MSU researchers studying the path of pollutants into the Red Cedar River could help neighboring upstream communities with efforts to clean up Michigan streams, lakes and rivers.
The research is part of an ongoing $1.4 million project called MSU-WATER, or Watershed Action Through Education and Research. The four-year project combines the work of faculty, staff and students from 15 university departments to develop a watershed management plan for the Red Cedar.
Scott Witter, chairman of MSU’s Department of Resource Development, oversees the the program and said the plan, once developed, could be used to assist communities in Livingston County with clean-up projects.
“It will certainly benefit (clean-up efforts) and help play a role with state, federal and local agencies,” he said.
Bill Creal, an environmental manager with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said two reports issued in April show PCBs, E. coli and a “dissolved oxygen problem” in some portions of the Red Cedar.
The report stated rivers need to be cleaned of pollutants by 2011.
E. coli bacteria is found in the intestines of warm-blooded animals such as humans. Exposure to large amounts of it can cause urinary tract infections and diarrhea.
PCBs are mixtures of man-made chemicals that were used in a variety of industries until they were banned in 1976. PCBs have been linked to cancer and other health problems.
While those pollutants have been found in the Red Cedar River, Creal said it’s slowly getting better.
“There used to be companies in Fowlerville polluting the river, but that was cleaned up 10 years ago now,” he said. “Gradually things have cleaned up.”
But Witter said combined sewer overflows from wastewater treatment plants are still contributing to high E. coli levels.
Rainwater and sewage mix together in one pipe that goes to the treatment plant. When there is too much rain, Witter said, the treatment plants can’t handle all the water, and the mixture goes into the rivers.
“It doesn’t take much,” he said, “anything over a quarter of an inch, really.”
Witter said MSU is not contributing to that problem.
“MSU has (no combined sewers) on campus. We changed that 10 to 15 years ago.”
East Lansing also took care of the problem seven or eight years ago, Witter said. Lansing began its 30-year, $176 million separation project in 1992.
“Lansing is fixing theirs,” Witter said, “but there’s another 10 years or so before it’s done.”
James Clift, policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council, said adding separate pipes helps, but other things can be done.
“By no means can we swim in the Grand (River) yet,” he said.
Clift said the Groesbeck Golf Course, 1600 Ormond St. in Lansing, created an artificial wetland to relieve flooding in surrounding neighborhoods, which also helped to slow the flow of storm water into the Grand River.
“They could have just put in a pipe,” he said. “But the wetland filters the water.”
The WATER research program is in its second year and is not expected to produce any immediate answers.
But Clift said MSU’s efforts to follow the path of nonsource pollutants will help in the long run.
“Clearly the better job we do at monitoring what’s in the water, the better job we’re going to do at keeping our rivers clean,” he said.
