05/25/02
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
by ANNYSA JOHNSON AND LEITA WALKER
Eight Illinois lawmakers on Friday asked federal environmental officials
to stop Milwaukee from dumping sewage into Lake Michigan, saying the dumpings
are to blame for a dramatic increase in beach closings in Illinois over
the past eight years.
In a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie
Whitman, the members of Congress blamed Milwaukee for Illinois' record
339 Lake Michigan beach closings last year -- up from 10 in 1994.
"We believe that EPA involvement is particularly necessary because Milwaukee's
disposal of waste into Lake Michigan poses dangerous consequences to Illinois,
Indiana and some parts of Michigan," they wrote.
But the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District dismissed the claim
as "laughable" and said it was unfair to blame Milwaukee or any city for
the problem. "I'm very concerned that the emphasis in beach closings continues
to be on any sewerage district -- no matter where it is -- when studies
in Racine, Milwaukee, Detroit and Chicago show that other things are causing
them besides overflows," said Kevin Shafer, executive director of MMSD.
Shafer said the most likely sources of Chicago's beach closings are
gull droppings and storm water runoff that make their way into the lake.
"It's laughable to see that overflows aren't causing beach closings
here (in Milwaukee), yet they think we're causing beaches to close in Chicago,"
he said.
While there have been numerous beach closings in Milwaukee, MMSD has
said the primary reasons for them are upstream cow pasture runoff, and
bird or pet droppings. Some MMSD officials, however, have acknowledged
that sewage dumping might contribute to the problem.
MMSD has dumped about 13 billion gallons of untreated waste into local
waterways since the deep tunnel system of underground storage tunnels opened
in late 1993. The tunnel project was supposed to virtually eliminate dumping.
The sewerage district has said the dumping was excusable because of
unusually heavy rainstorms. MMSD also has stressed that the 13 billion
gallons dumped is far less than the estimated 8 billion gallons dumped
each year before the deep tunnel system was built.
The argument resurrects the central issue in a federal lawsuit filed
by Illinois against the City of Milwaukee in the 1970s. Although the city
ultimately won on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, the lawsuit helped
shape construction of Milwaukee's deep tunnels, the 17-mile-long network
of massive sewers more than 250 feet underground.
In their letter, the lawmakers -- led by U.S. Rep. Janice Schakowsky,
a Chicago Democrat, asked the EPA to "take immediate action" to halt the
dumping of raw sewage into Lake Michigan.
"Milwaukee discharges a larger amount of waste into Lake Michigan than
any other city," they wrote. "We believe that EPA involvement is particularly
necessary because Milwaukee's disposal of waste into Lake Michigan poses
dangerous consequences to Illinois, Indiana and some parts of Michigan.
"It is unacceptable that one city's harmful wastewater disposal practices
should be allowed to endanger the health of citizens throughout the region,"
they added.
EPA spokesman Luke Hester said Friday he had not seen the letter and
could not comment.
Effort draws praise
Environmentalists applauded the move by the Illinois lawmakers, while
water-quality researchers said it was unlikely, but not impossible, for
sewage discharged in Milwaukee to contribute to high bacteria levels along
the Illinois shoreline.
J. Val Klump, who directs the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great
Lakes WATER Institute, agreed with Shafer, saying it was "a stretch" to
suggest that overflows in Milwaukee were causing a problem in Illinois.
"Swimming beaches all over the U.S. are being closed because of high
E. coli levels. And one of the reasons is we're starting to measure for
the first time. We're exceeding limits because we've never looked before,"
Klump said.
A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that gull droppings
accounted for 40% of the high E. coli levels at one Chicago beach and that
there was no evidence to suggest that any particular municipality was to
blame.
However, Richard Whitman, chief of the Lake Michigan Ecological Research
Station in Porter, Ind., said it was not impossible for bacteria to migrate
along the shoreline.
"It's not absurd to me," said Whitman, who studied E. coli levels at
the 63rd St. beach in Chicago.
"If these bacteria are on particles, and they can live for months and
months at a time along the bottom, then it's not inconceivable that they
can be transported along the shore and be dispersed," he said.
Bob Boucher, executive director of Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers, commended
the Illinois lawmakers for taking the action, saying "it makes no sense
to let the outhouse flow into the well."
He blamed overflows -- and not gull droppings -- for the problems.
"You can't take the billion gallons that MMSD has discharged in the
local waterways and point to sea gulls or a goose or somebody's dog," Boucher
said. "These things . . . may be contributing to some bacteria, but it's
a little absurd to say that that's the source of it."
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