City thirsts for water plant improvements

Highland Park's City Council on Monday approved the purchase of a new $7.3 million filtration system that will screen microscopic particles from the city's water once installed.

The new submerged membrane filtration system will be installed at the city's water treatment plant as the centerpiece of a retrofitting of the plant that will make the drinking water safer for tens of thousands of people while adding capacity to a system now at its limits. The plant can currently pump about 21 million gallons per day. With the improvements, that number will increase to about 30 million gallons per day.

So-called conventional filtration, in place at the plant since it was built in 1929, filters water through layers of gravel and sand to screen out harmful particles. But that system doesn't protect against such harmful bacteria as cryptosporidium. A 1993 outbreak in Milwaukee, Wis., prompted regulators to require water plants to monitor their source water for the bacteria.

While the bacteria hasn't been detected in statistically significant amounts around Highland Park, the new filtration system will screen out the bacteria and anything else larger than .4 microns. It's composed of a polymer with pores that would be as difficult for the cryptosporidium bacteria to fit through as it would be to dunk a basketball through the eye of a needle.

Best technology

"It's a more positive barrier than the conventional filtration," said Don Jensen, the water plant superintendent. "It's the best available technology."

Highland Park will be the second Illinois plant on Lake Michigan to employ the membrane filtration system, after Lake Forest. With the purchase of the membrane system from Siemens for about $7.3 million, the city embarks on an ambitious plan that will involve retrofitting the existing plant while it's operating.

Now that the council has selected the system, consultants can proceed with designing the rest of the modifications, said Public Works Director Mary Anderson. She declined to offer an estimate on the final cost of the work because they're just at the beginning of the process, and it's difficult to say what contractors will bid. more

Learn more about $90m harbour cleanup plan

Hamilton Spetator

Environment Canada will provide details of the proposed $90-million cleanup of Randle Reef at a public meeting Tuesday.

Display panels containing much of the information can be viewed in advance on the Bay Area Restoration Council website, www.hamiltonharbour.ca.

Randle Reef is said to be the second-worst case of toxic coal tar contamination in Canada, after the tar ponds in Sydney, N.S.

The heaviest contamination covers 7.5 hectares beside U.S. Steel Canada's Hamilton Works near the foot of Sherman Avenue.

The plan is to surround it with a steel-walled structure, then dredge less-contaminated sediment elsewhere in the harbour, put it inside and cap it with clean fill.

The structure would hold enough contaminated sediment to fill Copps Coliseum three times. Part of the surface would become dock space for the Hamilton Port Authority and part would be landscaped.

The federal and provincial governments have each committed $30 million for the work, considered key to removing Hamilton Harbour from the International Joint Commission's list of Great Lakes pollution hot spots. The port authority has hired former federal cabinet minister Tony Valeri to help raise the $30-million local share. more

Genesee County drain commissioner says recession might be just the push water pipeline project needs; boosters start new push for county to build path

Could the nation's recession help make a proposed water pipeline to Lake Huron more than wishful thinking?

County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright is giving his strongest endorsement yet to what would be a massive public works project -- partly because the price of steel and labor could be tens of millions of dollars less than was expected just a few years ago.

"I believe Flint and Genesee County's best interests are served by building it," said Wright, who has supported a public referendum to decide whether to build a pipeline to Lake Huron.

"The question is: Do you want to end up leasing a car or owning it?"

By the end of next month, a consultant is expected to deliver a final report to the county, pinning down the cost of the project --Â estimated at about $350 million --Â and how it could be shared by communities along and around the 60-plus-mile pipeline route.

For months, the county drain office has been laying the groundwork for a public vote in the first half of next year, collecting political and financial support from the city of Flint and others along the path from Genesee County to property it owns on the Lake Huron shoreline.

Wright said now could be the best time to start the job for several reasons, including:
• The price of raw materials needed to build a pipeline has dropped drastically as a national recession has started to unfold during the last several months.

Steel prices have dropped about 50 percent below the all-time highs reached earlier this year, "so much (so) that there's a real potential" for deep savings, Wright said.

"Over the next 12 to 18 months, I think we're going to end up with the best prices" we could hope for, he said.

• County officials have started talks with the state Department of Environmental Quality about a permit to take water from Lake Huron.

