The Defense Department will be paying for a study to find ways to remove ammunition barrels the military dumped into Lake Superior during the Cold War. For 30 years, environmentalists have been asking the government to clean up the mess. Mike Simonson reports that the federal government is now paying for a study to find ways to remove the barrels:
Transcript
The Defense Department will be paying for a study to find ways to remove ammunition
barrels the military dumped into Lake Superior during the Cold War. For 30 years,
environmentalists have been asking the government to clean up the mess. Mike
Simonson reports that the federal government is now paying for a study to find ways to
remove the barrels:
The Red Cliff band of Lake Superior Chippewa will study ways
to remove the barrels of munitions. Documents show that between 1959
and 1962, the Department of Defense had 1,437 drums dumped into Lake
Superior. It amounts to about 400 tons of munitions containing toxic chemicals such as
PCBs, mercury, lead, chromium, benzene and even uranium.
Patricia DePerry is the Red Cliff Tribal Chairwoman. She says the barrels must be
removed:
“Not only the time is of essence, it’s the not knowing what the contaminants have been
doing at the bottom of the lake.”
DePerry says not only is the ecology of the lake at risk, but the barrels of munitions lie
within a quarter mile of Duluth, Minnesota’s drinking water intake.
Ruddiman Pond has been listed as a Great Lakes
'Area of Concern' for more than 18 years. (Photo by Michael Leland).
The end process - the polluted muck from Ruddiman Pond is treated and then taken to a landfill. (Photo by Michael Leland)
This dredge is scooping up decades worth of industrial pollution from Ruddiman Pond near Muskegon, MI. (Photo by Michael Leland)
For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Our guide
in the series, Lester Graham, says one of the threats identified by experts
across the region is known as “Areas of Concern.”
For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:
Picture what you might think one of these heavily polluted sites looks like.
Did you think of a big park in a quiet neighborhood, with lots of tall
trees, and a bandstand next to a lagoon? No? Well, welcome to McGraft Park
in Muskegon, Michigan, the home of Ruddiman Pond, one of the most polluted
spots in the Great Lakes.
“This little lagoon here is a sediment basin. It is a sediment trap.”
Rick Rideske is a research scientist at the Annis Water Resource Institute
in Muskegon. It studies the quality of Michigan’s lakes and rivers.
“All of the contaminated sediment from the upper part of the watershed has made
its way down here and is being deposited. They are taking out, in some places,
15 feet of contaminated sediment.”
Beginning in the 1930’s, heavy industries began setting up shop along
Ruddiman Creek, a few miles from the park. Many dumped their toxic wastes
into nearby storm sewers, which emptied into the creek, and flowed toward
Ruddiman Pond. Toxic heavy metals like chromium and lead, along with
hazardous chemicals like PCB’s, settled to the bottom. It’s been a long
time since the pond has been safe for swimming.
Rideske points to a yellow sign nailed to a tree next to the pond. It says,
“No entry. Hazardous substances.”
“If you look at that sign over there, that sign was put up in maybe 1997, 98.
You can see the tree has grown over the sign.”
But beyond that sign is some hope for Ruddiman Creek and Pond. Workers are
scooping toxic mud from the bottom of the lagoon. The material is trucked
to a landfill licensed to receive toxic stuff like this. The project should
be finished by next summer.
Ruddiman Creek and Pond make up one of 43 pollution hot spots in the Great
Lakes that the U.S. and Canada call Areas of Concern. So far, two in Canada
have been cleaned up. Ruddiman Creek is one of only three in the U.S. being
cleaned.
David Ullirch would like to see that work move a lot faster. He directs the Great
Lakes Initiative. It’s a group of mayors and other officials from the U.S. and
Canada that works to preserve the Lakes.
“This is a serious problem, not only in terms of a threat to the natural environment,
there are public health issues associated with them and often, even worse, is that
they are a stigma to those areas, whether it is Waukegan Harbor, or Gary, Indiana, or
Ashtabula Harbor, these are things that these cities have had to live with for
years, and it’s time to get them cleaned up and get on with it.”
The government is supposed to provide 270-million dollars over five years to
clean up the Areas of Concern in the United States, but so far, congress
has appropriated only about 35-million dollars. That relatively small amount
of cash has limited the number of cleanups that can be started, and it frustrates
Dennis Schornack. He’s the U.S. chairman of the International Joint Commission.
It’s a watchdog group that monitors the water quality treaty between the U.S. and
Canada.
