Current Events January 1999

Current Events and Environmental News - January 1999

Contents

This article courtesy of Environmental News Service.

Mercury Level Up in Detroit River Ecosystem

DETROIT, Michigan, January 4, 1999 (ENS) - Mercury levels in the Detroit River ecosystem are going up, not down, examination of several recent studies has confirmed. The Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwest Ontario and Southeast Michigan (CEA), which has been making this claim for the past four years, is now convinced its suspicions are correct.

In 1994 the CEA reported that the levels of mercury discharged from the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant had increased 78 percent over a ten year period. That claim was based on data published by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) through the Detroit River Remedial Action Plan process. At the time, the MDEQ explained the increase as an "accounting error." Now, the agency's own data supports the CEA assessment.

Dr. Russell Kreis, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Large Lakes Research Station on Grosse Ile, said his examination of two independent surface sediment studies, a sediment core study, a fish contaminant concentration study, and loading estimation studies indicates that mercury concentrations are increasing in the system.

"The sediment survey results were very surprising as concentrations were substantially greater than those observed during the 1980s and in locations that were not previously identified as severely contaminated with mercury," Dr. Kreis said.

Concentrations of mercury were detected as high as 16 parts per million (ppm) in areas of the Trenton Channel where sediments naturally deposit. Levels of mercury greater than 0.2 ppm are known to be toxic to aquatic life.

"It has taken several years of compilation and examination of these diverse studies to get an overall picture of the present status. This only means one thing. The amount of mercury currently being discharged to the Detroit River is increasing, not decreasing," Dr. Kreis concluded.

In some cases, the highest concentrations of mercury and other toxic metals were observed on the surface of the sediment core, which means they were deposited most recently.

Even so, the latest permit issued to the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant to discharge pollutants directly into the Detroit River allowed a two-fold increase (from 0.009 parts per billion to 0.018 ppb) in the amount of mercury being discharged.

"How can we ever expect the Detroit River ecosystem to improve if the state regulatory agency allows the largest discharger of mercury to the Detroit River to dump more mercury," said Rick Coronado of the CEA.

Mercury is toxic to aquatic life and humans. People who eat fish from the Great Lakes, including the Detroit River, are consuming methyl-mercury, the most toxic form of mercury. In Michigan and Ontario, children and pregnant women are advised not to eat most Great Lakes fish because the high level of mercury found in the fish will cause damage to the nervous system of young children and unborn children.

To bring attention to the continued environmental degradation of the Detroit River and the failure of the state and provincial governments to address the transboundary environment in the Detroit-Windsor area, the CEA filed a request for an investigation with the Commission on Environmental Cooperation in 1994. As a result of the CEA’s request, the International Joint Commission (IJC), the treaty organization responsible for monitoring progress under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, conducted its first status assessment of Great Lakes Remedial Action Plans on the Detroit River.

The IJC’s assessment of the Detroit River Remedial Action Plan (RAP) was critical of government leadership in the RAP process and of the level of public participation. In 1996, public organization members walked out of the last binational RAP meeting to protest the process and the Detroit River RAP document written by MDEQ.

A "Citizen’s Guide to the Detroit River Status Assessment" was written by CEA in 1997 help people in Detroit-Windsor area understand the background and environmental issues.

This past summer the EPA has committed itself to making the clean-up efforts of Detroit River a higher priority. "Now that we are actually examining the data from the Detroit River ecosystem, we need to, once again, merge the clean-up efforts on both sides of the river," said Mary Ginnebaugh of the CEA. "Much of the public's frustration with the earlier process was due to the unwillingness of MDEQ to take their own data seriously."

"The issue of mercury increases while "source control" was supposedly occurring, is the latest example of the denial that has marred this process for twelve years," Ginnebaugh said.

In October of 1997, the IJC issued an assessment of the U.S. and Canadian federal, state and provincial governments' progress to clean up the Detroit River.

Problems and obstacles noted included lack of leadership by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Lack of financial commitment form federal, state and provincial governments was found.

Restoration of the Detroit River areas of concern requires that river cleanup become a high priority and be maintained as a high priority with elected officials at all levels of government, the IJC said.

The 1996 Detroit River RAP Report identified 104 recommendations. But the IJC reported that no mechanism is in place to evaluate these options relative to achieving the desired future state of the Detroit River. Contaminated sediment remediation receives no higher priority for funding than restoration of fish and wildlife habitat.

