Category: Ten Threats to the Great Lakes

In an effort to rank, in the order of importance, the ten major environmental issues facing the Great Lakes, the staff at the GLRC asked 28 stakeholders in the Great Lakes basin to rank the major issues affecting the Great Lakes. The Environment Report then sent out a team of reporters throughout the region to explore these issues in-depth. The result of their efforts will be broadcast on public radio stations beginning on October 10th, 2005. This series is made possible in part by the Joyce Foundation and the Healing Our Waters Campaign .

Air Pollution Deposition

Air pollution deposition comes from various sources, including smokestacks, fires, pesticides, and automobile emissions. Chemicals and compounds that are sent into the air from these sources fall back down to earth directly or via precipitation.

Cargo Ship Channels

The Great Lakes are linked to the world's ports through a system of channels, locks and dams stretching from Duluth, MN to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a 2,340 mile journey. The system is a big source of environmental damage in the Lakes.

Disappearing Native Species

Species that are indigenous to the region are disappearing due to habitat loss and competition from invasive species, causing biodiversity to decline. When biodiversity declines, the entire ecosystem can be thrown off balance causing disruptions that have yet to be fully understood.

Invasive Species

Invasive species are organisms that are found in ecosystems from which they did not originate. Many of them often out-compete, eat, or otherwise harm other native organisms (see disappearing native species).

Nonpoint Source Pollution

Nonpoint source pollution is created when water from rain or melting snow carries pollutants as runoff into waterways and groundwater. The pollution is usually a mix of chemicals, including those coming from agricultural and urban sources.

Point Source Pollution

Point source pollution comes directly from an identifiable source, like a wastewater discharge pipe from a factory. Much of the time, there are regulations on discharge that goes directly into lakes and rivers, but sometimes, harmful chemicals can still accumulate or are accidentally spilled.

Polluted Beaches

Going to the beach is a popular pastime for many, but polluted beaches can affect both human and ecosystem health. Oftentimes, the pollution comes from wastewater drains when heavy rains overwhelm sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants.

Pollution Hot Spots

In this day and age, just about everything has been touched by pollution. However, there are certain areas that have extraordinarily high concentrations of things like PCBs, and heavy metals. Such high concentrations of pollutants can cause problems for generations to come.

Shoreline Development/Wetlands

Wetlands are often called the kidneys of the earth because they filter and extract pollutants from the water that passes through them. They also alleviate flooding and control erosion. Development of wetlands disrupts this whole system, and replacement wetlands don't work as well.

Water Withdrawals

The demand for fresh water is high, and the Great Lakes are a tempting and ready source. Many people and organizations outside the Great Lakes basin are seeking to make withdrawals from the Lakes, but some worry the ecosystem can't handle it.

NATIVE AMERICANS WEIGH CONTAMINATED FISH RISKS (Part II)

There’s a trend among some Native Americans. They’re trying to return to more traditional diets. Many believe various health problems among Indian populations are due, in part, to adopting a diet much heavier in sugars, starches, and fats than their ancestors’ diet. But they’re concerned that pollution has tainted many of the traditional foods, such as fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports in the second of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups:

Transcript

There’s a trend among some Native Americans. They’re trying to return to more traditional diets.
Many believe various health problems among Indian populations are due, in part, to adopting a
diet much heavier in sugars, starches, and fats than their ancestors’ diets. But they’re concerned
that pollution has tainted many of the traditional foods, such as fish. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports in the second of a two-part series on communicating the
risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups:


A high rate of Native Americans suffer from diabetes and obesity. It’s commonly believed that
the European diet of processed grains, processed sugar, and fatty foods has contributed to the
health problems. So, some tribal members are looking at a traditional diet of fish and game and
the kinds of agriculture practiced by their forbearers. The idea is that traditional foods might be
more healthy for Native Americans.


But it’s become clear that some of those foods, particularly fish, are contaminated by pollutants.
PCBs and methyl mercury have been found in certain fish. Studies show those chemicals can
cause permanent health problems. Tribes have issued advisories, but some tribal leaders are
reluctant to discourage people from eating fish, even if it’s contaminated.


John Pursell works for the Minnesota Chippewa tribe. The tribe has issued advisories about
mercury in fish. But, Pursell says there’s a balance that has to be considered.


“We have to be careful that we aren’t advising people, tribal members, if we say ‘Don’t eat fish
of a certain size or from certain lakes,’ that we’re relatively certain that what they’re going to
replace that protein source with is not going to be more detrimental to their health. And that’s the
big concern.”


