Healing Our Waters Coalition » Toxic Pollution

$50 million pollution cleanup aims to make Indiana’s Grand Calumet River grand again

Jeff Alexander — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:36:16 +0000

A few miles southeast of Chicago, in the shadow of an elevated toll road that links the Windy City to Indiana, crews are transforming one of America’s most polluted rivers into an oasis for wildlife.

The Grand Calumet River was abused for more than a century by cities and industries that used it as a sewer. Decades of toxic discharges blanketed the river bottom with a thick layer of poisonous mud that fouled the water, drove away every species of fish except carp and goldfish, and coated birds in oil.

A $50 million cleanup of the Grand Calumet’s west branch project aims to reverse the damage and restore life to a river and associated wetlands that once attracted scores of migratory birds.

“We’re returning this to a real river,” said Scott Ireland, a scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “We’re already seeing some bird species returning.”

Before the cleanup, the Roxana Marsh was choked with cattails and Phragmites. (EPA photo)

Daniel Sparks, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who has worked on the Grand Calumet River project since 1989, said aquatic life could return to the river’s west branch soon after the cleanup is finished.

“We’re making real progress; I’m excited,” Sparks said. “Fish could spawn again in this river someday.”

River is one of many Great Lakes toxic hotspots
The Grand Calumet River is one of 42 Great Lakes Areas of Concern. The river flows 13 miles through the heavily industrialized cities of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond, Ind., before flowing into Lake Michigan via the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal.

Roxana Marsh after contaminated sediments and invasive plants were removed. (EPA photo)

The river and harbor — which drain an area that is home to 57 severe pollution sites and wastewater treatment plants that still discharge untreated sewage into the river — contain between 5 million and 10 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. About 150,000 cubic yards of that polluted sediment washes out of the river and into Lake Michigan annually, according to government studies.

The river’s toxic underbelly was fouled by a witch’s brew of toxic wastes, including oil and grease, heavy metals, PCBs, according to government records.

Cleaning up all of the Grand Calumet River and the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal will cost more than $100 million, according to federal officials.

Since last year, crews working for the U.S. EPA and Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management and Department of Natural Resources have dredged 232,000 cubic yards of toxic sediment from the west branch of the Grand Calumet and one of its largest wetlands, the 19-acre Roxana Marsh. Workers also removed several acres of invasive Phragmites and, in February, will begin depositing a layer of clean sand, clay and rugged fabric on the river bottom that will serve as a cap atop 345,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediments that will be left behind.

Ireland said the sand and clay cap would isolate the remaining pollutants from the river and allow the waterway to heal. He said there wasn’t enough money to remove all of the toxic mud.

“In some areas toxins are found 15 feet below the bottom of the river,” Ireland said.

Federal program is cleansing the lakes
Funding for the cleanup came from the EPA’s Great Lakes Legacy Act program and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. State and federal agencies collected $72 million from companies that polluted the river, Ireland said.

The Great Lakes Legacy Act, which is now implemented through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, has proven to be one of the region’s most effective cleanup programs since it was established in 2002. Money from the program has cleaned up 1.5 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment at sites in Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. Go here to learn more about the program.

This map shows the location of all 42 Great Lakes Areas of Concern.

U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, a Democrat who represents northern Indiana, championed the Great Lakes Legacy Act in Congress and helped secure funding to clean up the Grand Calumet River.

Visclosky in 2008 told the Post Tribune of Gary, Ind., that the benefits of cleaning up the Grand Calumet extend far beyond the boundaries of the river’s basin.

“It will help improve water quality in all areas downstream, including the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal and Lake Michigan,” Visclosky said. “It is one in a series of historic efforts to clean up over a century of contamination in those waters and return them to their natural purity.”

Ireland, who has worked on the Grand Calumet project for 20 years, said he wasn’t sure the cleanup would ever get off the ground.

“If you had asked me 15 years ago if I thought this river would ever be cleaned up, I would have been hard pressed to say yes,” Ireland said recently. “People thought this river would be polluted forever.”