A limited commitment to monitoring was seen as a major obstacle. Historically, there was an extensive monitoring program for the Detroit River to assess water quality, estimate loadings of pollutants, identify pollution "hot spots" and evaluate program effectiveness. Due to budget cuts and changing priorities, these monitoring programs have been substantially cut or eliminated.

There is too little public awareness or acceptance of the need to restore uses in the Detroit River, the IJC said. In particular, more effort is required to inform subsistence fishers of the risks from the consumption of environmentally contaminated fish.

Some successes in restoration of the Detroit River were noted by the IJC report.

Habitat rehabilitation and conservation projects implemented at Detroit's Belle Isle Park, Windsor's Coventry, Reaume, and Alexander Parks, Ruwe March and the Canadian Salt Company facility
Pollution prevention efforts of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors in both the U.S. and Canada
Removal of 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from Monguagon Creek
More than one billion dollars worth of upgrades to wastewater treatment operations in both Detroit and Windsor
Initial steps being taken by elected officials in Detroit and Windsor in cooperation with local companies to establish a local organization to improve the Detroit River waterfront.

This article courtesy of World Wide Angler.

1,600+ Scientists Warn That the Sea Is In Peril, Call For Action Now

Washington DC...At the start of the United Nations's International
Year of the Ocean, more than 1,600 marine scientists and
conservation biologists from 65 countries have issued an
unprecedented warning to the world's governments and citizens that
the sea is in trouble. Troubled Waters: A Call for Action summarizes
the urgent threats to marine species and ecosystems and calls for
immediate action to prevent further damage.
Troubled Waters paints a dismaying picture of the destruction of
marine biological diversity from five causes: 1) overexploitation of
species, 2) physical alteration of ecosystems, 3) pollution, 4)
alien species from distant waters disrupting local food webs and 5)
global atmospheric change. Overfishing has decimated commercial fish
populations and caused the collapse of many fisheries worldwide,
including the once-bounteous cod fisheries of Georges Bank off New
England. Destructive fishing methods such as bottom trawling have
crushed and buried bottom-dwelling species by scouring a vast area
of seabed. Coastal development has consumed mangrove forests and
salt marshes. Reef corals and marine mammals are falling victim to
new diseases, perhaps caused by pollution. And global warming has
dramatically reduced the sea's productivity off Southern California
since 1951 and contributed to the steep decline of salmon in the
North Pacific.
The call for action comes from scientific leaders in renowned marine
research institutions such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,
the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences and the Russian Academy
of Sciences, from scientists in universities, federal agencies,
local governments, tribal fisheries commissions, conservation groups
and private industry. Endorsers include marine scientists such as
Drs. Jane Lubchenco, Past President of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science; Paul Dayton of Scripps Institution of
Oceanography and Sylvia Earle of Deep Ocean Exploration and
Research. Leading conservation biologists who are expert on
conserving species and ecosystems on land and are all too familiar
with threats to biological diversity, including Drs. Edward O.
Wilson of Harvard University; Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical
Garden and Michael Soul�, the father of the science of conservation
biology, have also endorsed Troubled Waters. The signatures were
collected in only eight months, starting just before the first
Symposium on Marine Conservation Biology in June 1997.
"A recent New York Times poll found that only 1 percent of Americans
consider the environment the most important problem facing our
country," said Dr. Elliott Norse, marine ecologist and President of
Marine Conservation Biology Institute (MCBI), the nonprofit
organization that coordinated the statement. "Because few of us
spend much time below the surface, it is easy to overlook signs that
things are going wrong in the sea." But the signs are increasingly
obvious to the experts," according to Norse. "The scientists who
study the Earth's living systems are far more worried than the
public and our political leaders. That's a wake up call that nobody
can afford to ignore."
Dr. JoAnn Burkholder of North Carolina State University, who
discovered the linkage between coastal pollution and outbreaks of
nightmarish fish-eating Pfiesteria piscicida, said "It's hard to
imagine that farming on land and building in cities could harm the
marine environment and fishermen, but it does. The tons of sewage
produced by millions of people don't just go away when we flush... a
lot of it winds up in our coastal waters. And construction,
agriculture and logging send clouds of choking sediments and excess
nutrients into marine waters, smothering sensitive habitats. What we
do on land profoundly affects life in the sea."
"If it's business as usual," said Dr. M. Patricia Morse, a marine
biologist from Northeastern University, "we'll see more declines in
corals, fishes, marine mammals and seabirds. That spells disaster
for industries like fishing and tourism that depend on healthy
marine life, and for every human on Earth, because we all use goods
and services provided by the sea every day. Oceans regulate our
climate, provide a breathable atmosphere and break down wastes.
Coastal wetlands protect our shores from flooding and storm damage,
improve water quality and provide crucial habitat for fishes and
other marine life. When we destroy these ecosystems, we lose both
their products and services."
Troubled Waters calls on citizens and governments to act now to
reverse current trends and avert even more widespread harm to marine
species and ecosystems. It outlines needed changes, including
elimination of government subsidies that encourage overfishing, an
end to fishing methods that damage fish habitat, reduction of
non-point source pollution from activities on land, cuts in
emissions that cause global warming and the creation of an effective
system of marine protected areas from the shore to the open ocean.
"Getting scientists to agree on anything is like herding cats," said
Norse, "so having 1,600 experts voice their concerns publicly
highlights how seriously the sea is threatened. Troubled Waters
shows that the world's experts want the public and our leaders to
know that threats to marine species and ecosystems are urgent, and
that we must change what we're doing now to prevent further
irreversible decline. A White House Conference on the Marine
Environment would help to highlight what's known about marine
environmental problems and to address the most pressing ones. The
International Year of the Ocean provides the ideal opportunity to
move forward in protecting, restoring and sustainably using life in
the sea. We need to do it for two reasons: because it's essential to
our well-being and survival and because it's the right thing to do."