“These areas were identified back in 1987, and only two, both of which are in Canada,
have been delisted since that time. At that pace of progress, it will be 400 years
before we are so-called clean, and I think that is very disappointing.”
In the case of Ruddiman Creek, they’re glad at least one site is being cleaned up.
Rick Rideske of the Annis Institute says the fact that it’s in a neighborhood park
played a big role in attracting the attention, and government cash needed to clean
it up.
“It really took the local residents, public advisory council, we have a Ruddiman
Creek Task Force, which is made of local people from this neighborhood. They called
frequently state representatives, federal representatives. Getting this site on the
priority list was a community effort for a lot of people.”
Rideske and people who live near McGraft Park are looking forward to celebrating a
small victory in the fight to restore the Great Lakes, and they’re looking forward to
taking down that yellow warning sign next year.
In the United States, low-level nuclear waste is stored in landfills. An Ontario town is proposing to put Canada's low-level nuclear waste in an underground chamber a mile from Lake Huron. (Photo courtesy of the NRC)
In Canada, just across Lake Huron from
Michigan, a small town is offering to be the home of
Canada’s first permanent dump site for radioactive
material. The proposed site is a mile from Lake
Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann
Colihan reports on the town’s work to
get the site and the concerns about putting it close
to one of the Great Lakes:
Transcript
In Canada, just across Lake Huron from Michigan, a small town is offering to be the home of Canada’s first permanent dump site for radioactive material. The proposed site is a mile from Lake Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan reports on the town’s work to get the site and the concerns about putting it close to one of the Great Lakes:
Right now, Canada has nowhere to permanently store its low-level and intermediate-level nuclear waste. This waste is not spent nuclear fuel from power plants. It’s contaminated material that’s been exposed to radioactive substances. It could be anything from the protective clothing workers wear at nuclear power plants to parts from reactors, anything that’s been exposed to radioactivity.
The Ontario town of Kincardine – located about 250 miles north of Detroit – has proposed that it be the site of a nuclear waste dump.
So why would a beach town want a nuclear dump?
Kincardine is also a company town. It’s home to the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant. Eighty-percent of the folks who live there work in the nuclear industry. Larry Kraemer is the former mayor. He explains why the permanent dump is essential for the local economy.
“The Bruce nuclear power plant, which is the biggest nuclear power development in North America as well as the largest local employer and one of the largest Canadian investment in any industry that there is.”
Because Kincardine knows the nuclear industry, the residents aren’t afraid to take on these jobs.
But no one ever asked the question if burying nuclear waste a mile from Lake Huron was the best location in Ontario to put the waste site. Frank King is the Director of Nuclear Waste Management and Engineering Technology for Ontario Power Generation, also known as OPG. He says Kincardine does not have to be the best site for the dump.
“It’s not an issue of whether it’s the best. Nobody has to say it’s best. It just has to be shown that it’s safe; that it’s a good site. There is no requirement to show that it’s the best site.”
OPG already stores low and intermediate-level waste from all twenty Ontario reactors at the Bruce Power plant in Kincardine. But above ground storage is getting tight. OPG began looking at its options and with Kincardine’s “bring it on” attitude it seemed like a good place to start.
OPG paid for members of the Kincardine city council to visit nuclear waste storage sites around the world. Councillors came back especially impressed with how the Swedes do it. They bury their nuclear waste in solid granite.
But the stone below Kincardine is not granite. It’s limestone – and no place in the world uses limestone to contain nuclear waste. William Fyfe is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. He has spent decades studying geology and nuclear waste around the globe.
“Limestone can be much more porous than granite. It has no ability to absorb nasty elements, like you get with some clay minerals and things, to absorb all the dirty chemical species like uranium, for example.”
He does not like the idea of a man-made cavern full of nuclear waste near the Great Lakes.
“Just because you made the waste doesn’t mean you should put it in your backyard. There may be a better place.”
Local environmentalists agree. Given OPG’s record, they don’t trust that the waste dump will be safe. Jennifer Heisz is a founder of the public interest group, Woman’s Legacy, which is focused on the impact of the Bruce nuclear plant on Lake Huron. She says when she requested environmental records from Ontario, she found evidence that the regulators haven’t done a good job of stopping pollution at the plant.
“I received approximately 10 or 15 reports regarding leaking waste sites and the levels coming from the plant were very high – sometimes at 45 times the provincial level for chromium. Vanadium was also one of the chemicals that was contaminating the groundwater and it’s found to be mutagenic to animals.”
