Tag: pcbs

The COMPLEXITIES OF ISSUING FISH ADVISORIES (Part I)

  • Fish is healthy food, but contamination from pollution means people should limit the amount of inland lake and river fish they eat. Photo by Lester Graham.

There are three major questions often asked when considering the environmental health of a body of water. Can you drink the water? Can you swim in it? And… can you eat the fish? Often the answer to the last question is very complicated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the first report in a two-part series on the fish that ends up on your table:

Transcript

There are three major questions often asked when considering the
environmental health of a body of water. Can you drink the water? Can you
swim in it? And… can you eat the fish? Often the answer to the last
question is very complicated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham has the first report in a two-part series on the fish that ends up on
your table:


Mark Ford goes fishing almost every weekday. This day, he’s at a small
marina off of Lake Michigan. He’s carrying several rods and reels and a
couple of tackle boxes with him to an old dock…


Lester Graham: “Now, what do you fish for?”


Mark Ford: “Right now, whatever bites on the hook. Basically, I fish for bass,
catfish, walleye.”


This day, he’s just testing some new gear…


“Set my drag. Too loose.”


When Ford got his fishing license, he also got a guide telling him that the fish
he eats is contaminated. All inland lakes have some level of contamination
which could include pesticides, PCBs, and mercury.


Ford has a pretty good idea about what to do to reduce his exposure to the contaminants when he eats the fish..


“Yeah, first thing you want to do is cut off all excess fat to get away from a lot of the chemical
pollutants that’s not in the actual meat of the fish. That’s where most of the chemicals lie, in the fat. So, you cut that off and get to cookin’.”


Ford’s preparation is a good start. Trimming the fat will reduce exposure to PCBs and
similar compounds that are stored in fatty tissue. And just cooking the fish reduces some of the exposure to contaminants. But if a contaminant such as methyl mercury is present in the flesh of the fish, no amount of rinsing, boiling or frying will change that.


Unfortunately, many anglers are not as well informed as Mark Ford. A study in Canada
found a lot fishers don’t understand the contaminants or what to do about them. They judge
whether the fish is safe to eat by how well it fights on the line… by the color of the
flesh… or by the clearness of the eye. None of those things is an indicator of whether a fish is contaminated by toxic chemicals.


Alan Hayton is with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. He says how much fish are
contaminated depends on the body of water. A ban on PCBs in manufacturing
has helped, although there are still decades worth of the pollutant in some lake
sediments. Agricultural pesticide restrictions and bans have helped reduce
contaminants in some other lakes.


“Well, if you want – are fish getting better or worse? Certainly over the years,
when you look at the Great Lakes, there’s been a considerable decline in the level of
contaminants in fish. Many of the inland lakes, both in Ontario and elsewhere – not
just around the Great Lakes, but elsewhere – there’s mercury in those fish. Mercury
concentrations don’t appear to be changing. They seem to be quite stable.
So, we find that in quite a high proportion of the inland lakes there are some consumption
restrictions.”


Mercury remains a problem because as coal-fired power plants release mercury
into the air… it’s brought down into watersheds by rain. There the problem is
complicated in some areas by any number of factors, including some bacteria that transform
simple mercury into the more toxic methyl mercury.


So, some bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, have lower levels of some
pollutants, but some other contaminants are just as bad as ever. To complicate things
even more, some fish are more contaminated than others.


Faith Shottenfeld is with the New York State Department of Health.


“You know, it’s complicated because it’s going to vary from state to state, from body of
water to body of water and from fish species to fish species.”


Shottenfeld says that makes getting the message to anglers all the more difficult.
States are trying to figure out how to get the information to the people who eat
the fish, but there are very few general guidelines.


“So, I think that the best way to work your way through the complexities
is to really have a dialogue with somebody who understands the advisories and can
help you figure out what you need to do.”


But generally speaking, eating smaller fish, and limiting sport fish meals from local lakes to about once a week for men and once a month for women helps.


Angler Mark Ford says he’s not worried. He says to him, the health benefits of
fish offset the health risks of the contaminants.


“A month, I’d say I eat about twelve to 15 pounds of fish. I eat a lot of fish.
I like fish. Fish is healthy for you, too. It’s low in cholesterol if you cut the fat away from
it. It’s good brain food. That’s scientifically proven. And, if you prepare it
right, it tastes good!”


And Ford says he’s healthy. But experts indicate it’s hard to say what long-term
exposure to the contaminants in sport fish from area lakes will mean to human
health. They caution that children and women of child-bearing age should severely
restrict their intake of sport fish because the contaminants can damage the
development of fetuses and children.


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

The COMPLEXITIES OF ISSUING FISH ADVISORIES (Short Version)

  • States are struggling with ways to warn people, especially women of childbearing years and children, about the hazards of eating too much sport fish contaminated with toxic chemicals.

Health officials are trying to get the word out about contaminants in sport fish. But the issue is complicated. So, it’s difficult to give people an easy answer on how to reduce the health risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Health officials are trying to get the word out about contaminants in sport fish. But the
issue is complicated. So, it’s difficult to give people an easy answer on how to reduce
the health risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Sport fish contain contaminants such as PCBs, pesticides, and mercury. But the amount
of contaminants in a fish depends on the body of water, the species of fish, and
even the age of the fish. So, there are very few general guidelines. That makes it difficult for
health officials to tell people what’s best for them.


Faith Shottenfeld is with the New York State Department of Public Health. She says safe
consumption levels vary.


“For some fish, a meal a week, a meal a month. You certainly can talk in general
about eating smaller fish because as you move your way up the food chain, you
know, the bigger fish eat the little fish so they get more and more and more chemicals,
but there are some examples of smaller fish that are highly contaminated.”


Shottenfeld notes that children and women of childbearing age are at more risk
from ill effects of the contaminants in fish than men. She says the best bet is to talk to someone
who’s familiar with your state and area’s fish consumption advisories.


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

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM TAINTED FISH (Part II)

The people most at risk from contaminants in fish often don’t know it. Different chemicals found in fish from many inland lakes, including the Great Lakes, can be harmful to human development. State governments issue fish consumption advisories that recommend limiting eating such fish. In the second of a two-part series on contaminants in fish… the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that not everyone learns of the advisories:

Transcript

The people most at risk from contaminants in fish often don’t know it.
Different chemicals found in fish from many inland lakes, including the
Great Lakes, can be harmful to human development. State governments
issue fish consumption advisories that recommend limiting
eating such fish. In the second of a two part series on contaminants in
fish… the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that not
everyone learns of the advisories:


Horace Phillips likes to fish. He can often be found casting a line into a
lagoon off of Lake Michigan on Chicago’s south side. He says he and a lot of
his fishing buddies know about the fish consumption advisories, but he doesn’t
think he eats enough to matter…


“Sure, it’s always good to know, but, as I say, I’m not consuming that much fish.”


That’s because Phillips gives away much of the fish he catches. Like a lot of
anglers, he enjoys the sport, and shares what he catches with friends and
relatives. He doesn’t remember getting a fishing guide when he got his fishing
license, but the retailer was supposed to give him one. It not only outlines limits
on the amount of fish an angler can take, but also includes recommendations
on how much fish he should eat in a given month.


But Phillips says he thinks he learned about fish contaminants from the
newspaper. He never really thought about passing on the warning to people
with whom he shares his fish.


“I suppose the same literature that’s available to me is also available to them.”


But often the people who prepare the fish or who eat the fish don’t have a
clue that there’s anything wrong with the fish.


We should note here that fish is nutritious. It’s a good low-fat, lower calorie
source of protein. Eating fish instead of higher-fat and cholesterol laden foods
is believed to help lower the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure,
diabetes and several forms of cancer. Pretty good food, fish.


But some fish contain PCBs – polychlorinated biphenyls – believed to cause
cancer. Chlordane, a pesticide, has been found in fish. And methyl mercury is
found in some fish. These chemicals can cause serious health problems,
especially for children and fetuses. They can disrupt the systems that
coordinate the nervous system, the brain, and the reproductive system.