NOAA ANNOUNCES DRAFT PLAN TO PROTECT AND REBUILD OVERFISHED
ATLANTIC BILLFISH

Recommendations to improve the health and quantity of Atlantic billfish, which include blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish and longbill spearfish, are now available for public review from the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atomospheric Administration announced today. The Fisheries Service is seeking comment from fishermen, conservationists and other interested members of the public on the draft proposal to protect and rebuild these stocks.
The draft Atlantic billfish fishery management plan was the first of 39 updated plans to be submitted for public comment under new guidelines of the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act that require fisheries managers to identify and rebuild overfished species. Draft amendments to the Atlantic billfish fishery management plan were developed by Fisheries Service managers with help from an advisory panel composed of recreational interests, the commercial fishing industry, conservationists and scientists. The draft provides a list of alternative actions, including recommended options.
"The fishing industry, conservation groups, and the general public are all concerned about the future of these valuable resources," said Terry Garcia, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator. "This draft, with its alternatives, contains a series of positive actions to restore depleted fish populations."
Atlantic blue and white marlin were identified as overfished by the Fisheries Service in September 1997. Later that year, U.S. fishery managers took a leadership role as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas passed a binding recommendation for billfish resources throughout the Atlantic Ocean that included reducing blue and white marlin landings by at least 25 percent from 1996 levels. ICCAT also monitors sailfish and longbill spearfish.
"I want to thank American fishermen for their hard work in support of Atlantic billfish conservation," said Rolland Schmitten, Fisheries Service director. "However, we must continue to closely monitor and manage this overfished species. These proposed amendments to the billfish fishery management plan should help the United States meet its commitment to ICCAT while laying out a strategy to help meet our domestic goal of rebuilding overfished stocks."
Atlantic blue marlin and white marlin stocks are estimated to be at 24 percent and 23 percent respectively of the levels needed to maintain the stock over an extended period, called maximum sustainable yield. Currently, commercial fishermen are not permitted to land Atlantic billfish, and no Atlantic billfish can be purchased, bartered, traded, or sold. A draft fishery management plan for other highly migratory species, expected to be proposed soon, will contain measures designed to reduce billfish bycatch in commercial highly migratory species fisheries (tunas, sharks, and swordfish).
Highlights of the amendments to the Atlantic billfish fishery management plan include:

* A 10 year rebuilding plan for overfished Atlantic billfish resources, which would require Atlantic-wide reductions in landings for Atlantic blue marlin to 1,800 metric tons and for white marlin to 800 metric tons. These actions would be contingent on action by ICCAT. The United States accounts for only a small percentage of Atlantic billfish mortality from recreational landings and commercial catch discards.);

* Increase minimum size limits for blue marlin, sailfish, and maintain the current minimum size for white marlin;

* Establish a bag limit of one billfish per vessel per trip, with a provision to set the bag limit to zero in the event that the Atlantic blue and/or white marlin landing limits have been reached;

* Implement charter/headboat logbook, permit and observer programs;

* Require prior notification for billfish fishing tournaments;

* Develop educational outreach programs for commercial and recreational fishermen to enhance post-release survival rates.

The public is invited to comment on the draft proposal through Jan. 3, 1999. Request copies of the draft proposal from, and send written comments to: Rebecca Lent, Chief, Highly Migratory Species Management Division, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, Md. 20910.