Dilemmas for Wastewater Treatment Plants

  • Water contamination from sources that might include some wastewater treatment plants closes some beaches. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts
that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the
water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus
reports:


(sound of cars moving along a small street and a few people talking)


A typical summer day by the lake: SUVs pull boats on trailers. People saunter from an
ice cream shop to the city beach. Jet skis and water skiiers slice through the waves.
Carpenters raise trusses on homes being built into the remaining lakefront lots.


Just a few years ago it seemed towns like this were just for loggers and locals. But now
people are flocking to the lakes around the Midwest and staying there. And that’s putting
a strain on local sewer plants.


(sound of machines inside the water treatment plant)


For 40 years, the treated waste water from the Boyne City, Michigan sewer plant has
been released into the big lake it was built on…Lake Charlevoix.


“It’s located right adjacent to a public swimming beach, park, marina and some valuable
waterfront property. We are only a block off the downtown district.”


Plant manager Dan Meads wants to stop mixing the end product with the water where
tourists and the locals swim and play. He tests daily for E. coli bacteria. He
doesn’t want anyone getting sick. But it’s still a concern, and there are other concerns.


In recent years, the United States Geological Survey has reported on new kinds of
contaminants that they’ve found in ground and surface water. The USGS says treated
wastewater from sewer plants can contain hormones from birth control pills, antibiotics,
detergents, fire retardants, and pesticides.


USGS microbiologist Sheridan Haack says the effects of all these compounds are still
unknown. Most are found in tiny quantities, but combined they could cause any number
of chemical reactions.


“There are many different chemical structures and it would be very difficult to state for
all of them what we would actually expect the environmental fate to be and how they
would actually be transported through the environment.”


Haack says the medicines people take don’t disappear. They eventually leave the body
and are flushed down the toilet. Those drugs have been tested for safe human
consumption, but the question is: what happens when those chemicals are mixed in with
industrial waste, accidental spills and nature’s own chemical processes? Haack says they
just might come back around to hurt humans, fish and wildlife.


The Boyne City solution is to build a new wastewater treatment plant two miles from the
beaches up the Boyne River. Officials say contaminants will be diluted by the time they
flow back down into Lake Charlevoix.


(sound of the Boyne River)


Larry Maltby volunteers for a group called “Friends of the Boyne River.” The group
doesn’t like the city’s plan to discharge treated wastewater directly into the river. It wants
them to consider some non-traditional methods. They say the new sewer plant could run
a pipe under a golf course or spray the treated water on farm fields… or let it drain into
wetlands to let nature filter it out.


“It will seep into the soils which are very sandy and gravelly underneath the golf course
and then the filtration through the ground will have a great deal of effect of continuing to
purify that water. Much more so than it would be with a direct deposit, straight into the
surface waters of Michigan.”


Lawyers for the Friends of the Boyne River have appealed to the state dept of
environmental quality and filed a lawsuit.


But wastewater treatment plant manager Dan Meads says the city doesn’t want to please
just one group and end up angering another…


“There isn’t any guarantee that you can satisfy everybody. We think we have the best
option available.”


As municipalities are short on funds and personnel, they don’t want to wait for decades
for the perfect solution. Still, nobody wants any amount of pollution to affect their home
or their recreational area.


Sheridan Haack with the USGS won’t take either side in this dispute. She says not only
are the dangers from contaminants unknown, the best way to deal with them is unknown.


“I am not aware of any consensus in the scientific community on the nature or types of
treatment for this broad range of chemicals.”


In the meantime… communities such as Boyne City have the unenviable task of trying to
dispose of their residents sewage without polluting the beaches, the fishing, and the
environment that brought folks there in the first place.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

Jet Ski Debate Heats Up

Personal watercraft, also known by their trade name “jet skis,” are the hottest sellers among watercraft in the Great Lakes region. They’re causing some heated debate as well. They’ve been banned in many National Parks, and some Great Lakes states are also regulating their use. Last summer, New York passed a law allowing towns to make their own rules for jet skis. Some have already banned them on local lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the controversy jet skis are provoking:

Transcript

Personal watercraft, also known by their trade name “jet-skis”, are the hottest sellers among watercraft in the Great Lakes region. They’re causing some heated debate as well. They’ve been banned in many National Parks, and some Great Lakes states are also regulating their use. Last summer New York passed a law allowing towns to make their own rules for jet-skis. Some have already banned them on local lakes.


