The content is provided for information purposes only. Consistently, we see that about 85 percent of the litter picked up at Adopt Beach cleanups is made up of plastic, explained Jennifer Caddick, the spokesperson for the Alliance. In the decades since synthetic polymer manufacturing advances begat the rise of mass-produced plastic in the 1950s, more than 8 billion metric tons has been made worldwide. To that end, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act would tax plastic bags and other containers, as set up a national bottle bill similar to Michigans 10-cent deposit program, and require manufacturers to manage single-use plastic container recycling. Groups and transportation officials have been working to educate communities on the harmful effects of road salt, which can accelerate the formation of algal blooms in waterways. It may not look like much to the untrained eye, but one of the key factors to protecting waterways is planting cover crops between harvests. According to a 2015 study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research, the estimated the overall cost of beach cleanups, storm drain devices, street sweeping, waterway cleanup, and public anti-littering campaigns could amount to $400 million each year in the region. NOTE: During winter months, stage and discharge may be significantly affected by backwater from ice, resulting in incorrect discharge data. "But sometimes, during storms or, or winter snow snowfall and then spring snow melt, some of those nutrients from the fertilizer come into the adjacent water bodies in ditches, small streams and even entire larger rivers, and then they head downstream. Inland Lakes Monitoring. Great Lakes - Lake Michigan | Michigan Lake Michigan plastic pollution poses ecological and social threats Waukegan Harbor, Illinois' only area of concern, is being monitored following a 30-year, $150 million cleanup effort. Originally published on Wisconsin Public Radio as Study finds more than 1M tons of salt is flowing into Lake Michigan each year. "And what that does is that when those storms come, or spring snow melt, you've got this blanket over the fields and it keeps nutrients and the soils. Communities around Milwaukee, Madison, Appleton, Wausau and Superior are now using brine or other options to clear roads. Limiting plastic pollution is something that should be part of doing business, and that burden does not just fall on consumers.. The extent of the problem is, unfortunately, far from being clear. A 2018 study found microplastic fibers in tap water drawn from the Great Lakes, beer brewed with Great Lakes source water, and commercial sea salt brands. Great Air Quality for the Great Lakes | NASA Indiana steel mill fined $3M in Lake Michigan tributary fish kill The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) often receives complaints about foam on a river or lake. The 2022 Integrated Report was submitted to the USEPA on May 16, 2022. Course When it followed its natural course, the North and South Branches of the Chicago River converged at Wolf Point to form the main stem, which jogged southward from the present course of the river to avoid a baymouth bar, entering Lake Michigan at about the level of present-day Madison Street. "It's the right thing to do," May said. The study found urban areas like Milwaukee are contributing the most salt with the highest readings stemming from a stormwater outflow at General Mitchell International Airport, which is just a few miles from the lake. Officials were expected to gather Friday in Waukegan to mark the investment. Quality of Life Sign warns swimmers of pathogen pollution at a northern Michigan beach. Plastic pollution in an Illinois waterway. water. More than 7,200 pellets were found in the sand along the shoreline. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com), Volunteer, Casey Walker of Holland, picks up trash during an Adopt-A-Beach cleanup at Holland State Park in Holland, Michigan on Wednesday, July 28, 2021. Theres been a lot of news about the amount of plastic debris in the oceans. "It will be good for the people living there. News A new pollution worry for Lake Michigan: Tiny plastic fibers By Michael Hawthorne Chicago Tribune Feb 01, 2015 at 7:11 am Expand Researcher Sherri "Sam" Mason inspects plastic samples. Plastic microbeads, wrappers, pellets, and foam were also found all across southern Lake Michigan. Millions of pounds of pollution end up in the Great Lakes every year but scientists are working on ways to improve the quality of the pristine waters. The sun, heat, wind, and wave action work on the plastics, making them brittle. All around, tiny plastic fragments littered the sand. Rather than accumulating in garbage patches as plastic tends to do in the oceans, lake currents swirl that debris around, breaking it down and sending Chicago and Milwaukees plastic onto beaches in western Michigan, or Detroit and Clevelands trash to shorelines in Pennsylvania and New York. Wildfire smoke triggers Michigan-wide air quality alert - The Detroit News As challenging as newer toxics are, the past offers hope. This site uses cookies to assist with navigation, analyse your use of our services, collect data for ads personalisation and provide content from third parties. The versatile material revolutionized society. There are efforts to crackdown on such pollution. Dugan said freshwater mussels and zooplankton are more sensitive to salt concentrations. