.
Cleanup will begin later this month at another of the Great Lakes’ so-called “toxic hotspots.” Crews will soon begin dredging the Ruddiman Creek and Pond near Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
Transcript
Cleanup will begin later this month at another of the Great Lakes’ so-called “toxic hotspots.” Crews will soon begin dredging the Ruddiman Creek and Pond near Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
Ruddiman Creek near Muskegon, Michigan, is considered one of the most polluted waterways in the state. By the end of August, crews will begin scooping eighty thousand cubic yards of toxic mud from the creek bottom.
It’s being funded in part by the Great Lakes Legacy Act – a federal program aimed at cleanups like this one. In 2002, Congress earmarked 54 million dollars a year for the cleanups, but so far, less than half that amount has been appropriated. Phillippa Cannon is with the EPA’s Chicago office. She says that has slowed cleanups somewhat, but so have other requirements.
“Areas that need to be cleaned up and have a project that’s far enough advanced that it’s ready to go, they also have to find another source of money to match the Legacy Act money. The Legacy Act will pay for about 65 percent of the cleanup.”
Ruddiman Creek will be the third of the Lakes’ toxic hotspots to be cleaned up. There are thirty-one hotspots on the EPA’s list.
President Bush's proposed budget for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers might reduce the number of dredging projects, which in turn would decrease the number of accessible waterways. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Some of the nation’s ports could be unusable for transporting commerce if a Presidential budget proposal goes through. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
Some of the nation’s ports could be unusable for transporting commerce if a presidential budget proposal goes through. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:
President Bush has suggested cutting about half a billion dollars from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ budget. If that happens, the Corps says it might cut dredging projects for the nation’s smaller ports. Dredging removes sediments that naturally collect in waterways.
The process makes them safe for cargo-carrying ships to pass through. Wayne Schloop is the Corps’ chief of operations in Detroit. He says economies in this region depend upon healthy ports.
“I believe it would have a negative effect on the economies because there’s a lot of harbors along the Great Lakes whose local economies are sort of tied into the marine industry and shipping and navigation.”
Schloop says ports that transport less than a million tons of goods a year could be affected. He says that includes about half of the more than 60 commercial ports in the Great Lakes.
A report finds the erosion in Lake St. Clair is causing Lake Michigan and Lake Huron water levels to drop. (photo by Jere Kibler)
A new study says erosion in the St. Clair River has caused water levels to drop on Lakes Michigan and Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has more:
Transcript
A new study says erosion in the St. Clair River has caused water levels to drop on Lakes Michigan and Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has more:
W.F. Baird and Associates is a coastal engineering firm. They recently conducted a study that found that water levels dropped on the two Great Lakes by eight to thirteen inches over the last forty years. Rob Nairn is the study’s lead author. He says that’s about twice as much as authorities thought.
“The outlet to Lake Michigan/Huron, which is the St. Clair river, is in fact expanding. The analogy would be if you had a drain hole in a bathtub, that drain hole is getting bigger, and more water is going out. And as more water goes out, the lake level drops.”
Nairn says the erosion may be caused by dredging, sand mining, or shoreline protection measures that prevented new sediment from getting into the water.
Several environmental groups say the lower water levels could hurt shipping and boating, and damage natural habitats. They’re calling for the U.S. and Canadian governments to stop the reported water loss.
The International Joint Commission says it can’t confirm the report, but it plans to take a closer look at the study’s findings.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lynette Kalsnes.
A crane dredges sediment
from the bottom of the Illinois River. The mud is
loaded onto a barge bound for Chicago - to turn a brownfield into a park. (Photo courtesy of Illinois Waste Management and Research Center)
A researcher gets stuck in the mud at the new park site. (Photo courtesy of Illinois Waste Management and Research Center)
Grass starts to grow in the new soil. (Photo courtesy of Illinois Waste Management and Research Center)
Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic. But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers
and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the
waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic.
But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
The Illinois River used to be an average of more than twenty feet deep. These days, the
river averages a depth of about two feet. The river stretches nearly from Chicago across
the state of Illinois and joins the Mississippi near St. Louis. The entire length of the
Illinois River is clogged with sediment that’s eroded mostly from farmland. Besides
blocking navigation, the sediment buries aquatic plants, destroying a food source for fish
and waterfowl.
