FEATURE - Michigan Island Steeps in Sewage Dispute
Date: 04-Aug-06
Country: US
Author: Poornima Gupta
The pollution, which surfaced in June, has triggered an international standoff, underscoring the pressure on decades-old wastewater treatment plants, the costs of clean-up and the risk to one of the largest sources of freshwater in the world, the Great Lakes.
Sugar Island health officials have closed beaches and advised people to avoid all contact with the water, fearing both infection from sewage-borne bacteria and the impact that news of water-borne illness could have on summer tourism.
Michigan officials blame the failure of a wastewater plant across the border in Canada. Canadian officials argue the sludge bubbled up from a river bed made toxic from decades of run-off.
Neither explanation comforts the island's 700 or so residents, more accustomed to tracking migratory owls and whitefish than the trail of the dangerous brown muck that has hit the north shore of the island this summer.
"Nobody really knows what to do about it," said Jim Moored, whose family stays on the island over the summers. "This is not the first time this has happened, but it's the largest discharge and it gets at the question of who has authority here."
AT RISK OF MOVING BACKWARDS?
The Sugar Island crisis is the latest in a string of sewage spills that have prompted emergency beach closures across the United States in recent years.
In January, 2 million gallons (9 million litres) of raw sewage spilled onto Southern California beaches, closing some 10 miles (16 km) of coastline to surfers and beach goers for days. Two years ago, beaches in Boca Raton, Florida were shut down following a similar incident.
Funding for wastewater treatment under the 1972 Clean Water Act has been cut for the past two years, despite an Environmental Protection Agency estimate that the United States needs to invest US$390 billion in such projects over the next two decades.
Scientists and public health officials cannot definitively pinpoint the source of the Sugar Island sewage. Planners say that tracking sewage failures through miles of pipes and connected waterways can be extremely difficult. An estimated 850 billion gallons of sewer water overflows before treatment every year in the United States, according to a 2004 EPA analysis.
"This just suggests that we're at risk of moving backwards from all the progress we've made since the 1970s when the Clean Water Act was passed," said Joan Rose, a Michigan State University water quality expert brought in to study the Sugar Island mess.
Northern Michigan depends heavily upon tourism and the contamination could drive away visitors, said Rep. Bart Stupak, a Democrat whose congressional district includes the island.
"You have brown smudge going down the river in different parts, raw sewage floating," Derek Myerscough, a Sugar Island supervisor, said. "We have condoms, Kotex in the boat slips."
Water tests have shown E.coli bacteria levels are dropping but still over acceptable limits. Clean-up efforts meanwhile have been complicated by the river's status as an international waterway, officials say.
INTERNATIONAL SPARRING
"We have concluded that the discharge is in fact partially treated sewage we believe is coming from East End treatment plant in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario," Chippewa County environmental health director Dave Martin said.
Michigan has been at loggerheads with Canada on garbage-related issues before. Residents and some Michigan lawmakers have been trying for years to clamp down on Canadian trash being imported to Michigan landfills.
A year ago, Sugar Island, named for its sugar maples, was hit with a discharge of about 1 million gallons of raw sewage into the St. Mary's River.
Ontario officials reported that spill but say this summer's apparently bigger problem is not their fault.
"The City of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario is satisfied that the substance is not originating from its East End Wastewater Treatment Plant,"