Studies have shown women store some of these chemicals in their
fat tissue until they become pregnant. Then, those chemicals are passed
to the child they’re carrying. Studies have indicated that of mothers
who ate three or more fish meals a month, those with the highest exposure
gave birth to children with health problems.


They had significant delays in neuromuscular and neurological development.
Those children continued to show short-term memory problems at age four… and
significant reduction in IQ and academic skills at age seven.


Barbara Knuth is a professor of Natural Resource Policy and Management at
Cornell University. She says given the health concerns with eating too much contaminated fish, the information about restrictions needs to be more widely distributed.


“Where we need to focus effort now is not so much on the angler, but we need to be focusing
on the people with whom they’re sharing those fish, the women, their wives, mothers
of childbearing age, women of childbearing age, children, because that’s where we now know,
scientists now know – who are studying this – where the real health effects are.”


But where to start? After all, the fish might come from a friend… it might be at the deli… it could be on the plate at a local restaurant. There are no rules requiring a notice that fish is from a lake, or the ocean, or farm-raised. So, how do you get the word out?


One federal agency is working to get the information to those at highest risk by going through their doctor. Steve Blackwell is with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.


“We’ve taken on trying to reach health care providers that are serving the target
population, the most at-risk population of women, children, pregnant women and reach those
groups such as OBGYNs, family physicians, pediatricians with this information to help raise
awareness within that group that serves the at-risk population to try and make sure that they’re receiving the message and they’re not telling their patients something different from what the patients may be hearing outside that realm.”


Whether the doctors are actually passing on the concerns about contaminated fish is a
whole other question. But assuming they are, there’s still another concern. Many of the women who are most at risk might not see a doctor until the day the baby is due. Poor women… the very same women who might rely on fishing for a good part of their diet… might not be told
about the risks.


And so their children are born into poverty… and the added burden of chemicals that can hurt their development. Blackwell says reaching those women is something the federal government cannot do alone.


“You want to reach those people through local leaders, through churches, through
institutions that aren’t medical.”


And that’s best done, Blackwell says, by local government, not the federal
government. But state budgets are strapped. And, in some cases, states are
reluctant to raise awareness of an issue that they really can’t fix. A source within
a state agency told us that an higher-ranking official indicated to
him that he didn’t want to assign a full-time person to work on fish contamination
awareness alone because it would send the wrong political message. Another state stopped publishing fish consumption advisories as a budget cutting move… that is… until local reporters exposed that particular budget cut.


In short, warning pregnant women and women of childbearing age about the dangers of
eating too much contaminated fish and how that could damage their children’s
intellectual and physical development has not gotten enough attention yet to become a
political priority.


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

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM TAINTED FISH (Short Version)

Health and environmental agencies are struggling to find the best way to alert people, particularly women, about the risks of eating too much sport fish contaminated with toxic chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Health and environmental agencies are struggling to find the best way to alert people,
particularly women, about the risks of eating too much sport fish contaminated with
toxic chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Some states cut budgets, including money for publishing fish consumption advisories.
It’s curtailing the efforts of health officials to tell families that children and women of
childbearing age should severely restrict their intake of sport fish.


Most sport fish contain levels of pesticides, PCBs, and/or mercury high enough to
cause neurological and mental developmental problems in children. Barbara Knuth
is a professor at Cornell University.


“Budgets are limited and until the time when resources are made available through state
governments, through EPA, even through foundations to fund both communication efforts and
evaluation and testing of those efforts to improve them, I think it’s still going to be a struggling
effort.”


Knuth says relatively small investments in information now could prevent great costs to
society and children’s lives later.


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

Gobies Send Toxins Up the Food Chain

New research is showing that a foreign fish might be aiding the transfer of toxic substances into sportfish populations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

New research is showing that a foreign fish might be aiding the transfer
of toxic substances into sportfish populations. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:


Fish such as bass, trout, and walleye normally eat small native fish.
Now, these large sportfish have learned how to eat a new foreign fish – round
gobies. The gobies can contain toxic pollutants because they feed on
zebra mussels. And because of the way zebra mussels feed they can take up
a lot of pollutants like PCBs.