Cornell Davidson, a lifelong resident of East Chicago, Ind., called the Grand Calumet River cleanup “a very good thing.”

“I’m hoping they can get rid of all of the pollution,” Davidson said. “Maybe it will improve our quality of life and we can live longer.”

Sen. Durbin stands up for Lake Michigan

Jeff Alexander — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:52:46 +0000

The S.S. Badger (Photo courtesy of boatnerd.com)

Congress may not be popular with the electorate these days, but it’s important to note that some lawmakers are doing their jobs well.

Today we recognize and applaud U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who is trying to end a coal-fired steamship’s longstanding practice of using Lake Michigan as a landfill for toxic coal ash.

For decades, the S.S. Badger has dumped its toxic coal ash into the lake every time it makes a crossing. The ferry, which sails between Ludington, Mi., and Manitowoc, Wis., dumps about 500 tons of coal ash laced with mercury and other toxic metals into Lake Michigan every year.

Four years ago, the company that owns the Badger agreed to end the ship’s polluting ways in 2012. But the firm reneged on that agreement when it didn’t receive a $14 million federal grant to convert to diesel power.

Now the Badgers’ owners are engaged in a high-stakes bid to keep federal regulators at bay so the ferry can use the lake as a landfill indefinitely. Go here to read more about this cynical effort to avoid federal regulations.

Republican lawmakers from Michigan and Wisconsin snuck a provision into a Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would prevent the EPA from halting the ferry’s loathsome coal ash dumping.

The ferry’s owners also asked the National Park Service to designate the 410-foot ship a National Historic Landmark. Such a move would prevent the federal government from forcing the ferry to convert to diesel power and — presto — allow the ship to continue dumping coal ash into Lake Michigan.

Sen. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, is fighting that designation.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Sen. Durbin sent strongly worded letters to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the committee that oversees the Coast Guard. Durbin opposed special exemptions that would allow the S.S. Badger car ferry to keep dumping at least 509 tons of toxic coal ash into the lake every year.

“We cannot let Historic Landmark status be used to evade the federal regulations we rely on to protect public health and the environment,” Durbin wrote to Salazar, who has the final say on the Badger’s application. “This Great Lake cannot take any more toxic dumping, no matter how historic or quaint the source may be.”

Amen, senator. It’s high time the Badger stop using the lake as a dump site.

What’s All the Stink About?

tpache — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:20:35 +0000

Huge swaths of western Lake Erie are cloaked in massive algae blooms that are chasing away tourists, harming the walleye population (part of the region’s $7 billion sport fishery), closing down beaches, driving down property values and incurring costs on cities that have to incur more costs to ensure that people in the region have safe, clean drinking water. But that’s not all, algae blooms are gross. Why? Poo, it all goes back to poo and it really is ahem, a pooey situation. Algae blooms are caused by excessive nutrients in the water—basically, human and animal waste, as well as farm fertilizer run-off.

Western Lake Erie is under siege from billions of gallons of sewage overflows from Detroit and Toledo as well as animal waste and fertilizer run-off from surrounding agricultural land. The result is a lake that—after having made one of the biggest comebacks in environmental history—is now in danger been declared “dead” again. In the 1960s and 1970s sewage contamination was the dominant source of algae-causing pollution. Now, farms are the leading cause of pollution contaminating Lake Erie.

“The number one source of algae-growing phosphorus continues to be farm runoff,” according to an interview the Toledo Blade did with David Barker, a professor at Heidelberg University Center for Water Quality. http://www.toledoonthemove.com/news/story.aspx?id=503124

The acres of algae that have been ubiquitous over the past month are very troubling. Western Lake Erie is one of the most biologically productive freshwater resources on the planet—though as the shallowest, warmest Great Lakes, it is also the most ecologically fragile. The toxins in the algae blooms are capable of sickening people and hurting and killing wildlife, livestock and pets which drink the water or absorb the poison through their skin. The illness causes diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramps and some dogs that have drunk the shoreline waters have died from it.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency formed the Ohio Lake Erie Phosphorus Task Force to study the algae blooms and the level of phosphorus pollution to find correlations. The study finds that farm runoff from commercial fertilizers and livestock is the most significant source of phosphorus and the most impacted area is in Erie’s western basin where the Maumee and Sandusky river watersheds exist.