Wright said the county is asking the state how it wants the pipeline designed to avoid any licensing hangups. more

Ceremony will commemorate lost ship, lost lives

Holland Sentinel

The month of November is synonymous with storms and shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. Mention November and those familiar with Great Lakes history quickly recall the “White Hurricane” of 1913 and the “Armistice Day Storm” of 1940. A November storm in 1966 claimed the Daniel J. Morrell and 28 of its crew of 29 on Lake Huron. In 1975, Lake Superior swallowed the Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew of 29.

This coming Tuesday will mark a landmark anniversary of another November shipwreck. On Nov. 18, 1958, the Carl D. Bradley broke apart in a fierce storm in northern Lake Michigan.

When the 623-foot Bradley was launched in 1927, it was the Queen of the Lakes, the largest vessel afloat on the Inland Seas. It sailed for the Bradley Transportation Company, the shipping division of the Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company. The fleet’s home port was Rogers City.

Through its career, it set numerous cargo records. In 1943, it was the first vessel to transit the newly opened Mac Arthur Lock at the Soo. But by the time it passed its half century mark in 1958, it was getting tired. That summer it was involved in two groundings, and with a slow economy, it spent several months in layup. As fall arrived, it set out again to help steel mills stock up with limestone before winter. On Nov. 17, it made its final delivery to Gary, Ind., and headed for home.

Bad weather was expected, and it hugged the Wisconsin shore on its north-bound trip. As it passed the Door County peninsula the following day, it turned east towards the Straits of Mackinaw. Shortly after the turn, a howling storm hit. Winds were at 65 miles per hour. Waves were running 20 feet or more. Shortly after 5:30 p.m., the ship lurched and the stern sagged. First Mate Elmer Flemming sent a mayday signal over the radio, but within minutes, the Bradley split in two and sank in 360 feet of water. more

New power plant seawall will handle biggest freighters

Muskegon Chronicle

Consumers Energy Co. is investing $11 million in the docking facility that accommodates 1,000-foot coal freighters at Muskegon's B.C. Cobb generating plant and benefiting several local companies at the same time.

Great Lakes Dock & Materials will be the prime contractor on the project that calls for replacement of 1,800 feet of seawall. Other local firms working on the job will be Jackson-Merkey Contractors, Northshore Construction Co. and Verplank Trucking.

"It's great that Consumers did that," said Great Lakes Dock's Joe Bailey, adding that he will be using local suppliers wherever possible.

The project has received permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It will involve placing 2.7 acres of fill outward from the existing seawall and construction of a new seawall.

In the process, it will eliminate 11 large round "docking cells," several of which already have been removed due to deterioration. The existing seawall, which has been in place since the 1940s, also has deteriorated.

"There are places in the steel with holes big enough to put your arm through," said Consumers Energy Public Affairs Director Dennis McKee.

The new seawall will consist of 52-inch-wide steel sections running 70 feet into the ground.

McKee said contractors expect to have the job 95 percent completed by March 1, in time for the first spring coal shipments. more

Lack of die-offs baffles scientists

Traverse City Record-Eagle

A year ago dead birds littered area Lake Michigan beaches, but it's been much different so far this year to the pleasant surprise of researchers.

"We were expecting to have lots and lots of dead birds to deal with, so it's good news that we haven't seen that," said Damon McCormick, a biologist with Common Coast Research and Conservation.

McCormick found seven dead common loons and a small group of dead red-necked grebes along the southern coast of the Upper Peninsula about six or seven weeks ago, but little since then, he said.

It's the same in other areas.

"By this time last year we had lots and lots of kills," said Mark Breederland from Michigan Sea Grant.

Breederland spent parts of last week walking about 10 miles of shoreline in Emmet, Charlevoix and Antrim counties, all sites where large numbers of birds died from botulism poisoning last year. He found just one carcass in Wilderness State Park near the Straits of Mackinac and another the week before in northern Antrim County, he said.

"Our phone lines would be ringing if we had big die-offs and we're just not seeing it," Breederland said.

This year so far brought three small confirmed outbreaks, in Mason County in June and July, in Emmet County in July and in Oceana County in August, said Tom Cooley, wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Botulism poisoning killed an estimated 7,500 native and migrating birds -- loons, ducks, gulls, cormorants and endangered piping plovers -- last year along shorelines between Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the Straits of Mackinac and along the southern coast of the Upper Peninsula. An outbreak of the disease was blamed for the deaths of about 2,600 birds in fall 2006 near the dunes.

