EPA: 2008 will be a year for algae action - Michigan, Great Lakes Environmental & Conservation Issues - MLive.com

EPA: 2008 will be a year for algae action - Michigan, Great Lakes Environmental & Conservation Issues - MLive.comEPA: 2008 will be a year for algae action
by Jeff Kart | The Bay City Times
Friday February 01, 2008, 1:46 PM
Saginaw Bay residents are tired.

Tired of beach muck. Tired of studies. Tired of invasive phragmite plants and zebra mussels, and ongoing discharges of partially treated sewage. And some think too much attention is being paid to dioxins in the watershed, to the detriment of more pressing issues.

''Everybody's getting sick and tired of hearing promises,'' said Bob McKie, a Huron County resident.

''The bay's being used as a septic field.''

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials say progress takes time, and scientists will get a better handle on how to manage the muck after studies this year to map phosphorus inputs to the bay and examine existing levels of the nutrient.

Last year, with prompting from the EPA, ''hot spots'' of dioxins in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers were cleaned up by Dow Chemical Co. for the first time in more than a quarter century, said Ralph Dollhopf, associate director for the Superfund Division of EPA's Regional Office in Chicago. The work cost the company more than $20 million, Dollhopf said.

The same kind of methodical, scientific examination needs to be done to characterize and deal with muck and other problems in the bay, he said. And hopefully, it won't take 25 years.

EPA officials held a community meeting on Thursday at Saginaw Valley State University. There was standing room only, as close to 200 people packed a room at Curtiss Hall for a two-hour meeting that ran 30 minutes over.

The meeting was to discuss the state of the bay ecosystem - the most polluted in the Great Lakes, based on its listing under the EPA's Area of Concern program - and EPA's involvement in a cleanup of Dow dioxins.

Jamie Schardt, with the EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office in Chicago, said phosphorus levels, from products like lawn fertilizers, actually have dropped in Lake Huron in the last six to seven years, largely due to zebra mussels, which are filtering out the nutrient.

So it's ''shocking'' to see such a great increase in algae washing up along the bay shoreline, he said.

The mess likely is due in part to the concentration of zebra mussels in near-shore areas, he said. They filter the water, allowing more sunlight to penetrate and algae to grow in new places. Their feces also act as a concentrated fertilizer.

''These problems are big,'' Schardt said. ''They're huge problems, but at least the next steps seem pretty clear.

''I think 2008 is going to be a very important year for Saginaw Bay.''

By the fall, the EPA should have the results of a phragmite control study being done in Bay County's Hampton Township, along with results of sediment samples taken from the bay in 2007 to further characterize dioxin levels, Schardt said.

A $100,000 phosphorus study, to map inputs to the bay, also should be well under way, along with a $4 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study of bay nutrient levels.

''We definitely don't know enough,'' Schardt said of how pervasive the muck is and how it can be managed.

''The work over the summer will expand upon what we know.''

Gary Gulezian, director of the EPA's Great Lakes office, said the NOAA study is designed to be complete in one year, so the results can be applied quickly. Schardt said Bay County's decision to restrict the application of lawn fertilizers beginning in 2009 is a good first step.

But some audience members are weary of more delays.

''Many of these problems seem like the problems I read about in the 1980s as a high school kid,'' said Laura Ogar, a Bay County environmental director and Bay City resident.

''I'm just curious. I would like to see a little bit more action.''

Gulezian said the EPA was taken by surprise when the algae started coming back in the bay about five years ago.

Gulezian said a new set of phosphorus restrictions may be needed for the lakes, such as eliminating the nutrient in dish-washing detergents. The source of the muck problems could be old phosphorus, too, cycled up from sediments by the mussels.

EPA: Zebra mussels may increase beach muck - Michigan, Great Lakes Environmental & Conservation Issues - MLive.com

EPA: Zebra mussels may increase beach muck - Michigan, Great Lakes Environmental & Conservation Issues - MLive.comEPA: Zebra mussels may increase beach muck
by Justin Engel | The Saginaw News
Friday February 01, 2008, 7:42 AM
Environmental Protection Agency officials updated a mid-Michigan crowd on plans to explore nutrient levels in the Saginaw Bay.

About 100 people attended the Saginaw Valley State University-hosted forum that included a recap of dioxin dredging in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers in 2007.

Much of the meeting focused on zebra mussels and other invasive species that are changing the makeup of Lake Huron and its connecting waterways.

James Schardt, a scientist with the EPA's Chicago office, said the emergence of zebra mussels has "created a real nutrient problem" in Lake Huron.


"They're really sucking up nutrients," Schardt said, "and making the water clearer."

The translucency is allowing sunlight to reach depths of the water previously left in the dark, he said. That's resulted in more algae that some refer to as "muck" to form along shorelines.

Scientists aren't as clear how much of a problem that has created for the Saginaw Bay.
Schardt said EPA and state Department of Environmental Quality officials plan to collaborate on a study this summer to examine the algae levels on the bay.

Gary Gulezian, another EPA scientist, said the Great Lakes and its connecting waterways are "changing in a way we haven't seen before" because of the invasive species.

"Scientists are questioning what they used to believe," he said.

The meeting came less than a month after the EPA cut off cleanup talks with Dow Chemical Co. over decades-old dioxin contamination in the Tittabawassee River system.

Officials didn't add much to that discussion Thursday other than to say they couldn't disclose the reasons for the abandoned negotiations because of a confidentiality agreement.

The meeting also included a recap of the completed clean-up efforts of four dioxin "hot spots" dredged in 2007, including a contaminated spot in the Saginaw River near Wickes Park in Saginaw.

Meanwhile, officials with the DEQ are preparing for the next quarterly dioxin meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7, at the Horizons Conference Center in Saginaw Township.

The meeting will include updates on Tittabawassee River studies and plans for 2008.
Dow, which typically co-hosts the meetings, will not participate.

Officials with the Midland chemical complex cited a lack of new information since a November meeting as the reason for the absence.