It has been estimated that it will take a 75 percent reduction in phosphorus runoff to make the algae problem dissipate.http://www.toledoonthemove.com/news/story.aspx?id=503124

The Task Force’s report emphasizes that agriculture run-off is the biggest problem. To solve vexing problem of algal blooms, the state leaders need to work with farmers to cut agriculture pollution and reduce the amount of fertilizer and animal waste that gets into our region’s rivers, lakes and streams.

It is high time that the region tackle this problem. After making so much progress in the 1970s and 1980s to reduce phosphorus loads into our waterways and curb algae blooms, it is inexcusable to allow the problem to come back.

We have solutions to this problem. It is time to use them.

IJC meeting to focus on sewage overflows and other water quality problems affecting the Great Lakes

Jeff Alexander — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:55:46 +0000

Fish on pharmaceuticals, alien invaders and poo in the Great Lakes will be on the agenda Wednesday and Thursday (Oct. 7-8) when the International Joint Commission hold its biennial meeting in Windsor, Ontario.

The commission, which mediates Great Lakes and other border issues between the U.S. and Canada, will discuss several weighty issues facing the lakes, including: Invasive species, chemicals of emerging concern (fish on Prozac and other drugs), sewage overflows and water quality.

The commission’s meeting will focus largely on its 14^th Biennial report on Great Lakes Water Quality.

It was fitting that a photo of a sewage treatment plant graced the cover of the IJC’s Biennial Report.

Why, you ask?

Well, nearly four decades after the U.S. and Canada signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, we still treat the lakes like crap.

Cities around the lakes discharge tens of billions of gallons of untreated sewage into the lakes annually, invasive species delivered by ocean freighters have plunged the lakes into a state of profound biological chaos, harmful algae blooms foul beaches and a botulism plague has killed more than 70,000 water birds over the past decade.

What is the IJC doing about these problems? Go to the IJC’s Web site to see for yourself.

The sad fact is that our collective failure to adequately protect these majestic waters is all around us: Contaminated fish, a plague of invasive species and nasty algae blooms that soil beaches and threaten human health and wildlife.

Granted, the lakes are in far better shape than they were in 1972, when the U.S. and Canada signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. But much work remains.

We’ll know we’re making huge strides when cities such as Detroit and Chicago no longer use the Great Lakes as a toilet for billions of gallons of untreated sewage.

For much more on the IJC’s meeting and the 14^th Biennial Report, go to the IJC Web site and read Washington Post reporter Kari Lydersen’s thoughtful commentary on the biennial report.

Spring Cleaning?

tpache — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:58:14 +0000

It has been almost a year since we talked about the Areas of Concern that dot our Great Lakes with toxic sediments. It’s been half-a-year since the US House approved triple funding for the Great Lakes Legacy Act the federal program that helps states and localities clean up these dangerous pollutants. And it has been about the same amount of time since one Senator from Oklahoma shot down the increased funding and put us right back where we started. But the US House has just passed another water bill that would triple the authorization for this clean up program and the US Senate is expected to consider the bill this spring.

Twenty-six sites in New York State are responsible for more than 99 percent of the toxic chemical pollution on the US side of the Great Lakes basin. Ugh. The Buffalo and Niagara Rivers that flow through Buffalo, New York and into Lake Ontario and Erie have an amazing inventory of chemicals and dangerous pollutants.

Buffalo was a magnet for industry at the turn of the last century – it had hydropower, a significant rail network and the Erie Canal – industry and then chemical companies moved in and began using up and abusing the fresh water. Years later, after these companies fled or closed shop, they left behind a destructive, toxic legacy in the same formerly pristine waters that flow through Buffalo and into Lakes Erie and Ontario.

