COLDNews Optimistic About High Lead Levels in Ludington's Kids

[XLFD]

Everyone loves to hear about good news.  The latest bit of sugar-coated news comes from yesterday's (1/26/2016) edition of the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) which triumphantly proclaims on their front page that Ludington's water is "fine for lead".  Those naturally suspicious with our area's only newspaper may wonder what they mean with the phrase "fine for lead"-- does it mean there's plenty of lead around so as to poison us all or does it mean the opposite. 

The ambivalent title had me read further to find out what was the deal with Ludington water.  Mind you, a citizen got up at the Ludington City Council the previous two times and quoted Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) testing results of potent levels of lead in the sediments of the Pere Marquette Lake Bayou, so it was to be expected that the City of Ludington would fight back with a defense.

Now, Flint has their lead problem that is being decided at the national level, but the speaker at the two council meetings made no presumptions about the local drinking water.  One would like to believe that when we treat the water out of fairly pristine Lake Michigan and let it flow out to consumers that they would be testing their product regularly, and it sounds as if they do even at older houses that may have lead pipe issues, as the article continues under the front page fold:

Then the article finishes up on page two buried in the corner of that page.  In it Shay affirms us that the treated water (and he makes that distinction himself) is clean and safe for the public.  No follow up question about the lapse of the City of Ludington's and Oxychem's discharge permits for five years was made, however.  It concludes:

Look at the last (and in newspaper article logic, the least important part of the news) section.  We are informed that 13% of 229 children tested for lead in 2013 had elevated level of lead.  In typical COLDNews fashion, they do not put this in context by telling us what the normal rate is.  There is a good reason for that.

Taking a look at the 2013 report cited we find some interesting results concerning our area.  Reporter Brian Mulherin does round the rate up from 12.7% to 13, however, if we look at some of the zip codes in Flint during that same time (noting that their water crisis had not evolved then) we get very moderate rates ranging from 2-9 %. 

You may note that the 9% is for a very small sampling size of 25 people whereas the larger samplings have the percentage of kids with elevated levels at an average of 3%.  We are informed by the media, that their systems have plenty of old lead pipes.   In 2013, Ludington's kids had elevated lead levels in their blood more than four times as much as decrepit ol' Flint.

What's even more revealing is that Mason County had an unenviable distinction in 2013:  it had the greatest percentage of kids with elevated levels of lead in the state of Michigan by a significant margin!

See the other county page (p. 10 of the link) to confirm that's the case.  The Michigan average is under 4%, Mason County has a rate of 11%.  In Mason County, who is the major supplier of the water and major producer of the wastewater.  By far, it's the City of Ludington.  So we can believe their propaganda fluff piece or look at the state data, look at the reliability of the person (City Manager John Shay) saying our water is fine (while working covertly in order to bypass the DEQ and DNR's regulations), and look at the latest results from the DEQ's scientific analysis of the bottom of the PM Lake Bayou

The DEQ's Brownfield Reassessment Report shows 330 times the minimum reportable levels of lead in the depths of the PM Lake Bayou 960 times the MRL of Zinc, 270 times the MRL of Barium, not to mention 28 times the MRL of Arsenic and 21 times the MRL of Mercury for one of its over 20 testing sites.  These results were not atypical of other testing sites.

[jfc123]

WOW, amazing spin here! Ludington relies and spends money on tourists and the wealthy, not a shock, all government cares for are the wealthy, this is why we have Flint. And now Kent County, a suburb of Grand Rapids with this: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/01/27/ken...

They are proactive, working for the people, not a silly water tower paint job!

Nice try Shay but please come by this spring and visit the bayou, I will be happy to show you all of the spawn salmon that are getting ready to move out to the PM and Lake Michigan to be caught and ate by all of the tourists that come and rent charters through your marina that is supposed to have a only few charter boats (we all know there are dozens).

Maybe a billboard needs to be put up on US 10 describing some of the issues at the non maintained PM Bayou, contaminated with lead, arsenic, coal tar, etc., that freely flows out to the beautiful beaches you have closed due to issues here. And also mention how cute the fish are that spawn there? Bottom line, Ludington needs a waste water permit and to FINALLY clean the mess in the bayou so it does not spread further.

Nice try to spin this Shay, but the MDEQ I think is a bit smarter than you. The governor, state, EPA, watershed council, federal government, DNR, and anyone that I forgot are all on the line now because of your mismanagement of this problem. Should have used the funds Gov. Granholm allotted you! Maybe wont be Rick but there will be a governor throwing you also under the bus!

[XLFD]

Take it to them, you have more people behind you than you know.

[jfc123]

It is unfortunate but we really don't have any other choice. How can this city government turn its back on so many that are affected by this problem? How can they float these 1.2-1.8 million dollar loans to upgrade city property paid for by resident tax dollars that they cant even walk on or relive themselves at? We were dumped on by the city, county,state, etc funds were there to clean but not used for it. There are 3 marinas, homeowners/renters, and hundreds that like to take a nice evening stroll by this bayou with their spouse, girlfriend or family. Kids like to come and see what they can catch by dropping a worm. But they are not as wealthy as the "tourists" that visit the city owned marinas. 3 private owned, tax paying marinas can not get the mess dumped on them by the COL for going on 8 years cleaned up but they can fix up their marinas, paint a water tower {for freaking 1.5 million!} I could go on for days. This bullshit needs to be fixed. I hope that I am rallying some people and making them mad, because they, along with us, do not deserve to be treated like this. I emailed the mayor, council, LDN, yesterday, lets see how long it takes for a response. Btw I also cc Brian Calley to his personal email that he gave me. Sorry but Ludington is a beautiful city that is made ugly by its city government!

[Willy]

Excellent work X. A very concise and finely crafted article. What the heading probably meant was that Ludington's water has the "finest lead available". It would be very easy but not cheap to find out for sure exactly who has contaminated water. The City knows where all the lead pipes are located. Simply test all the buildings served by those water pipes and if there is elevated lead then test the occupants for lead levels in their blood. The City's current sampling is a gross underestimation of what the conditions really are as far as the safety of Ludington's water. Some cities have a quota system of replacing a certain number of lead services every year but if there are children living in a home with a lead service they will put those addresses at the top of the list. Ludington needs to have such a program along with a more aggressive lead testing program.

[XLFD]

In a Freep article, also published yesterday (I swear they must be reading the Ludington Torch at times) they give a better 2014 result for our area, still rather high when compared to state averages however.  We no longer lead in lead, but we will be back in contention one of these days if we don't change our current lead-bottomed lead-ership.

[XLFD]

Looked at countywise for 2013 blood lead levels in children show dramatic differences between the top five worst and the five best:

Lead level rank      County           Kids Tested           Percentage with elevated blood lead levels  

1                           Mason              362                          11.0

2                           Keweenaw        28                            7.1

3                           Crawford          87                            6.9

4                           Jackson            2965                         6.4

5                           Manistee          248                            6.0

79 (five way tie)    Ontonagon         48                            0.0

                             Montmorency    80                             0.0

                             Schoolcraft        88                            0.0

                             Presque Isle      121                            0.0

                             Missaukee         133                            0.0                        

Two of these counties at 0.0 have a higher percentage of pre-1978 and pre-1950 housing than Mason County has, averaged out they are comparable in that factor.  All are north of us, and have smaller sampling sizes.