Area environmental groups organized training sessions for "beach rangers" toward the end of summer, to prepare volunteers to help assess the extent of bird die-offs and learn proper disposal methods for dead birds. They were ready for another ecological tragedy.

"I think it might still be too early. The migration is still under way," said Gary Rentrop of Cross Village, a beach ranger who inspects two miles of beach about three times every week.

Rentrop found just a couple of dead birds in an area where 80 carcasses were found last year, he said.

Experts believed the bird deaths likely were a chain reaction from invasive species, including zebra and quagga mussels and round gobies.

The theory was that mussels filter the water, allowing more light to grow more cladophora algae, which hikes chances for botulism outbreaks. Birds could be poisoned and die by eating infected fish and mussels, as well as scavenging carcasses and maggots on the beach.

But with the lake still full of invasive mussels and gobies, that mechanism theory for avian botulism poisoning may need to change, McCormick said. more

Cobourg applies for water plant upgrade cash

The Independent

Cobourg council has pushed through a federal grant application for the last $1.3 million in upgrades to the water pollution control plant.

“There’s no guarantees,” said Councillor Dean McCaughey, public works coordinator, at the Nov. 10 meeting. “There’s a lot of competition.”

The Build Canada application for $1.3 million would complete the plant upgrades and keep pollutants out of Lake Ontario. The final upgrade will install a tertiary treatment system at the plant. The cloth filtering system will improve sewage quality and allow the plant to meet Ministry of Environment limits and improve the quality of the plant effluent.

The project was included with the other plant upgrades already given council approval under a Canada-Ontario Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund (COMRIF) grant this summer. COMRIF granted $4.3 million for the water pollution control plant upgrades.

“Because of escalating costs for equipment we had to scale back the project and held back the tertiary treatment system,” said Coun. McCaughey.

The Build Canada Fund is a new federal government infrastructure program, that splits the cost of approved projects between the federal, provincial and municipal governments.

“Whenever we had an extra penny to spend, we turned it to infrastructure,” Northumberland-Quinte West MPP Lou Rinaldi told council.

However, the province was trying to catch up on the infrastructure deficit even though “health care could have used it, education could have used it,” said Mr. Rinaldi.

The town had also considered applying to the Build Canada fund for Albert Street redevelopment or to hook up Cedarmere Avenue and Tay Street to the town sewer system.

“We felt we would be unsuccessful there as well,” said Coun. McCaughey.

In the end, town staff thought the water plant project had the best chance of getting the funding, because it received government approval before.

“This actual work was approved under a COMRIF application,” said Chief Administrative Officer Steve Robinson, who added COMRIF and Build Canada criteria are very similar. more

Ottawa agrees to dredge Sarnia harbour

London Free Press

The federal government's decision to dredge Sarnia Harbour will be a boon to the local economy, officials say.

"It's been difficult accepting loaded ships that require the full seaway depth because they weren't able to get in and out of the harbour," said Garry McDonald, general manager of the Sarnia-Lambton Chamber of Commerce.

More ships could end up spending time in the harbour once the dredging has been completed, he said. And that could be good for the economy because the vessels often undergo repairs while they're docked.

Last winter, 14 freighters tied up in Sarnia, providing millions of dollars worth of work to local tradespeople.

McDonald said the chamber, along with other groups, has been lobbying Ottawa to carry out the dredging. But it was held up while officials searched for ways to dispose of the material that will have to be scooped from the bottom of the harbour. more

Fish Farming Compliance Training Workshop Planned

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility is sponsoring the second annual fish farming compliance training workshop on December 5. The event, which will be held in Madison at the East Side Club from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., will allow Wisconsin's fish farmers to hear firsthand from regulatory agency personnel on new or pending rules affecting the state's growing aquaculture industry.

This past year the aquaculture industry has encountered many state and federal rule changes. Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia, a fish disease of worldwide concern that was first found in Wisconsin in 2007, continues to be the focus of new rules aimed at slowing the spread of the disease and protecting the aquaculture industry. In addition, invasive species and the Great Lakes Compact, now federal law, are issues with pending rules which may affect the aquaculture industry.

The day-long workshop will cover new rules concerning VHS on both a state and federal level; the proposed Chapter NR-40 Invasive Species Identification, Classification and Control Rule; information on the Great Lakes Compact; new Type 3 fish farm registration with medical separation; and record keeping. more