Tainted fish: Chemicals trigger consumption warnings

By Kate Golden
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources and Department of Health Services warn residents to limit their consumption of wild fish to prevent possible health problems from chemical contamination, as do many other states. Those problems include a range of health effects, but the four groups of chemicals that trigger consumption advisories – PCBs, mercury, dioxins and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfate) – have been associated with endocrine disruption, DNR toxicologist Candy Schrank confirmed. Most fish contain at least low levels of mercury, while the other three chemicals are of most concern at specific locations. Chemicals to blame

Mercury: A natural element that is mobilized and emitted into the air via combustion and other activities. Mercury has been shown to affect the cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, fine motor skills and visual spatial skills of children exposed in the womb.

Where’s the Concern? Week Thirteen

Each week, Great Lakes Echo features a photo story about a different Area of Concern designated by the U.S. or Canadian governments in the Great Lakes basin. Guess where the area is located, based on the description of the site.

Profiles: Chemicals in the water

By Kate Golden
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Two potential endocrine disruptors found in Minnesota waters. Nonylphenol is a breakdown product of a chemical family used in industrial laundry detergents, in crop spraying, as a stabilizer in plastic food packaging, in cosmetics and many other products. It is “highly toxic” to fish and aquatic organisms. It has been found “in human breast milk, blood and urine and is associated with reproductive and developmental effects in rodents,” according to the EPA, which has concerns about risks to people, especially children, and plans to phase it out. It is toxic to aquatic organisms at milligrams per liter; the U.S. demand was estimated at 380 million pounds in 2010. Nonylphenol was found in most of the wastewater treatment plant effluent Minnesota tested, about half of the downstream samples and a third of the upstream samples.

Two and a half years later, oil spill clean-up continues on Kalamazoo River

Two and a half years later, oil spill clean-up continues on Kalamazoo River

It’s been two and a half years since an oil pipeline owned by the Canadian company Enbridge ruptured near Marshall, spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of heavy crude oil into the Kalamazoo River. The incident has been one of the costliest oil spills in U.S. history and the clean-up is still ongoing. Steve Hamilton, an MSU scientist who has been monitoring the clean-up, updates Great Lakes Echo and Current State on the situation.

Photo Friday: Re-reversing the Chicago River

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(Photos by Lloyd DeGrane, Alliance for the Great Lakes)

The course of the Chicago River, reversed over a century ago by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to prevent the flow of waste water into Lake Michigan, was re-reversed April 18 to alleviate flooding in the city in the wake of serious storm conditions, according to an Associated Press report. These photos show dark stormwater and untreated waste water flowing into the lighter waters of Lake Michigan, according to the Chicagoist, a popular news blog for the Chicago area. Echo has previously reported on the increasing frequency of urban flooding problems in Chicago and the Midwest.