Pursell says, for example, his tribe is very concerned about dioxins. The tribe believes that
dioxins are responsible for a higher rate of cancer and other problems. And dioxins might be
present in the foods people in the tribe would eat instead of fish.


“But, we also know from the draft documents that the federal government has issued on dioxins,
that dioxins exist in fairly large quantities in such fatty foods as hamburger and cheeses. And of
course, these are foods that are found routinely in reservation commodity outlets.”


So, if it’s a matter of trading one kind of contamination for another, the logic goes, might as well
eat the healthier food, fish.


But the different tribes have different concerns and no one likes the idea of consuming
contaminated foods of any kind. So, there’s a lot of confusion about the best route to take to
dealing with the health problems among Native Americans.


Kory Groetchs is an environmental biologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission. He says as interest in traditional foods builds, his agency is being asked for
answers.


“They have questions about industrial pollution and their impacts on traditional foods and, you
know, the balance between risks of consuming that food and the benefits of consuming it.”


Groetsch says the Commission is looking for funding to study ways to reduce the risk of
consuming contaminants. For example, one study tried to determine what size and where to catch
walleye with lower levels of mercury. He says more studies like that need to be conducted so
Native Americans can avoid the contaminants that might be present in traditional foods.


“And then definitely point out the situations where there is not concern so people can clear their
minds of these, if they have concerns, and they seem to, about industrial pollution such as methyl
mercury in fish, clear their mind of that and go back to a more traditional diet and eat in a more
natural, traditional way.”


Even those who are responsible for bringing the advisories on contaminants in fish to the
members of the tribe are hesitant. Maria Mabee is with the Seneca Nation in New York. She’s
an environmental activist and concerned about the effects of contaminants on health. At the same
time, she says there’s a limit to what she’ll recommend.


“You know, I can’t tell people to stop using fish for ceremonies. I just can’t do it. I won’t do it.
(laughs) I just, you know, I tell them about the risks, you know. I tell them what I know and I tell
them to make the best decisions for themselves.”


The tribes stress that the health benefits of fish should not be ignored. For many tribes, fish is a
staple. The question to answer they say is, if you don’t eat fish because of the risk of
contamination from pollution, will the food you eat instead be any more safe?


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

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.

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.

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.

Eliminating Sources of Beach Contamination

  • This bread was dumped at a park along a Great Lakes beach for the gulls, geese, and squirrels that live there. Beach visitors often assume high bacteria levels that close beaches to swimmers are solely due to sewer overflows, but animals that defecate in the area also contribute to the problem.

This past summer beaches around the Great Lakes were closed in record numbers because of high bacteria counts. One government study indicates part of the problem might be animal feces, but the public does not seem to be aware that of the connection. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

This past summer beaches around the Great Lakes were closed in record numbers
because of high bacteria counts. One government study indicates part of the problem
might be animal feces, but the public does not seem to be aware that of the connection.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


High levels of bacteria in the water can make swimmers sick. Cameron Davis is with the
watchdog group, the Lake Michigan Federation. He says more can be done to stop the
contamination if sewer plants are improved and if beach visitors were more aware that
leaving food waste and feeding gulls and geese adds to the problem. That’s because the
birds defecate more, causing higher levels of bacteria along the shore.


“So, we’ve got the sewage treatment agencies saying ‘Oh, no. It’s the geese and the
gulls,’ and we’ve got the people feeding the birds saying ‘Oh, no. It’s sewage treatment
plants.’ So, you can see, it’s a combination of sources and there are things — I don’t care
what anybody says — there are things we can do to help solve the problem with all those
different sources.”


Davis says local governments need to start identifying and eliminating those sources of
beach contamination, starting with improving sewer plants and getting people to clean up
after their visits and to stop feeding wildlife at the beaches.


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

Endangered Mussel Rides to Renewal

  • Biologists release bass, gills laced with Higgin's Eye Pearly Mussel larvae, into the Mississippi River. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Up and down the Mississippi River, people once collected tons of mussels for the pearl button industry. Factories stamped out pearl buttons from the shells, sometimes wiping out 50,000 tons of mussels annually in the early part of the last century. In recent years, the biggest threat to local mussel species has come from the zebra mussel. That invasive species came to North America in the ballast water of ships and has since disrupted many local ecosystems. Today, there’s a new effort underway to bring back local species like the Higgin’s Eye Pearly Mussel, and it’s in an unlikely place. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby has this report:

Transcript

Up and down the Mississippi River, people once collected tons of mussels for
the pearl button industry. Factories stamped out pearl buttons from the shells,
sometimes wiping out 50,000 tons of mussels annually in the early part of
the last century. In recent years, the biggest threat to local mussel species
has come from the zebra mussel. That invasive species came to North America in
the ballast water of ships and has since disrupted many local ecosystems. Today,
there’s a new effort underway to bring back local species like the Higgin’s
Eye Pearly Mussel. And it’s in an unlikely place. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Todd Melby has this report:


Urban areas like Minneapolis-Saint Paul might seem like an unusual
location to boost the population of an endangered species.