David Jude is a research scientist at the University of Michigan. He’s
been studying fish living near polluted areas.


“Yes, a lot of sportfish are eating round gobies, we found them in a lot of
predators we looked at in the St. Clair River – perch, brown trout,
walleyes – so the possibility of transferring PCBs into a
lot of the sportfish that people catch is certainly real.”


Jude says he hopes his research will determine ways to control goby
populations where they’ve become a problem.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Unique Industrial Land Seen in New Light

  • Marian Byrnes has been called the "environmental conscience of the Calumet." She has been a key leader in getting the city of Chicago, and the state of Illinois, to see the value of Calumet's natural areas. Photo by Mark Brush.

In an area in south Chicago you can see the remnants of a steel industry that has had better days – silent smokestacks looming on the horizon, empty parking lots, and for sale signs in front yards. The Calumet region was once a haven for big industry… and because of that it is also home to a list of seemingly endless environmental problems. Many people thought the problems were too great to overcome, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports… that attitude is changing:

Transcript

In an area in south Chicago you can see the remnants of a steel industry that has had better days – silent smokestacks looming on the horizon, empty parking lots, and for sale signs in front yards. The Calumet region was once a haven for big industry… and because of that it is also home to a list of seemingly endless environmental problems. Many people thought the problems were too great to overcome, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports…that attitude is changing:

If you’ve ever driven by Chicago’s south side, you’ve likely seen the smokestacks and factories that dot this old industrial area.

But when you get off the main highway and drive down the back roads of Calumet, you see something you wouldn’t expect – remnants of unique wetlands and prairies. It’s an area where thousands of migrating birds come each spring. Herons, egrets, and cranes carefully pluck their food from these marshes – marshes that are right next to chemical factories and toxic city dumps.

(Bring up sound of sparrows and outdoors)

The sun is setting in this part of the Calumet – some sparrows nearby are settling down for the night – and Marian Byrnes is showing me around the places she’s come to know from living and working here for more than 20 years.

“This land is mostly slag on the banks of Indian Creek, but it’s not considered hazardous.”

“How would the slag get here?”

“Oh, it was waste from Steel Mills – mostly Republic Steel which was north of here.”

(Fade her under + continue outdoor sound)

Marian Byrnes is a retired public school teacher. And at age 76, she volunteers her time as the executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. She repeatedly meets with businesses, community groups, and city and state advisory boards – patiently delivering her message that the Calumet region is worth protecting.

And over the years Marian, and others like her, have steadily worked against a city that didn’t seem to care about the natural areas in Calumet. For many of them, it began more than twenty years ago, when they got a note from the Chicago Transit Authority in their mailbox. The note outlined the Transit Authority’s plan to build a bus barn on their neighborhood’s prairie:

“It was like having our own little forest preserve right behind our houses. You can walk out there, and when you get out – maybe a block or so – you’re not aware that you’re in the city at all. I mean you can’t even see the houses, so it’s just a wonderful place to be in touch with nature.”

They convinced the transit authority to build the bus-barn elsewhere. And in the years that followed they fought off other proposals such as plans to build a toxic waste incinerator, and plans to re-open old city dumps.

But despite those successes, big environmental problems still persist. And the list of contamination is intimidating – heavy metals, PCBs, and leaking landfills. The problems are so overwhelming that when planners in Chicago were thinking about spreading miles and miles of concrete for a new airport, Calumet was thought of as an ideal location.

Kathy Dickhut works in the planning department for the city of Chicago:

“The area does have a lot of environmental problems. Ten years ago the thinking was it was all dirty, environmentally dirty, and that was sort of across the board, …so one way to deal with that is, you know to cover the whole thing up.”

But local environmental and community groups became united in their opposition to the plan. And instead of an airport, the local groups asked the National Park Service to designate the area as an ecological park.

And slowly but surely, the city began to look at the area in a new light:

“I think people didn’t realize just how much opposition there would be to paving over this area. I mean the airport proposal was quite dramatic, and because it was quite dramatic, there was quite dramatic outcry about it – so once that played out – we had to look at it again in a different way. And what we’ve done is really look at the resources that we do have here, which are substantial, and how we can improve those.”