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages. Thats a data point weve been able to extract pretty consistently.. Their presence cant be blamed on litterbugs because consumers dont touch them. Billions of gallons of sewage Raw sewage discharged to southern Lake Michigan doesn't garner the attention it did prior to increased storage capacity coming online in Milwaukee and Chicago in recent years, but it's still an issue. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Unfortunately, this is one thats not.. Michigan rivers polluted by human, animal waste more than double The greater area of the Great Lakes Basin was used as a waste disposal site and became heavily polluted throughout the late 1900s. Some environmentalists say manufacturers are going to continue to make and sell single use plastics as long as theres a market. Chemicals, toxic pollutants, pesticides and heavy metals entered the Great Lakes; they flowed from thousands of factory discharge pipes and sewage plants, seeped from dumping and disposal sites, escaped from smokestacks, and ran off millions of acres of cities and . Our analysis indicated two . Single use plastics are pervasive. In fact, wetlands are one of the most cost . Landfills are harsh conditions for plastic and accelerate breakdown, say researchers. As washing machines clean clothes, such as your favorite fleece made from plastic fibers, many of those fibers ultimately find their way into rivers. Theyre just too small to catch them all. Overview The Milwaukee Estuary is one of the 31 U.S.-based Areas of Concern across the Great Lakes created under the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. So, I would say all this grain touches plastic, Rogers said. In this series, members of the Great Lakes News Collaborative, Michigan Radio, Bridge Michigan, Great Lakes Now, and Circle of Blue, explore what it might take to preserve and protect this precious resource. The Great Lakes hold 20% of the world's fresh water, and about 85% of North. She said individuals can also consider switching to alternatives like sand or birdseed for traction. In the Grand Calumet, work could be complete between 2027 and 2030, according to Thursday's announcement, making the site one of 22 out of the remaining 25 in the United States to reach that milestone by the end of the decade. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com), Children pick up plastic debris on North Beach in South Haven, MI. The amount of salt used fluctuates depending on the winter. The Great Lakes | National Wildlife Federation The organization was poised to channel that frustration into accelerated progress for the Great Lakes. Overview The Torch Lake Area of Concern (AOC) is one of the 31 U.S.-based AOCs across the Great Lakes designated under the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. But water quality, affordability, and aging water infrastructure are vulnerabilities that have been ignored for far too long. Long-sought Great Lakes projects get funding under new law, Discovery of new ornithopod solves mystery of unidentified large dinosaur tracks, Hydrogen peroxide found on Jupiter's moon Ganymede in higher latitudes, Magnetic Quincke rollers: Forces and torques of magnetism that guide complex dynamics of active particles, Observers investigate a short-period X-ray binary system, Using GPS as a possible earthquake predictor, Science X Daily and the Weekly Email Newsletter are free features that allow you to receive your favorite sci-tech news updates in your email inbox. Props and costumes from popular theater productions part of The Reps biennial storage sale, SPECIAL | Return to Ukraine: Reports about a humanitarian mission from Milwaukee after a year of war, Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Help support the mission of free public radio services with a contribution to, Dont Look Up: Why the Netflix film is a perfect metaphor for American denialism of climate change, Milwaukee County Historical Societys feature exhibit for 2022 explores Where the Waters Meet. 5-10% is from air, and less than 1% is from water. Read the second, third and fourth stories here. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Lake Ontario gets about 3 million pounds. The additional funds put toward the degraded sites "will allow for a major acceleration of progress," according to Thursday's news release. Milwaukee Estuary AOC | US EPA Preventing fertilizer runoff is crucial to protecting the water source we all need and share. Wetlands are also often referred to as nature's kidneys, filtering nutrients and sediment out of the water before it winds up in larger waterbodies. Similar bills are proposed in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York. The Environmental Protection Agency launched the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in an effort to address historically contaminated Areas of Concern, and to reduce trash and excess nutrient runoff; $7 million has been committed to the EPA's Trash Free Waters program, which is an effort to prevent trash from ever reaching our waterways. and Terms of Use. But even as some harmful PFAS are phased out or banned, replacement chemicals are also raising serious concerns. In that respect, Scott sees parallels with another significant global emerging contaminant problem: the toxic forever chemicals known as PFAS, which persist in the environment and are endemic in wastewater discharges as well as other Great Lakes ecosystems. We suspect a lot of microplastics being emitted from wastewater treatment plants are actually coming from the landfill leachate, said John Scott, a chemist at the Illinois Sustainability Technology Center (ISTC) who studies microplastics. 91.3 Port Huron 89.7 Lansing 91.1 Flint. They span miles and can be seen from satellites in space and they are really a serious problem because when the blooms die they suck water out of the lake and the bottom of the lake become this sort of dead zone," he said. Theres a tremendous amount of salt going into the lake each year, said Dugan. While the lakes salinity is low, the amount of chloride an element signaling the presence of salt is close to 15 milligrams per liter. BP subsidiary agrees to record $40M penalty and pollution-cutting steps The EPA said the $1 billion will be distributed in line with the Biden administration initiative to deliver at least 40% of benefits from major federal investments to underserved communities. [11] Copyright 2023 WLS-TV. education. "The linkage between agriculture and farming and climate sort of adaptation and resilience is getting, it's getting stronger and stronger, and actually encouraging our farmers to be part of the solution in terms of climate adaptation creating resilience on the ground resilient farm systems through say the planting of winter cover crops that kind of partnership for sort of a more of a global good. Nurdles are being lost somewhere in the supply chain and theyre ending up in the lakes. Microplastic enters wastewater when synthetic fabrics like fleece jackets shed fibers in the washing machine or, when landfill leachate is treated at water reclamation plants. "We also have a Great Lakes Plastic Toolkit which we use to educate people around the region on how they can advocate for the policies that can actually stand up to the source of plastic, and stopping it at the source is really job one. They also implement innovative conservation techniques to reduce water pollution. "The Great Lakes are a vital economic engine and an irreplaceable environmental wonder, supplying drinking water for more than 40 million people, supporting more than 1.3 million jobs, and sustaining life for thousands of species," Regan said in the news release. Chemicals damaging Lake Michigan | ELI AEPP Finding Chicago: Global You know, it's something each person has to really look at themselves and decide what the best thing is they can do, but, you know, it all comes down to education and, you know, wanting to make the world a better place, I think.. 68 Lake Michigan Pollution Premium High Res Photos He has reported on public policy, politics, and issues regarding race and gender inequity. They want the public to put pressure on businesses that make and sell single-use plastic products. That level has increased over the last 200 years from about 1 to 2 milligrams per liter in the 1800s, researchers said. Your support will help protect the Great Lakes and preserve their legacy of clean water for generations. But I think is going to is going to benefit everyone and I do feel like farmers in the Midwest are going to be part of that solution," she said. At Waukegan Harbor, more than 100,000 cubic yards of PCB-laden sediment was dredged up at the site of the former Outboard Marine Corp. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are linked to cancer, among other serious health effects, and can stick around long after they're released into the environment. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1449240174198-2'); }); The additional funds for Great Lakes restoration from the bipartisan infrastructure plan will largely bankroll work at some of the most contaminated sites throughout the region, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. If plastic breaks down into even smaller pieces nanoplastics it can enter the bloodstream of fish and of humans. Marshes are periodically flooded with water and have vegetation adapted to wet soil. "The work that that, especially Tim Hoellein been doing at Loyola has shown us that they're there. pollution in the world's lakes can be worse than in oceans July 16 2023, by David Hamilton, Deniz zkundakci, Justin Brookes and . 2023 Alliance for the Great Lakes. Wegner said that plastic ingested by wildlife causes internal damage and can introduce toxins into the food web. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form. "We actually can make a difference and I think by tackling it one piece at a time by sort of keeping together and making sure everyone's included. With close allies including Congressmen Vern Ehlers, Republican from Michigan, and James Oberstar, Democrat from Minnesota, they ultimately drafted legislation and Davis proposed a name: the Great Lakes Legacy Act., The title had two meanings, he explains. Alliance for the Great Lakes is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, and his organization have taken action to protect our fragile waters from waste pollution. Davis volunteered to work with Congress to craft a plan. Volunteers are gathering at the Duck Lake State Park north of Muskegon. "Great Lakes are a huge source of fresh water, and so the fact that we have so much of it here means I think that we have an obligation to be good stewards of that incredible resource," Tank said. But plastic pollution is also affecting the Great Lakes. State regulators in Michigan are of similar mind. In 2019, University of Toronto researchers found microplastic in the digestive systems of double-crested cormorant chicks from Lake Ontario, who are suspected to have ingested the particles by eating fish that had consumed plastic. Youd need to comb the whole beach with a sifter to try to get it all, said Walker, a salesperson at Great Lakes Wine & Spirits who was volunteering with an Adopt-A-Beach cleanup July 28. Fresh water is vital to the Great Lakes agricultural industry. We need our economy to work in a way that things get reused and that pollution is not just an acceptable externality., Invasive species, extreme weather pose threat to Lake Michigan, report finds, Pandemic plastic: How PPE litter is harming Evanston, Institute for Sustainability and Energy launches Program on Plastics, Ecosystems and Public Health Program. Toxic Contamination Past and Present: Creating a Legacy. This document is subject to copyright. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com), A 15-minute survey of plastics on North Beach in South Haven produces a handful of "nurdles," industrial plastic pellets used for making products. Private septic concerns were just one of the issues outlined in the report. Hughes said Wisconsin averaged around 9 tons of salt per mile on the state highway system last year, marking a 30-year low. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com). 151-200. This plastic can come from seafood, such as fish with plastic accumulated in their bodies, but its also present in water systems. But toxic algal blooms are threatening the health of our Great Lakes. Evanston Environment Board member Michelle Redfield said a ban on single-use plastics is being considered at the city level, but not officially on the citys agenda. Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. Pathogen pollution in Michigan's lakes and rivers - caused by human and animal waste draining into surface waters - is far more widespread than previously documented, according to new state data. Particle Pollution - 24 Hour. Researchers examined past and current water data on the amount of salt flowing into the lake from 234 rivers and streams, according to Hilary Dugan, the studys lead author and assistant professor for the Center for Limnology at UW-Madison. Spills and Sewage: Southern Lake Michigan grapples with legacy Around 50 counties are now transitioning to using more brine and less road salt. Water Resources. The city has not yet developed a zero-waste strategy, yet theyre moving forward in some really impactful ways, Redfield said. There were also lots of unidentifiable bits of plastic in the water and on the shore. Courtesy Greg Cole. All rights reserved (About Us). Plastic pollution is a consumption problem, Tyrone Dobson, the volunteer engagement manager at the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said. Wegner said single-use container bans should include subsidies to help small restaurants transition to compostable or reusable containers. "There has to be restoration. Editors note: This is the first entry in a series examining the causes, impacts and solutions to plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. Baker, president of the Kalamazoo River Alliance, a local anglers group, had organized a June 5 cleanup a couple months prior in which volunteers pulled more than 3,000 pounds of junk out of the river near downtown Kalamazoo. The AOCs include the Grand Calumet River emptying into Lake Michigan just southeast of Chicago, where an industrial menagerie of steel mills, oil refineries, pharmaceutical manufactures and more contaminated the sediment with PAHs, PCBs, oil and grease, and heavy metals. US Steel was fined $1.2 million for polluting Lake Michigan. The plastic pollution problem that we have is very closely aligned (with) the idea that people and places and water can be treated as disposable, Castle said. 80-90% of human exposure is a result of ingestion through the food chain. Its our time to give something back to the Great Lakes.. There is a large community already working on the solutions.
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