But it’s here, below a busy bridge that spans the Mississippi River, that
biologists are searching for a safe place for their project. Divers have
just come up from the bottom of the river with a few mussel specimens.


“Well, we’ve got Big Toe, Maple Leaf, Three Ridge. Good enough I think.”


That’s Mike Davis rattling off the names of mussel species. Davis is
a biologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The fact that
some mussels live in this part of the river makes Davis think that this
might be a good spot for the Higgin’s Eye. The Higgin’s Eye, which has an olive-
colored shell, has been languishing on the Endangered Species List since
1976.


Just two decades ago, this part of the river suffered from sewage runoff. The river is cleaner now and some mussels have returned. But not the Higgin’s Eye. And that has Roger Gordon worried. He’s a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


“They function as the kidneys of the river, more or less. They siphon everything that
goes through the river. They are a very good indicator species if we have a problem in the environment. They are usually the first species to get hit hard and disappear.”


For the past decade or so, it’s been the zebra mussel that’s been hitting the Higgin’s Eye. But the zebra mussel hasn’t made it to this part of the river. That’s why biologists are on a small flotilla of boats on this morning with 800 large-mouth bass. The bass and the Higgin’s Eye have a strong connection. Attached to the gills of those bass are thousands of Higgin’s Eye larvae.


“Right now, we’re counting fish in the cage. We have a known number of fish, 25 in
this case, that we’re going to place in these cages. And hopefully over the next several weeks, they’ll drop off and we’ll have clams in the river.”


Melby: “You’re putting them in the bucket?”


“Right now we’re putting them in a bucket and placing them in the cage over the
side of the boat.”


(sound of buckets banging and water sloshing)


The bass are put in cages so they don’t swim somewhere that’s not a good home for the Higgin’s Eye. In the wild, adult females mussels shoot embryos at unsuspecting fish swimming overhead.


“The larvae have a chemo-receptor in them. When they touch flesh, they actually shut. It’s a one-shot deal. If that fish clamps on a fin or an eyeball or a lip, it’s a no-go. He’s not going to develop. But if he’s lucky, and he just happens to be going through a gill arch of a fish and it’s the right fish, the right species of fish and the right size fish, it
will shut on that gill.”


But the Higgin’s Eye population is too low to leave to chance.


(Bubbling sounds of fish hatchery)


So Gordon and his colleagues bumped up the number of mussel larvae
per fish here at a federal fish hatchery in Genoa, Wisconsin. Instead of just a
few larvae per fish, the bass dropped into the Mississippi have several dozen
larvae attached to their gills.


That prep work took place inside the “Clam Shack,” which is really
just a metal pole barn that biologists built themselves.


“We didn’t have any money to do this. We scraped up and saved up at the end
of the year. We had seven or eight-thousand dollars. The hatchery guys just got together and built this little building.”


Since beginning their work two years ago, they’ve added approximately
12,000 mussel-rich fish to rivers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.


“We’re probably going to have to build another little building
like this. But we’ll scrape along and do what we can.”


Back on the river, Mike Davis of the Minnesota DNR calls the return
of the Higgin’s Eye historic. But with the zebra mussel closing in on native
mussel species like the Higgin’s Eye, he’s also a bit wistful.


“The former dead zone of the Mississippi may become
one of the last refuges for the Mississippi’s mussel species.”


In September, divers return to that same spot to check on the Higgin’s
Eye. They hope to find thousands of young clams nestled safely in their new
home. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Todd Melby.

Bigger Ships to Steam Into Great Lakes?

  • A freighter navigates the American Narrows in the St. Lawrence River. Expanding the system’s locks and channels would mean even bigger ships could enter the Great Lakes.