The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the controversy jet skis are provoking.


When Jay Schecter relaxes in the quiet of his home on Hannawa Pond in northern New York, there’s one sound he can’t stand.


(Sound of jet ski starting up and driving away)


It’s a personal watercraft, or Jet Ski. It’s easy to get Schecter to talk about last summer when young kids driving jet-skis nearly drove him crazy.


“…y’know, weaving in and out of traffic and wake jumping. The awful noise, going uuuuuuuuuuuuu for literally hours on end.”


(Sound of buzzing Jet Ski)


Jet-skis are different from other motorized boats, not just because they sound different. They ride high on the water’s surface and can easily make sharp turns. So they can come closer to shores and docks at higher speeds than traditional motorboats can.


Schecter heard about the new “home rule” law in New York that allows towns to make their own jet-ski rules. At the same time, he started to hear from his neighbors.


“I started to hear complaints about jet-skis from recreational boaters, big time water-skiers, older gentlemen who’d been on the pond for many years.”


So Schecter spearheaded a campaign over the winter to get the machines banned from the water. The town Board compromised with what amounted to a jet-ski curfew from 6 in the evening to 9 in the morning. The proposal sparked a controversy on the pond that’s divided neighbors into pro- and anti-jet ski camps.


(Sound of motor boat approaching dock; then sound of guys under track)


Just down the shoreline from Jay Schecter’s place, a few motorboats idle up to Alex Vangelo’s dock. Alex and his friends like to get together on hot days like these – maybe get in a little water-skiing after work. None of them own jet skis, but they don’t want any new rules, either. Alex says most jet skiers on this pond are responsible users.


“They’ve got three or four jet skis and they get home from work and they like to get on it and ride up and down the river a couple times. Well, God bless ’em, I say”


Alex’s friend Mark Luthauser loves to cruise around in his motorboat and says his neighbors should have the right to enjoy their jet skis.


“I’d be happier without jet skis on here, but it’s just not fair for me to support something just because I personally don’t like it.”


New York’s “home rule” law is the first of its kind in the country. Other Great Lakes states have a range of Jet Ski laws on the books. But most of them don’t restrict where and when they can be used – they just regulate unsafe and risky operation.


Some people say the problems with jet skis go well beyond noise, safety, and personal freedoms. The two-stroke engines in jet skis are heavy polluters, dumping up to a third of their fuel into the air and water. The most often cited statistic says that one day of Jet Ski play emits as much pollution as a new car driven 100,000 miles. Shawn Smith of Blue Water Network, a national environmental group, says jet skis endanger fish and birds, too.


“The way they’re designed, they don’t have propellers; they’re powered by a jet pump. That allows them to get into waterways where traditional boats cannot. Often these waterways are very shallow and represent some of the most sensitive habitat for wildlife – breeding grounds, nesting areas, that type of thing.”


Groups like Blue Water Network are pushing for more states to consider “home rule” laws like New York’s.


But Industry representatives say advances in technology will soon silence the complaints against the watercraft. Monita Fontaine directs the Personal Watercraft Industry Association. She says new personal watercrafts are already 75% cleaner and 70% quieter than the older models.


“People will have to look at what it is they don’t like about personal watercraft because it certainly will not be the fact that there are any environmental impacts. And people will have to see if, in fact, it’s simple prejudice.”


(Sound up)


Back on Hannawa Pond, John Ohmohundro, another jet-ski opponent, says the jet ski controversy is similar to other “man and machine” vs. “nature and neighbor” conflicts, from snowmobiles to boom boxes to ATVs.


“Where does your right to play any way you want to interfere with my right for peace and quiet, clean air, clean water, safety…I’m interested in that issue.”


(Sound of jet ski)


So are many other people. Across the region this summer, residents will be crowding public meetings to consider their own Jet Ski restrictions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Jet Ski Ban to Take Effect

The National Park Service is banning jet skis and other personal
watercraft from most of its parks. However, industry officials say the
ban
will be short-lived. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Personal Watercraft Ban

As of August 1st, an unprecedented ban on personal watercraft will affect most of the Upper Saint Croix (croy) Riverway in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports, this action may extend to other national parks around the Great Lakes: