Fw: CEGLHH PI featured on Great Lakes Radio Consortium

[Richard L Whitman <rwhitman@usgs.gov>]

----- Forwarded by Richard
L Whitman/BRD/USGS/DOI on 11/29/2005 12:33 PM -----

Sonia Joseph <Sonia.Joseph@noaa.gov>

11/29/2005 11:20 AM

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Subject	CEGLHH PI featured on Great Lakes Radio Consortium

Dr. Joan Rose, Center of Excellence for Great Lakes
and Human Health 
Deputy Director was interviewed last week on the Great Lakes Radio 
Consortium's series "Ten Threats to the Great Lakes." The Nov.
21 story 
discussed Sewage in the Lakes. Below is the story: 
http://www.glrc.org/transcript.php3?story_id=2841
*
TEN THREATS: SEWAGE IN THE LAKES*
Mark Brush
November 21, 2005

We’re continuing our look at Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Lester 
Graham is our guide through the series. He says the next report is part
of coverage of a threat called point source pollution.

Point source pollution means just that. It's pollution that comes from
a 
single point; usually out the end of a pipe. It's easy to identify. 
Since the passage of the Clean Water Act more than 30 years ago, most of
that kind of pollution has been cleaned up, but today, there are still
some pipes dumping pollution into lakes and rivers, but Mark Brush 
reports stopping that remaining pollution isn't that easy:

(Sound of the Maumee)

We're on the banks of the Maumee River near Toledo, Ohio. Sandy Binh 
brought us here to describe what she saw in the river several years ago
when she was out boating with some friends.

"When there was a heavy rain maybe five years or so ago this is where
we 
saw a sea of raw sewage in this whole area. It was like, I mean it was
like chunks everywhere. It was just disgusting."

Binh reported it and found that the city couldn't do anything about it.
That's because Toledo's sewage treatment plant is at the end of what's
called a combined sewer system. These systems carry both storm water 
from city streets, and raw sewage from homes and businesses. If too much
water comes into the plant, a switch is flipped, and the sewage goes 
straight into the river.

(Sound of treatment plant)

Steve Hallett manages engineering at the wastewater treatment plant for
the city of Toledo. He says a rainstorm can bring twice as much water as
the plant can handle.

"And when hydraulically you can only take about 200 million of it
- 
where's the other 200 hundred million go?"

"Where does it go?"

"Uh, it's by-passed. Limited treatment possibly and then it would
be 
by-passed to the Maumee River"

Toledo is not alone. More than seven hundred cities across the country
have combined sewer systems that often overflow, cities such as 
Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, and Cleveland. Every year billions
of gallons of raw sewage are dumped into the Lakes from cities with 
these old combined systems.

The sewage can cause problems for the environment, but the biggest 
concern is that people might get sick. Some of the bugs found in sewage
can cause liver problems, heart disease, and can even cause death.

Dr. Joan Rose is a microbiologist with Michigan State University. She's
been studying sewage in water for more than 20 years. She says sewage 
contains viruses and other nasty microorganisms that can hang around in
the environment.

"Up here in the Great Lakes region with the cool temperatures we have
- 
these organisms can survive for months, and also these organisms 
accumulate."

Rose says what's unique about the microorganisms in sewage is that it 
only takes a few of them to cause diseases in humans, and once 
contracted they can be contagious.

The Ohio EPA sued the city of Toledo. It wanted the city to clean up its
act. After a long battle, the city and the state reached a settlement,
and officials agreed to spend more than 450 million dollars to try to do
something about the problem.

(Sound of construction)

Back at the wastewater treatment plant we're standing on the edge of a
deep pit. Down at the bottom sparks are flying as welders climb over 
towers of green rebar. They're building a new system that's designed to
treat water quickly when there's a heavy rainstorm. The water won't be
fully treated, but the solids will be settled out and the water will be
chlorinated before it's released into the river. It's a compromise the
city and the state EPA agreed upon.

Steve Hallett says to fully treat every drop of water that comes to the
treatment plant in a big storm would require a project four times this
size.

"You'd need massive amounts of storage to hold every drop here. You
know, that's extremely costly and I think, uh, is deemed not feasible."

Toledo's project will mostly be paid for by a steady hike in water and
sewer rates over the next fifteen years. The increase was approved by 
voters three years agom, and officials plan to go after federal grants
and loans to help defray the costs, but federal dollars are getting 
scarce. Big cuts have been made to the federal low interest loan program
many cities use to finance these projects.

The demand for financing is likely to increase. The cost of upgrading 
the nation's combined sewer systems will cost hundreds of billions of 
dollars. The question is, who will pay to stop one of the biggest 
sources of water pollution left in the country?

For the GLRC, I'm Mark Brush.


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Sonia Joseph
Michigan Sea Grant Outreach Coordinator
Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health
NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
(734) 741-2283

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/Centers/HumanHealth/intro.html

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