A new study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says Midwest ports and shippers – and the businesses they work with – stand to gain billions of dollars from an expansion of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system. Building wider locks and deeper channels from Minnesota to Montreal would make way for bigger “container” ships that have become the norm of international trade. But critics say expansion would have dire environmental consequences, and they say the Corps’ study is full of flaws. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

A new study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says Midwest ports and shippers – and the businesses they work with – stand to gain billions of dollars from an expansion of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system. Building wider locks and deeper channels from Minnesota to Montreal would make way for bigger “container” ships that have become the norm of international trade. But critics say expansion would have dire environmental consequences… and they say the Corps’ study is full of flaws. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


The St. Lawrence Seaway began as a dream – to make the Great Lakes as important a shipping destination as the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico seaboards. In fact, Seaway boosters used to call the Great Lakes the “Fourth Coast” of the United States. But when the array of locks and channels was built in the 1950s, Congress assured East Coast interests that a shipping route between the Atlantic Ocean and America’s heartland wouldn’t hurt their business. Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar:


“The Seaway locks would be built to no greater dimension than the largest inland waterway locks of the 1930’s.”


In other words, the Seaway was outdated before it was built. Today less than thirty percent of the world’s cargo ships can squeeze into the Seaway.


The Army Corps of Engineers’ study is a first step to change that. It says the Seaway could generate up to one and half billion dollars a year more than it is now if larger ships – the ones that carry containers that fit right onto trucks and trains – could reach ports in the Midwest. Oberstar says that would mean an economic boon for Great Lakes states.


“Those are good jobs. Those are longshoreman jobs. And that economic activity means significant business for Great Lakes port cities.”


So along with other politicians and shippers in the Midwest, Oberstar wants the Corps to take the next step – a more detailed study, called a feasibility study – that would look at the nuts and bolts of expansion. It would cost some 20 million dollars.


But downstream, on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, critics say any plans for expansion have a fatal flaw.


(sounds of water and fueling a boat)


Under a blazing sun in the part of the St. Lawrence River known as the Thousand Islands, Stephanie Weiss fuels up her boat at a gas dock.


(gas filling, and motor starting)


She pushes off and weaves among literally thousands of pine-covered islands that give the region its name.


“You can see how narrow things are and how close the islands are to each other.”


Weiss directs the environmental group Save The River that’s trying to stop Seaway expansion.


(motor slows and stops)


We stop in the part of the river channel called the American Narrows. It’s like the Seaway’s bottleneck. Ocean-going freighters the length of two football fields thread through here. To make room for anything bigger, Weiss says, might mean blasting away some of these islands and the homes perched on them.


“I can’t help noticing that there’s this enormous rock in between the Great Lakes and the Ocean. It’s the Laurentian Shield and it is what makes these islands. To pretend that this is just a coast that needs to be developed is unrealistic.”


Weiss says the idea of a Fourth Coast, with ports like Chicago and Duluth rivaling those of New York and San Francisco, is ridiculous.


Environmental groups in the U.S. and Canada, like Great Lakes United and Great Lakes Water Keepers, are also opposing expansion. And they say the Corps’ study frames the debate unfairly. It doesn’t factor in environmental and social effects the groups say would make the project seem less attractive: things like rising pollution, sensitive wildlife habitat, plummeting water levels. The Corps’ project manager Wayne Shloop says those things would be addressed in the feasibility study. Stopping before that, he says, means letting the system’s locks and channels waste away.


“So somebody needs to make a decision… is it in the federal interest to let the system degrade or is it in the federal interest between the United States and Canada to make some improvements?”


In the U.S., that somebody is Congress. Congress would need to appropriate half of the 20 million dollars for the study. Lawmakers could take up the issue in September.


New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently took a boatride down the American Narrows to learn more. She disembarked with questions, about oil spills, accidents, and the hazards of winter navigation.


“This isn’t by any means an easy decision, a cost-free decision, that there are tremendous consequences associated with it, so give me your pictures, give me your information, because I’ll use it to be in conversations with people who think it’s just an open and shut issue.”


The issue will be shut rather quickly if the Corps’ study can’t persuade Canada to join in. Canada would have to foot the other half of the bill for the feasibility study. But officials from Transport Canada say they’re in the “very preliminary stages” of studying the issue. And they’re listening to everyone from shippers to environmentalists to recreational boaters before they make a decision.