“What was left behind was a skeleton of the industrial and chemical revolution,” said Jill Spisiak Jedlicka of the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. A skeleton buried in the rivers’ sediments and underneath the fractured bedrock that the city sits upon where toxins find their way through numerous fissures into the Niagara River and the Lakes.

There are two major Areas of Concern in the Queen City – several miles of the Buffalo River and another 37 miles of toxic muck in the Niagara River – totaling a 1400 square mile geographic range.

The bed beneath the Buffalo River is contaminated with hazardous waste, PCBs, chlordane, PAH’s and plenty of raw sewage – there are 45 inactive hazardous waste sites within this one AOC.

The Niagara River has its own problems – as late as the 1980s cities and industrial facilities were allowed to discharge their waste into the river. This AOC has inactive hazardous waste sites, contaminated sediment, combined sewer overflows, urban and rural run off and regular old-fashion pollution.

But the Buffalo Niagara River Keeper has successfully negotiated Great Lakes Legacy Act funding for the Buffalo River and are responsible for the river’s Remedial Action Plan. After years of research and planning, efforts to clean up the sediments that lie at the bottom of the river will be underway by the end of this year. There will literally be shovels in the dirt because of the work of countless people and with the help of federal funding from the GLLA.

“It didn’t happen overnight and that is the hardest sell with Congress,” said Spisiak Jedlicka, “Especially with those congressmen from outside the Great Lakes region, they want to see it happen right away. These problems are so complex and the solutions don’t come overnight.”

So far, the GLLA has required localities to find funding to match the federal government – a 65/35 split. This worked out for the Buffalo River project because Albany came to the table with an open purse. But this match has been a real problem for other AOC’s especially those known as “orphans” because the polluters are no longer in business and/or have left the area – there is no one to hold responsible. One way to deal with this, according to Spisiak Jedlicka would be to allow the EPA to take mitigating circumstances into account. “The EPA should have the ability to negotiate the matching numbers based on the individual situation,” she suggests.

Under the House water bill the matching funds are addressed. There are also funds for habitat restoration that did not exist in the previous GLLA authorizations. Spisiak Jedlicka says that habitat restoration plays a big role in successful remediation of a toxic site because it is the ingredient that brings the fish back to edible and helps the waters stay clean for drinking and swimming.

But none of this will matter if the US Senate doesn’t see how important this program is to the future of our nation’s largest source of surface fresh water when it considers the $19.4 billion Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 (HR 1262). Last year when Congress debated reauthorizing the GLLA, Spisiak Jedlicka said the riverkeeper’s work was affected, “knowing we were next in the queue to start remediation we sped up our schedule [on the Buffalo River] because we were so concerned that the legacy act would not be reauthorized. Now, knowing there is a larger authorization [$150 million a year in the House water bill] on the table allows us to evaluate things more thoroughly and take those extra few months to make the correct decisions when it comes to remediation of the 37 miles of the Niagara River that we have to clean up too.”

It has been nearly 20 years since Congress passed a Water authorization bill. That is too long to neglect toxic hot spots, aging sewage systems and crumbling wastewater facilities. The House water bill triples funding for the Great Lakes Legacy Act to $150 million a year, addresses some of the concerns over matching funds and allows some of the money to go toward habitat restoration. This funding is nothing short of crucial to our region and for the restoration of the Great Lakes but it is in a very vulnerable position in the US Senate.

Caution: Great Lakes may be Hazardous to Your Health

tpache — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:37:04 +0000

With her dying breath, Nancy Nichols sister asked her to write a book telling the world that her rare ovarian cancer was the result of years of living near, swimming in and eating fish from Waukegan Harbor on Lake Michigan.

Not only did Nancy write Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town’s Toxic Legacy but she also learned she had pancreatic cancer while researching for the book. Ms. Nichols recently discussed her story with National Public Radio host Diane Rehm–you can listen to the interview here. There is no prior history of cancer in Nancy’s family, but both girls are convinced they acquired the disease via years of Friday night fish fries, and swimming and playing in an area of concern – a very polluted part of the Great Lakes. Their story illustrates that when profits are piling up there is a distinct lack of concern for public health among government and business. It also illustrates why we can’t sit around and wait another ten years to clean up the remaining 28 Areas of Concern (AOC) that harbor these toxic chemicals.

