Dr. Gail Griffith, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Northern Michigan University, presented the following at Great Lake’s HEAL’s “Your Water, Your Health.” As Dr. Griffith reminds us,”Information is power!”
The Upper Peninsula’s Toxic Legacy
Dr.Gail Griffith
“Your Water, Your Health” forum
March 19, 2009
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula rests on a rich metallic mineral formation called the Mid-Continent Rift. Mining here for iron, copper, silver, and gold spanned three centuries, beginning in the mid-19th century and continuing today.
In Marquette, the Cliffs-Dow Company made charcoal and wood chemicals. It closed in the mid-sixties, leaving organic chemical contamination on the plant site on Lakeshore Boulevard, and a dump site off County Road 550 north of the city.
Mercury from the Ropes Gold Mine and Cleveland Cliffs analytical lab contaminated Deer Lake near Ishpeming. There is still a ban on possession of fish from the Lake. Only catch-and-release fishing is allowed.
Torch Lake, a part of the Keweenaw Waterway, became a Superfund clean-up site after being polluted with copper mining waste. A mill on the Lake was used to reclaim copper from “stamp sand” from earlier mining operations that had been dumped in many places along the shores of Lake Superior and the Waterway. Fish in Torch Lake developed tumors, most likely from chemicals used in the reclamation process. No tumors have been found in fish there since 1993.
K.I Sawyer Air Force Base closed in 1993, and came under the Air Force and Base Restoration Advisory Board for clean-up of multiple contamination sites. A plume of jet fuel is still advancing toward Silver Lead Creek.
These are some of the places we know that have already been impacted by industry and the military, but perhaps more important are the “non-point” sources that we have no control over. Coal-fired power generation deposits mercury in all our lakes and streams. Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality has had fish advisories in effect since the 70s that give information on the contamination level of mercury and other substances such as PCBs that are a health hazard for human consumption. These are listed for every water body, and are based on the kind of fish, the size of the fish (older ones accumulate more contaminants), the amount and kind of contaminants, and whether it’s ok to eat the fish any time, limit yourself to one meal a week, a month, six times a year, or never! There are separate listing for the general population and for women and children. These folks are serious.
Coal-fired power plants also give off sulfur and nitrogen oxide gasses that combine with water in the atmosphere to form sulfuric and nitric acids, causing lakes and streams to become more acidic It’s called “acid rain” or “acid deposition.” Essentially all of our inland lakes and streams have been acidified to some degree. The acid has two effects, it can kill fish eggs and insect eggs, and since we in the U.P. are on top of the metal-bearing rocks of the Mid-Continent Rift, can dissolve out those toxic metals present and put them into the water
The proposed Kennecott Eagle (Rio Tinto) metallic sulfide mine near Big Bay, north of Marquette, contains nickel, copper, and other metals. The mine is directly under the Salmon Trout River, one of the last natural breeding streams for coaster brook trout on the south shore of Lake Superior. The mine has the potential to add a new source of acid, “acid mine drainage” (a mixture of sulfuric acid and dissolved metals), to the toxic load in the surrounding and downstream waters, including Lake Superior. No metallic sulfide mine has yet been shown to have been in operation for ten years, then closed, without leaving behind water contamination.
Last, but not least important, is the presence of radioactive materials. Some rocks in the U.P give off radon gas, which is colorless and odorless. At concentrations of 4 picocuries per liter ( a picocurie is a trillionth of a curie, you get the idea) it can cause lung cancer. Radon exposure is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking! One of the radon hot-spots in Michigan is in Republic, where in the 90s, 250 homes were surveyed. It was found that 84% of the homes had radon levels greater than 4 picocuries per liter, with a range of less than 4 to 389. One of the public schools was remediated for radon exposure. It’s an excellent idea to get a radon detector and sample the air in your basement or crawl space, and do the work to reduce the amount present if it is necessary.
The Jacobsville sandstone formation at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula contains uranium. Of 300 wells tested in the Keweenaw, 25% contained more than 30 parts per billion, (again, you get the idea) which is the EPA maximum allowable concentration for uranium in drinking water. There is presently exploration going on for uranium near Lake Gogebic by Bitterroot Resources backed by Cameco, the largest uranium supplier in the world. So far they haven’t hit any good stuff, and the price of uranium has dropped from a high of $134 a pound last year to about $40 a pound today. However, the price had been only $7 a pound six years ago, so there’s lots of interest in uranium mining.
Information is power!
Some references:
Michigan Fish Advisories: www.michigan.gov/Fish Advisories
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (A federal agency): www.atsdr.cdc.gov