(sound of a dredger)
A giant dredger is taking deep bites into the muck beneath the water’s surface that’s
clogging up the bottom of the river near Peoria. The bright orange clamshell bucket is
filling up barges that will take 100,000 tons of sediment to Chicago. There, it will be
used to cover up the remains of an old steel plant and create 17 acres of parkland.
Bob Foster is a project manager with the Chicago Park District. He says the steel mill
site is useless without the sediment from the Illinois River:
“What’s left there now is several foundations and forty feet of slag. It’s pretty hard to
plant trees in forty feet of slag. This project would not be happening unless we were
receiving this soil, this dredged material, because soil is our number one cost in park
development now.”
State and federal officials say this idea helps both the Illinois River by clearing out
sediment… and the city of Chicago by providing topsoil for a park. The program also has
the support of environmentalists, although they do sound a word of caution.
Marc Miller is an environmentalist who serves on the Illinois River Coordinating
Council, a group of public and private organizations trying to help the river. He supports
the dredging program, but says it would be better if the government, farmers and
developers would do more to stop soil erosion.
“That’s why the Illinois Coordinating Council has many irons in the fire in addressing
these issues. It’s going to take prevention in order to stop the kind of problems that have
been going on for decades.”
This kind of program won’t work everywhere. John Marlin is with the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources. He’s done a lot of studies on the possible uses for
dredged material. But, because some sediment is contaminated with pesticides or old
factory pollution, you have to test the muck and know where it’s going to be used.
“There are definitely places where the soil in the lakes and the Illinois River is too
polluted to use. But there are other places where it is clean, and one of our jobs is going
to be to find out where it is clean and safe to use and make judgments accordingly. There
will be a lot more questions as time goes on.”
But public officials behind this project are concentrating solely on the positives of the
project. Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn told supporters at a rally on the banks of the
Illinois River that the dredging program will be the beginning of a much larger program
that will benefit several states.
“This is a model, we want to replicate it, we want to do it elsewhere. We are open for
business. If you need topsoil somewhere, we got it. (laughter) And by digging up the
sediment and making the river a little deeper, we can help our fish, our wildlife, our
waterfowl, we can help our boating, our recreation.”
To have any significant impact on the Illinois River, this kind of dredging program will
have to be expanded exponentially. This first project will remove 100,000 tons of
sediment. Each year more than 14 million tons of sediment is washed into the Illinois
River basin.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
A worker samples polluted mud in a test pit. Researchers are trying to break down contaminants in the mud using electrical charges. A German company developed the technology, which U.S. officials hope will be cheaper than dredging polluted sediments.
Photo courtesy of MPR.
One of the biggest challenges facing Great Lakes water quality comes from polluted harbors. Scores of underwater sites have been identified, but cleanup has been painfully slow. Now, some people are taking a new approach – they’re using an electrical charge to clean up pollutants. It’s the first test in this country of the system. Supporters say it’s cheaper and faster than conventional methods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Kelleher reports:
Transcript
One of the biggest challenges facing Great Lakes water quality comes from
polluted harbors. Scores of underwater sites have been identified, but
cleanup has been painfully slow. Now, some people are taking a new
approach – they’re using an electrical charge to clean up pollutants. It’s
the first test in this country of the system. Supporters say it’s cheaper
and faster than conventional methods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Bob Kelleher reports:
Stryker Bay is a lovely little cove alongside the St. Louis River, near Lake
Superior, in Duluth, Minnesota. It’s a gentle water with ducks in the
summer; and a shady hiking path along the shore.
Tim Leland lives along the shore. From his home, he sees waterfowl, and
fouled water.
“Stryker Bay is a shallow bay. It’s six foot at the most of water.
But there’s a silt that’s underneath it, and all this tar and stuff that’s
coming up. Summertime there we do have a lot of oil that makes the surface
there.”
The bottom of Stryker Bay is a biological time bomb. Under the sand, are
pools of oily stuff – that experts call polynuclear aromatic-hydrocarbons,
or PAH’s. For nearly a century, Stryker Bay was an industrial sewer. PAH’s
were first identified under the bay in the 1970’s. That tar like stuff is
still there. There’s not enough money and little agreement how to get rid
of it.
