The banks of the Red Cedar River are not as clean as they look, according to data issued last week by the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan.
The group gathered information on pollutant violations from 1999 to 2001 from the Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
In a report titled “Worst Violations of Michigan Facilities Violating their Permits for High Hazard Chemicals,” it found the East Lansing Wastewater Treatment Plant, 1700 Trowbridge Road, had been in violation of the Clean Water Act three times throughout the past three years.
Edward Mahaney, assistant superintendent for the plant, said during the three-year period, the it only received one violation for excessive phosphorus levels.
The plant reports phosphorus levels every day, but Mahaney said one violation is too many. Phosphorus in the Red Cedar River mainly comes from fertilizer runoff from lawns and into sewers, as opposed to industrial and municipal facilities sighted as the cause for pollutants in the water by the research group.
Megan Owens, field director for the group, said the report was put together for the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, which regulated pollutants expelled into waters in the United States.
Owens said the level of phosphorus for the river was over the limit by 10 percent, which is a small amount compared to other bodies of water, such as the Kalamazoo River, which was 9,900 percent over its limit.
“It’s not quite as dramatic as some facilities,” Owens said.
She said the group did not investigate each violation, but trusted the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to confirm the number of violations were accurate.
But the number of violations for the East Lansing Wastewater Treatment Plant were not accurate, according to Mahaney.
The plant uses a chemical process to get rid of the pollutant, and plants consume it in the river. But phosphorus affects fish, macro and micro invertebrates in that it deprives them of oxygen, he said.
Mahaney said the plant teamed up with the Ingham County Public Health Department and Lansing in the summer of 2001 to conduct their own test for phosphorus presence in the river.
Phosphorus was “virtually nondetectable,” Mahaney said.
“It’s not a cause for great concern at this point,” he said.