This family’s tragic story just goes to show that restoring the Great Lakes isn’t only an environmental or economic issue; it is a public health issue. Cleaning up the AOC’s is about cleaning up our drinking water, our dinner plates and the future of our very own health.

This story has been published on the heals of a government cover up over the affect the toxic pollution is causing on public health, as well as a US Senate vote that determined that the Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA) will be funded at current levels for two more years. The GLLA is the best resource we have to clean up the AOCs and it has been very effective over the last five years, except that it is moving at a very slow pace. Our congressional delegation from the GL region tripled funding for the act over the next five years after learning such a move would clean up ALL the AOC’s within the next ten years. These hopes have been put on hold by the US Senate’s vote, but we have another opportunity in two years to try and increase funding and the pace of clean up once more. I wonder how many more stories like Nancy’s will be published by that time.

Love Canal Move Over: U.S. Government Hides “Alarming” Report on Health Risks In Great Lakes Region

tpache — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:46:49 +0000

Where is Erin Brokovich when you need her? Thank goodness the fourth estate still exists and has exposed a government issued report that reveals higher infant mortality and cancer rates in areas located around the Great Lakes.

The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, is reporting that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention buried the 400-page report for the last seven months because of its findings, which are eye-opening: More than 9 million people who live near polluted harbors and waterways–so-called “areas of concern”–including residents of Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee, may face increased risks to their health from exposure to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury and other hazardous pollutants. It’s Love Canal all over again and in more places, yikes!

The cover-up has been picked up widely in the media, including the Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Duluth News Tribune, and U.S. News & World Report.

The Center for Public Integrity obtained a copy of “Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern,” which was researched and written at the request of the International Join Commission. It should have been published last summer.

For more information, visit: http://www.publicintegrity.org/GreatLakes/index.htm

Toxic Pollution

Jordan Lubetkin — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:19:37 +0000

There are 43 “Areas of Concern” in the Great Lakes region where these persistent, toxic, and bioaccumulative chemicals have built up at the bottom of rivers and harbors, creating lasting toxic hotspots. Most of these sites are the result of past contamination. But some areas continue to be polluted by discharges from chemical plants, refineries, steel mills, and other heavy industry. These toxic hotspots leach pollution into the lakes, contributing to the ongoing contamination of Great Lakes fish. They also make it more difficult and expensive to dredge and deepen Great Lakes harbors and shipping channels, costing ports, shippers, and taxpayers millions of dollars each year.

In addition, toxic air pollution is a tremendous source of pollution to the Great Lakes. Coal-fired power plants, incinerators and other sources release persistent air pollutants like mercury, which is a potent neurotoxin, and dioxin, which is the most potent carcinogen known to scientists. These chemicals are deposited into the lakes by the rain and the wind, where they further contaminate Great Lakes fish.

All of the Great Lakes and their tributaries have fish consumption advisories for mercury. Many Great Lakes fish are under consumption advisories for PCBs and other chemicals as well. Instead of being a healthy source of food, too many Great Lakes fish further endanger people already at risk. The EPA estimates that over 600,000 babies are born each year that are at risk from mercury pollution. In fact, 1 in 6 women of childbearing age already have enough mercury in their bodies to put their children at risk.

Water Quality

Jordan Lubetkin — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:04:31 +0000

Despite much progress since the Clean Water Act was passed more than thirty years ago, the Great Lakes still suffer from water pollution. The Great Lakes are virtually a closed system, with less than one percent of the water in the lakes renewed each year. This means that what we put in the lakes generally stays in the lakes and certain types of pollutants have been building up in the Great Lakes ecosystem for many years. Major water quality problems in the lakes include toxic pollution, polluted runoff, and sewage overflows and beach closings.