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

Brighter Future for Native Trout

Anglers in Lake Superior are looking forward to the return of the coaster brook trout. The native trout was fished nearly to extinction in the early 1900s. New efforts to help the remaining populations rebound are attracting the interest of fisheries managers around the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has the story:

Transcript

Anglers in Lake Superior are looking forward to the return of the coaster brook trout. The native trout was fished nearly to extinction in the early 1900s. New efforts to help the remaining populations rebound are attracting the interest of fisheries managers around the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The French River tumbles into Lake Superior about 15 miles from Duluth. It’s a popular fishing spot, and people are catching rainbow trout. Rainbows are not native to Lake Superior. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources stocks them from the fish hatchery across the road.


People used to catch coaster brook trout here, but
there aren’t many of the fish around anymore.


“I haven’t seen one of those in years.”


“There aren’t any coaster brook trout. You’re dreaming.”


“‘You very seldom get them, but when you do they’re nice.’ Hemphill: ‘Why are they nice?’  ‘They’re so nice and clean, the colors are so beautiful.’ Hemphill: ‘Are they good eating?’ ‘Oh-h-h, there isn’t any better.'”


For a freshwater fish, coasters are colorful. Their sides are sprinkled with bright red dots. Their fins are edged with a bright white line. When they spawn, their bellies turn iridescent orange.


They hatch in rivers, and then swim downstream to grow up in the lake. They return to the river to spawn.


There used to be lots of coasters around Lake Superior, and in northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. They were a popular sport fish. In the 1850s, people came from all over to catch them. By the early 1900s coasters had practically disappeared.


Don Schreiner is the Department of Natural Resources fisheries supervisor in this part of Minnesota. He says coasters are fairly easy to catch. And that’s why they almost disappeared.


“There were no roads up here, people came in by boat, they came in by train. There’s accounts of people standing on the shore and on the riverbank and catching hundreds of brook trout.”


After the fishermen, lumberjacks came. They cut down the big trees that shaded the streams. They floated timber down the rivers, eroding the banks. Now these rivers are much more susceptible to flooding and sedimentation. The coaster brook trout need a rocky bottom, not a mud bottom, to spawn.


Then the state began stocking other fish here, so anglers would have something to catch. Pacific salmon, European brown trout. They compete with the few native brook trout that still survive in Lake Superior streams.


Some people want to try to restore the native brook trout. But others like to catch the big salmon, and the feisty rainbows. Don Schreiner says the DNR has to balance those competing demands.


“I think everybody cares about coaster brook trout as long as it doesn’t cost them anything personally. If I have to give up my favorite species in favor of a coaster brook trout, I might not be willing to do that. That’s the sort of thing we see.”


Angling restrictions imposed in the last few years have helped the trout. Schreiner says it’s possible they’ll bounce back, if people leave them alone, but improving the habitat is also key. That could take 50 years.


Some groups are trying to push things along a little faster.


The Red Cliff Tribal Fish Hatchery near Bayfield Wisconsin specializes in rearing coaster brook trout. Every year a million eggs are hatched here.


“Inside this building is where we keep our adult brood stock fish.”


Greg Fischer is the hatchery manager. He says they raise some fish for a year and a half before releasing them. Workers mark these fish to keep track of them in the wild.


“We have fin clipping parties where for several days we fin-clip each one of the fish, and when we’re stocking anywhere from 50 to 80,000 of these larger fish a year, that’s a lot of marking”


Some coasters from the hatchery might find a home at Whittlesey Creek near Ashland, Wisconsin. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is turning Whittlesey Creek into a refuge for coaster brook trout.


Biologist Lee Newman says it’s a promising spot for spawning. Springs seep up through the gravel bottom. That provides the eggs with a constant flow of oxygen. Newman wants to plant eggs and very young fry directly over the springs. That’s what they did on the Grand Portage Chippewa reservation in Minnesota. And Newman says it worked there.


“We’ve captured pairs of adults that were radio tagged and captured on their spawning beds, and two years later catch the exact same pair on the exact same spawning beds, indicating that they are returning precisely to their home locations.”


Newman says when the fish are very young they can imprint on the chemistry of the stream, and find their way back years later.


Biologists still have a lot of questions about how to help the coaster brook trout. But right now, at least, its future looks a little brighter. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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.

Combined Sewers Under Pressure (Part 1)

  • An overflow point in a combined sewer line. The overflow is designed to relieve pressure on an overburdened sewer system. Photo courtesy of the USEPA.

Over the last century, cities across the nation have built an intricate web of underground sewers. These sewers originally channeled waste directly into nearby streams, but with the advent of the environmental movement, and along with it, the Clean Water Act, treatment plants were built to clean the sewage before it reached the streams. Today, a growing population and a continuing boom in development has placed increasing pressure on our underground network of pipes. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports the aging systems are in need of help:

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