Heisz says if OPG is polluting at its existing dump sites, what’s to keep the agency from doing a poor job of storing nuclear waste underground? Ontario regulators say they plan to conduct an environmental assessment. Heisz and her environmental group are raising money for an independent review of deep nuclear storage. The geologist, Professor Fyfe, thinks Kincardine should hold an open house to get the opinions of experts.
“Before we start putting stuff away, let’s invite the bosses of the Swedish group to come and take a look. They are using hundreds of scientists, technicians, and engineers which we are not doing in Canada.”
Few outside the Kincardine area are aware of their nuclear waste dump plans… and fewer still know the site is planned for so close to Lake Huron.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Ann Colihan.
A just-released study by two environmental groups has found high levels of arsenic on the surface of pressure-treated wood products. The Environmental Working Group and the Healthy Building Network tested pressure-treated wood purchased from home improvement stores in 13 cities. In releasing their findings, the groups are calling for a ban on the use of the lumber in construction. Their findings add to the growing concern about the safety of the chemicals used to treat this wood. Those chemicals are now being re-evaluated by both the Canadian and American governments. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, the two governments are approaching the issue differently:
Transcript
A just released study by two environmental groups has found high levels of arsenic on the surface of pressure-treated wood products. The Environmental Working Group and the Healthy Building Network tested pressure-treated wood purchased from home improvement stores in 13 cities. In releasing their findings, the groups are calling for a ban on the use of the lumber in construction. Their findings add to the growing concern about the safety of the chemicals used to treat this wood. Those chemicals are now being re-evaluated by both the Canadian and American governments. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, the two governments are approaching the issue differently.
For years, Don Houston at the Canadian Institute of Child Health has been calling for warning labels on pressure-treated wood. The lumber is used in playground structures and picnic tables throughout North America. And it’s treated with a preservative called Chromated Copper Arsenate, which protects the wood from insects and fungi. The preservative is made from arsenic, chromium and copper. And Houston says children who are exposed to the wood may be exposed to those chemicals, as well.
“It’s not just children’s play structures. I’d rather suspect even more problematic is the deck that’s on the back of their house because often times children spend more time there. It’s all sorts of structures that are put in outdoors – decks, balconies, retaining walls; even the telephone pole that might be in a schoolyard might be problematic.”
Houston says the problem arises when arsenic and chromium, which are both carcinogens, remain on the surface of the wood. A study of ten playgrounds conducted by Health Canada in the late 1980’s detected both substances on the surface of play structures made with pressure treated wood. Arsenic and chromium were also found in the nearby soil. Health Canada warns people who work with pressure-treated wood to wear gloves and a mask and to thoroughly wash clothing and exposed skin once they’re finished. The agency also warns against burning pressure treated wood. But Houston says there are still no guidelines for children.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the guy who’s building it to use gloves and then the child ten minutes after it’s built to be walking over it and running on it barefoot and having greater potential health impact from the exposure.”
But scientists at Health Canada say the research findings have been mixed. They point to studies conducted by the U.S. EPA in the late 1980’s that found minimal health risks. Now, fifteen years since they last evaluated these chemicals, both Health Canada and the EPA are taking another look. The update is required by law in both countries. Richard Martin is a toxicologist at Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency. He says the presence of arsenic is not always a cause for concern.
“Although there’s a number of reports out there of arsenic being found in soil, and although they’re useful, arsenic is found in all soil. So we need to go the extra step to determine to what extent there’s potential for exposure to children and that type of thing.”
Martin says his agency is reviewing research to determine the effect of exposure on both adults who work with cca-treated wood and children who play near it. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking the review a step further. Jim Jones, the deputy director of the EPA’s office of pesticide programs, says they’re concentrating on the exposure to children first.
“It was the children’s exposure through cca-treated wood we think are the most important to look at as they’re the group in the population that is likely to have the greatest exposures, just because of the way in which they interact with playground equipment and on decks.”
The EPA also plans to take soil samples near cca-treated wood structures in 75 playgrounds around the United States. And it’s considering a recommendation that people apply sealants to pressure-treated wood in the interim. The EPA’s scientific advisory panel suggested the agency take that measure. The EPA and Health Canada are collaborating on the re-evaluation – sharing their findings and their recommendations. Don Houston of the Canadian Institute of Child Health hopes that will lead to legislation in both countries that will restrict the use of this lumber in places where children play. The EPA and Health Canada are expected to announce their recommendations next spring.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