But what if you could make pollution go away by throwing a switch? That’s
essentially what a German based company promises. And U.S. officials are
listening. The first underwater test in the United States of
Electrochemical-GeoOxidation treatment is underway in Duluth. And early
results show promise. It’s a simple concept, according to Ken Whittle with
Electro Petroleum Inc., who describes the process underway behind him in a
pair of water-filled pits.
“It’s a pretty simple kind of thing. If you want to look at it;
if you have a battery charger at home, you plug the battery charger in, you
take the two leads and you connect them to the terminals on a battery. Well,
that’s pretty analogous to what’s going on here.”
Each pit is filled with polluted mud and covered with water. Metal pipes
are sunken into the muck. In one pit, a carefully controlled electrical
charge pushes electrons through the sediment between the pipes. It’s
supposed to break the electron bonds of dangerous molecules; like PAH’s.
What’s left is harmless – like carbon and water.
The test is financed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers: the agency responsible for dredging shipping lanes.
Dealing with polluted sediment is a huge expense, according to Army Corps
researcher Tommy Myers.
“It’s a real big problem for us to dispose of that material. We
can’t put it back into the water. And, typically, we confine it in what we
call a confined disposal facility, and just store the material into
perpetuity and let it break down by natural processes, if it will.”
Officials would rather destroy pollutants than store them, but conventional
methods are expensive, smelly, and noisy. And they all require dredging,
and that’s expensive.
“In this particular technology, it wouldn’t necessarily require
dredging. There’s very little noise or gaseous emissions associated with
it. The main thing is it could be applied in situ; that means in the water,
without having to dredge.”
Proponents say Electrochemical-GeoOxidation is a bargain. Pollution
officials say conventional methods might cost as much as 200 dollars to
clean up a single cubic yard of sediment from Stryker Bay. But, according
to David Bowman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit, electrical
cleanup might cost a quarter of that.
“Our goal with this project was to find a technology that would
work for around one hundred dollars per cubic yard. The vendor talked about
that they might be able to treat material for around forty five to fifty
dollars per cubic yard at Duluth Harbor.”
And the contractor claims the process works fast. A typical site can be
cleaned in just a few months. It’s also supposed to work on metals, like
mercury, which attach to the electrodes, which can then be disposed of in a
hazardous waste facility.
In the Duluth test, PAH’s have decreased by forty five percent in about a
month. That’s promising, although far from conclusive. The process
won’t get every molecule, but it’s intended to reduce contaminants below
dangerous levels.
Tests began in Duluth this summer, but results are several months away.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bob Kelleher.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering expanding canals, channels, harbors, and locks to make way for larger ocean-going ships to enter the Great Lakes. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports, not everyone thinks that’s such a good idea:
Transcript
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering expanding canals, channels, harbors and locks to make way for larger ocean-going ships to enter the Great Lakes, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… not everyone thinks that’s such a good idea:
An Army Corps of Engineers’ draft report indicates the Corps wants to determine the feasibility of dredging and widening connecting channels to allow ships that are 250 feet longer and 30 feet wider than the biggest ship entering the Great Lakes today. Jennifer Nalbone is with Great Lakes United, a U.S. and Canadian consortium of environmental and other groups. She says there are lots of concerns. They include the disruption to the environment that the expansions would require, and concerns about larger foreign ships bringing more exotic invasive species into the Great Lakes.
“All of these environmental problems that we’re seeing in the basin could be amplified quite significantly if we allow larger foreign ships to gain access to the basin.”
Expansions at every connecting channel between the Great Lakes are being considered.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
The Alcoa/Reynolds Company removes PCBs they once dumped into the St. Lawrence River. Photo by David Sommerstein.
Polluted sediments sit at the bottom of rivers and lakes across the Great Lakes region. They can affect water quality, wildlife and human health. More than 40 highly contaminated areas in the region have been identified by the EPA’s Great Lakes Office, but so far only about half of those sites have been cleaned up. This fall, dredging is taking place in at least three of those hot spots – all on rivers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports on the challenges of cleaning up a river bottom:
Transcript
Polluted sediments sit at the bottom of rivers and lakes across the Great Lakes region. They can affect water quality, wildlife and human health. More than 40 highly contaminated areas in the region have been identified by the EPA’s Great Lakes Office.