Today, the city appears to have a completely different attitude about the Calumet area. Chicago lawmakers recently passed a land use plan that calls for the best of both worlds. They want to protect and clean up the natural prairies and wetlands – while at the same time – attract new businesses to build on old industrial sites.

City planners hope to balance what may be seen as competing goals (attracting new industries AND cleaning up the environment) by prioritizing where to build and where to preserve. And when they do build – planners are encouraging green building practices. Practices that complement the surrounding natural areas rather than cover them.

Those involved with the project paint a pretty nice picture of what’s to come.

Lynn Westphal is a researcher for the U.S. Forest Service, and works closely with the city of Chicago on the Calumet project: “Imagine an industrial area with the buildings roofs are green. Where instead of turf around – you have native grasses and because of that you have more birds and butterflies… you’ve got bicycle access, people fishing on their lunch breaks…. And it’s not far from becoming a reality. This is all very doable. So it’s not totally hypothetical.”

And in fact, movement toward that new vision is already underway. The Ford Motor Company is building a new industrial park for its suppliers. And many of the green building practices Westphal describes will be used. And the Corps of Engineers is spending more than 6 million dollars to clean up an area known as Indian Ridge Marsh.

But those involved with the transition of this area say that leadership from the community will be the key to its eventual success.

Meanwhile, the Southeast Environmental Task Force will have a new executive director by this summer…

“…and that’ll be someone who’ll learn to do what I’ve been doing for past 20 years, cause I can’t keep on doing it indefinitely.”

“Do you have any advice for them?”

“Have a lot of patience…”

The same patience Marian Byrnes has used when riding a city bus to meeting after meeting, listening to the community, and working with city officials – all in an effort to create what she believes will be a better future for the people in Calumet.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Cleanup on Mohawk Tribal Land

  • St. Regis Mohawks used to fish and swim in this cove of the St. Lawrence River. Today, it's contaminated with PCBs from General Motors' landfill, which rises in the background. Photo by David Sommerstein.

The federal government has identified almost 50 toxic landfills that continue to contaminate the Great Lakes and their major tributaries. Thousands more may pollute smaller creeks and rivers upstream. Almost all of them have affected the way people live. In northern New York, General Motors and a native tribe have spent two decades fighting over how to clean up one of those sites. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports… the lack of progress is caused by differing approaches to a permanent solution:

Transcript

The federal government has identified almost 50 toxic landfills that continue to contaminate the Great Lakes and their major tributaries. Thousands more may pollute smaller creeks and rivers upstream. Almost all of them have affected the way people live. In northern New York, General Motors and a native tribe have spent two decades fighting over how to clean up one of those sites. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports… the lack of progress is caused by differing approaches to a permanent solution:

Dana Lee Thompson and her sister, Marilyn, walk along the St. Lawrence River. They teeter as they step over driftwood and tufts of grass. This part of the shoreline belongs to the St. Regis Mohawk tribe.

When the sisters were kids, they used to splash and play in the river. Their father landed walleye and bass for dinner. And when the sisters had children of their own, this is where they taught them to swim…

“…it’s all flat rocks and stuff like that…”

“…And just down there, there used to be a tiny little falls and it was all sand and we used to swim.”

Thompson brushes her long black hair out of her eyes. The smile fades from her face…

“Never knew that what we were swimming in was one of the most toxic things, y’know, toxic pools.”

Just on the other side of a chain link fence that marks the end of tribal land, a hill rises above their heads. Its grass is cut short like the tenth green on a golf course.

It’s General Motors’ old landfill. Drums of used factory oil are buried just under the manicured lawn. The oil contains PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs were used as a coolant in many factories until scientists found they cause cancer.

The federal government banned PCBs in 1977. A couple years later, workers covered the landfill with a temporary cap. But the PCBs had already seeped into the water where the sisters’ kids were swimming…

“I get emotionally disturbed. Mental anguish. Anger. My children have a lot of health problems, which gets me upset.”

