Manistee Drain Commissioner: Unsafe Level of Pollutants in Manistee Lake for Decades

[XLFD]

According to Upnorth Live and other reputable news sources, the Manistee County Drain Commissioner has issued a warning over a condition that has existed for quite awhile in Manistee Lake, nestled in the center of the City of Manistee, much like the Pere Marquette Lake is in the City of Ludington. Over that period, city officials were definitely aware of this problem, but few warnings were ever issued to the public about the ongoing dangerous levels of raw sewage, bacteria, heavy metals, and other pollutants.

That same lack of communication with the public is on display in Ludington with the exception that our drain commissioner is not alerting us to that fact. A common factor is that during the period of time this pollution has been existent in Manistee (if the Manistee drain commissioner is correct) the city's legal authority of Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor, and Hesslund, PC (who have since merged with the Grand Rapids law firm of Mika Myers) have been the City of Ludington's law firm since Ludington's discharge permits expired in 2011 and widespread pollution of the PM Bayou has been indicated. These city attorneys have apparently advised their city's management team to keep this information away from the public.

MANISTEE, Mi (WPBN/WGTU) — Manistee County's drain commissioner has warning for anyone who will listen. And says he's prepared to do what he has to do to get the word out about the condition of Manistee Lake.

Drain commissioner Thom Smith says a city drain leading into the lake is carrying pollutants, heavy metals and e-coli, into the lake at unsafe levels, and the city has known about it for decades.

When the City of Manistee installed its new storm water sewers a hundred years ago, it was state of the art.

The storm sewers were connected to the sanitary sewers and when the system had too much water, the mixed water overflowed through dozens of pipes leading to Manistee Lake, and the Manistee River channel.

"Somewhere close to 40 of them when the system was built and then over the past 30 years, Manistee has invested $40-50 million systematically to remove those and so there's one remaining," says Jeff Mikula, Manistee's Director of Public Works. "Currently it's necessary to have one in order to maintain the treatment process at the treatment plant, but eventually within the next 6 to 10 years, that will be eliminated as well."

According to data the city filed with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality,

since January 2014 that one drain, near the intersection of Fifth and Ramsdell Streets, has allowed more than 70 million gallons of storm sewer overflow spill into the lake. Much of it raw sewage.

At the request of the Manistee County Drain Commissioner, District Health Department #10 collected a sample of the water coming out of the pipe this past December, testing it for e-coli.

Reading the test results means, basically, the more illumination from the incubated samples, the higher the number of e-coli colonies.

"The entire tray illuminated," says Matt Fournier, Environmental Health Supervisor with DHD#10.

"All the cells were illuminated which would mean a level of bacteria greater than 2419 colonies. It actually exceeds the sensitivity of the test."

The health department recommends closing public beaches when a count reaches 300 colonies.

"We issue a water contact advisory when the level of bacteria exceeds 300 in any given sample of if the monthly average is over 130," says Fournier. "So the results that we got from the city storm sewer drain in Manistee Lake greatly exceeded water contact recommendations."

The county's drain commissioner asked a second laboratory to test the water as well, Restorative Lake Sciences out of Spring Lake, MI.

Its sample showed high levels of copper, chromium, and again, e-coli.

"Ideally you want your metals panel to be below detection for all of the metals," says Jennifer Jermalowicz-Jones, owner of Restorative Lake Sciences. "You want your e-coli to be under 120 or under 300 colony forming units per milliliter. You want your chlorides under 20. So there are certain targets that we like to see for each parameter and this data set really exceeds a lot of those targets."

The city's Public Works Director isn't surprised.

Mikula again points to the city's ongoing plan to separate storm water from sewage and close all of the discharge points, a plan that takes time and money.

"We've got, about, a six year plan to continue to study the system find out where inflow and infiltration is entering the pipes and reduce those down to a quantity that we can then store and treat over time," says Mikula.

But as the summer season nears, should we be concerned about what's being dumped into the lake?

"Absolutely," says Fournier. "Dumping 25 million gallons of sewage into Manistee Lake isn't an ideal situation."

"Absolutely," says Jermalowicz-Jones. "I think that this lake right now, and like I said you have to be careful when you're conducting a scientific analysis, because you want to have more than one set of data to make a trend analysis. This could be an anomaly. This could be part of a bigger normal trend and we need to figure that out. When you compare this kind of date to date collected on other bodies of water like Portage Lake or Bear Lake, it's dramatically different. It's much worse."

In a letter to the drain commissioner from the District Health Department's Environmental Health Director, the Health Department says a "concern exists" for the quality of the water in Manistee Lake that would make the safety of swimming in the lake "questionable".

Mikula says his department conducts regular testing at multiple locations on Manistee Lake and its numbers do not reflect dangerous levels of e-coli.

Mikula says that shows that the high levels entering the lake are being diluted due to the amount of fresh water constantly flowing into the lake from the Manistee River.

Asked if he would go swimming or water skiing in Manistee Lake, Mikula answers, "In Manistee Lake? Absolutely."

Because there are no public beaches on Manistee Lake, it's unclear if the health department has the authority to post health warnings at boat launches.

The health department also recommends the testing of fish caught in Manistee Lake to determine their safety.

A source with the Department of Natural Resources says they are able to test fish caught in Manistee Lake, something usually done at the request of the Department of Environmental Quality.

That request has not yet been made.

Results from any testing done this spring or summer would likely not be available until spring 2017.

For now, the City of Manistee will continue to test the lake and swimming areas as they've done in the past.

http://upnorthlive.com/news/local/safety-of-manistee-lake-questiona...

[Willy]

Most likely, every port town on the Great Lakes has polluted lake and river waters and bottoms, especially the ports where heavy industry has done business. It would be a monumental and exorbitant mess to clean up and I can almost guarantee that no Government agency will tackle the job unless forced to do so which in the end will cost tax payers dearly. The sewer/storm drain separation projects throughout the State are costing Michigan cities billions. Grand Rapids alone has spent over $360 million on their sewer/storm drain separation project.