But so far, only about half of those sites have been cleaned up. This fall, dredging is taking place in at least three of those hot spots, all on rivers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports on the challenges of cleaning up a river bottom.
(Sound of dredging)
Geologist Dino Zack stands on the steps of a mobile home overlooking the St. Lawrence River. He watches as barges glide in and out of an area contained by a 38 hundred foot long steel wall. Each barge carries a crane that periodically drops a bucket into the river bottom, pulling up sediment contaminated with PCBs. The goal is to remove 80 thousand cubic yards of contaminated sediment. Zack’s trailer is the EPA headquarters for the dredging project. He’s an independent contractor working for the federal government, which is spearheading the operation. And he’ll spend the next couple of months watching the Alcoa-Reynolds Company remove the chemicals they once dumped in the river.
“I’ll observe them while they’re collecting their data to make sure they’re following the work plan. Then, I’ll bring all the data back, assemble it into tables and review it.”
Zack isn’t the only one keeping a close eye on the dredging project, which began in June.
There’s another EPA scientist here, as well as two members of the Army Corps of Engineers who are supervising the work. There’s also a representative from the St. Regis Mohawk reservation, which is downriver from the contaminated area.
The EPA ordered Alcoa-Reynolds to clean up the pollution in 1993. The PCBs were present in a flame retardant liquid the company used in its aluminum smelting process.
Over the years, the liquid drained into the river, contaminating sediments along the shoreline. The most polluted area contains 2000 parts per million of PCBs. That equals about one bad apple in a barrel-full. The goal is to leave only one part per million of PCBs in the sediment. Anne Kelly is the EPA’s project director for the site.
She says achieving that level in a river environment is a challenge.
“One of the biggest problems with dredging a river is that you’re working without really seeing where you’re working. The other problem is the issue of re-suspension, that whenever this bucket hits the sediments, it stirs up sediments and then it settles out again.”
One of the biggest concerns is that the disturbed sediments will move downstream.
In this case, they’d only have to travel a mile to reach the drinking water intake for the St. Regis Mohawk reservation. That means toxins could make it into the drinking water.
Local people have also expressed fears that the PCBs could contaminate the air as well.
The dredging project was temporarily suspended this summer when residents on nearby Cornwall Island complained of respiratory problems. But air quality tests found the dredging wasn’t to blame. Ken Jock is the tribe’s environmental director.
He says in addition to air and water quality concerns, the local people would like to see a healthier fish population. Some species have been contaminated with PCBs. And he says that’s why the tribe supports the dredging.
“We know the PCBs will be there in a thousand years and we’ll be here, and we’ll still want to eat the fish. So we think that any solution has to be a permanent solution.”
The Alcoa-Reynolds Company had wanted to place a gravel cap over the chemicals rather than dredge. But the EPA ordered them to remove the PCBs. Rick Esterline, the company’s project director, says they’re fully cooperating with the government.
“You’re required to clean it up, that’s the rules and regulations that we have in our country. Whether they come at you with court orders or whether you do it, it’s still you have to do it.”
The project is expected to cost the company 40 million dollars. That includes the eight million dollar reinforced steel wall around the contaminated area. Alcoa-Reynolds is also using a special electronic bucket to remove the sediment. The EPA’s Anne Kelly says this has become the bucket of choice for Great Lakes dredging projects.
“Based on the information that will be transferred to the operator on the barge, he’ll know if that bucket is completely sealed, which is very helpful because a clamshell bucket will begin to close and hit a rock… he won’t know it’s still open partially and begin to pull that up through the water column with materials basically pouring out of it.”
Kelly says every cleanup project requires a different approach. In Michigan, General Motors is using an environmental bucket and silt curtains to dredge the Saginaw River.
Engineers in Michigan’s Pine River built a steel wall and emptied out the water inside before dredging. The dredging in the St. Lawrence is expected to finish in November.
And it’s possible it won’t reduce the PCB levels to one part per million. The cleanup at the nearby General Motors plant fell short of that goal. If that happens, the EPA will require the company to cap the river bottom – and monitor the sediments, the water and the fish indefinitely. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