The sisters aren’t alone. Tribal members who have grown up near the dump have high rates of thyroid disease, diabetes, and respiratory disorders – all suspected to be linked to PCBs. The Thompsons – and the tribal government – want General Motors to dig up the chemicals. And they want GM to truck them away…

“We’re just looking out over the cove. These are some homes and businesses of the Mohawks and to our right is the industrial landfill.”

Jim Hartnett stands on the GM side of the chain link fence. He’s managing the clean up for the company. He says the Environmental Protection Agency ordered GM to do three things: put a permanent cap on the landfill, monitor it for PCBs indefinitely, and dredge the PCBs from the river.

Hartnett says GM has wanted to move ahead with that plan for a decade. He says that would make the water clean again…

“My hope is that as we complete this clean-up, that people will come and use the cove and that it will be accessible and that people will be comfortable using it.”

David: “Do you think it’s realistic that within our lifetimes that the cove could be used for swimming?”

“I’m hoping that in the next two years we can have it ready to go. I’m not talking within our lifetime, I’m talking about as soon as we get access to that cove, we want to go in and remedy it.”

But the tribe won’t give them access. The St. Regis Mohawks say cleaning the cove isn’t the right answer. Ken Jock, the tribe’s environment director, has technical concerns with the plan.

But in the end, Jock says, the disagreement is more than technical. The tribe sees environmental cleanups differently. The EPA plans 30 to 50 years ahead. But the Mohawk tradition is to plan seven generations ahead…

“And so when you make a decision to clean up or to cover up at a site, you have to think is this area, are the PCBs going to be contained for the next 250 years. We have to think that way because this is the only land that we have left.”

The EPA wants everyone to stand behind the same solution. Anne Kelly is the EPA project manager of the site. She has commissioned more technical studies to try to prove the containment plan won’t poison the river in the future. She’s reassured the tribe the dump will be monitored in perpetuity.

“But that’s where we get into a sort of difficulty between our interpretation of time and the tribes. They don’t trust that we’re always going to be here, you know, that the EPA as it stands will not be what it is now. But they know they’re going to be there. So we say, ‘we’re going to monitor that forever’. They say, ‘you may not be here forever. Where are our guarantees?’ ”

Meanwhile, traces of PCBs are still leeching into the river. But the St. Regis Mohawks’ Ken Jock says he’ll wait on a clean up if it will ensure clean water and healthy fish for his grandchildren’s grandchildren.

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

President’s Great Lakes Plan Too Weak?

The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

The White House’s new Great Lakes Strategy was announced by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman as a “shared, long-range vision” for the Great Lakes. It includes a timeline for cleaning up contaminated areas, goals for reducing PCBs in fish, making sure it’s safe to swim at beaches more often, and restoring sensitive environmental areas. But an international coalition of environmental groups and others, Great Lakes United, says the Bush administration’s strategy doesn’t offer anything binding and offers no additional money. Margaret Wooster is the group’s Executive Director.

“We’d be happier if there was more of a strategy here for overcoming the obstacles that have in front of us. We can only be hopeful that some of these goals will be met.”

But Wooster adds, without more direction from the administration on how to meet the goals, it will be left to the people of the Great Lakes basin to prod the government to meet its goals.

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

Cleaning Waterways From the Bottom Up

  • 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.

PCBs LINKED TO MEMORY LOSS IN ADULTS

A new study finds that eating contaminated fish from the Great Lakes might have adverse effects on more people than once thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new study finds that eating contaminated fish from the Great Lakes might have adverse effects on more people than once thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


For a long time health experts have recognized that small children and women of childbearing age should limit the amount of Great Lakes fish they eat. Fish contaminated with PCB’s, Polychoilnated Biphenyls, could cause developmental problems for children. This new study finds that men should also reduce their exposure to the contaminants. Susan Chantz is a researcher at the University of Illinois and the principal author of the study.


“We are seeing some impact of PCB exposure from Great Lakes fish on memory functions of adults.”


The decade long study found people who eat a lot of fish from the Great Lakes, a couple of pounds a month, generally had lower scores on memory and learning tests than those who ate less fish. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.