Echo

Great Lakes receive $94 million in stimulus funds for port improvements; shippers say that’s not enough

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By Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
April 30, 2009
More than $41 million in stimulus funding is going towards dredging channels and repairing outdated structures at 15 Great Lakes harbors in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District. In all, the eight Great Lakes states scored $94 million for such work. But shipping organizations are angry that only 2 percent of the funds distributed nationwide went to the Great Lakes states. “We do not think the Corps did a good job of divvying out these stimulus dollars,” Glen Nekvasil, a spokesman for the Lakes Carriers Association, said today. “The Great Lakes are a commercial shipping power, there are lots of people here, lots of jobs needed and a dredging backload.”
Shippers are also dismayed that nothing was earmarked for the new Soo Lock in Sault Ste., Marie, Mich.

Echo

Wildlife poisoning prompts state probe

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A white-tailed deer and possibly a bald eagle were victims of a wildlife poisoning in Baraga County this spring.

Although poisoning cases are rare, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials said they want to find out exactly what happened, even if the survey takes an extended period of time.

Waste

Michigan may join most Great Lakes states in banning mercury in toys, landfills

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Even though only 1 percent of toys contain mercury, Mike Shriberg says that’s too much of the dangerous element in the hands of vulnerable children. “You’re still talking about millions of products out there,” said Shribert, a children’s health advocate. The Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health, where Shriberg directs policy, is pushing a package of bills in the Michigan Legislature to tighten restrictions on mercury-containing products, including toys. The bills passed the house last week and were sent to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs. Michigan and Pennsylvania are the only two Great Lakes states that haven’t banned the sale of mercury-added “novelties,” a term lawmakers use to cover products as diverse as  toys, games, shoes and yard statues.

Echo

Great Lakes fish eaters less contaminated than a decade ago

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Anglers who ate Great Lakes fish have 33 percent fewer PCBs and 43 percent less DDT in their bodies than they did a decade ago, largely because they changed their diet and switched to less contaminated fish, according to a study by Wisconsin researchers. The scientists compared blood drawn from people in 1994-1995 with blood from the same people drawn roughly nine years later. Most of the 293 men and women tested were sports fishers and boat captains who consumed large amounts of Great Lakes fish. One reason for the decline “is that your body excretes these chemicals over time as they slowly get metabolized,” said Lynda Knobeloch, study leader and senior toxicologist at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. “The other is that exposure levels are much, much lower than what they were 30 years ago.”

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs—industrial compounds used largely to insulate electrical transformers—and the pesticide DDT were banned in the United States in the 1970s.

Echo

Toxaphene – A stubborn pollutant persists

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Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
April 23, 2009

The largest, deepest and coldest Great Lake holds another distinction, – it has the highest levels of toxaphene found in the region and possibly anywhere in the world. Since federal bans on persistent pollutants in the 1970s and 80s, most chemical concentrations have declined in the Great Lakes. Some Great Lakes toxicologists say the same is true of toxaphene. But toxaphene in Lake Superior has increased by 25 percent since its ban in 1990, according to Mel Visser, a former environmental health safety officer and author of Cold, Clear and Deadly, a book that details the legacy of Great Lakes contaminants. The insecticide has been shown to damage the immune system, nervous system, lungs and cause cancer.

Echo

Great Lakes or great sink? Pollutants produced abroad and still circulating at home threaten water quality

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By Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/22/09
Indian cement plants, Russian incinerators and Chinese farms send large amounts of persistent pollutants to the Great Lakes. The continued expulsion of these toxins pose serious environmental and health problems for all countries, including those who have long since banned these chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change may further complicate the issue. As countries like China develop, they are not only becoming the largest emitters of carbon dioxide but of persistent organic pollutants or POPs, according to the International POPs Elimination Network. These chemicals drift into the atmosphere or fall to the surface to evaporate.

Echo

An ill wind blows no good

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Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/21/09
As contaminated sediment is cleaned up in the Great Lakes, persistent pollutants continue to blow in, threatening again to poison soil and harm human health. That has some experts questioning if it’s worthwhile to spend money to remove toxic sediments if they will once more become contaminated in a matter of years. “We have been very hung up on cleaning the watershed because we believed it was the source of contamination in the lake, but in recent decades contamination has come through the air,” said Mel Visser, former vice president of environmental health safety at Upjohn Pharmaceutical in Michigan and author of Cold, Clear, and Deadly: Unraveling a Toxic Legacy. “Even if you cleaned all the lakes tomorrow you wouldn’t do anything to the water because the concentration of these chemicals is controlled by the amount in the air,” said Visser, whose book describes current sources of chemicals that continue to pollute the Great Lakes’ air, food supply and water. The Great Lakes Legacy Act signed in 2002, provides funding to clean up Great Lakes sediments.

Echo

Building a Great Lakes toxic legacy

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Millions of dollars have been spent cleaning historic Great Lakes contamination. Millions more are sought. Does it make sense to clean the lakes before the pollution sources are eliminated? A look at toxic fallout. An ill wind blows no good
As contaminated sediment is cleaned up in the Great Lakes, persistent pollutants continue to blow in, threatening again to poison soil and harm human health.

Energy

Fermi 2 plant closed after vibrations were detected

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(MI) The News-Herald – DTE Energy shut down its Fermi 2 reactor plant in Monroe County on March 28 after an unexpected vibration in plant equipment was detected. John Austerberry, spokesman for DTE, said the nuclear power plant was scheduled to be shut down at 3 a.m. that day for a refuel outage plan. The vibration in the bearings for the turbine was noted at 1:48 a.m., so operators decided to shut the plant down to protect the equipment, Austerberry said. “It was not a safety concern,” he said, adding that the operators responded appropriately. More