Traces of tritium found at Palisades

Radioactive tritium still may be leaking at the Palisades nuclear power plant, as monitoring has revealed there still is measurable tritium in one test well.

Mark Savage, public affairs and communications director for Palisades, told the Van Buren County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that 13 of its monitoring wells are below the ``minimal detectable activity,'' or MDA, for the substance. But one well still has detectable levels.

``All of the 14 wells, save the one, continue to show MDA,'' Savage said. ``We're trying to determine what that means,'' he said.

Savage said that one well is close to MDA, but ``continues to show slight fluctuations up and down even with all the repairs that we've made.''

The most recent level was 3,000 picocuries per liter of water, according to Savage. ``A picocurie is one trillionth of a curie, so it's a very minimal amount of material,'' Savage said.

A curie is a unit of radioactivity.

Tritium is a weakly radioactive form of hydrogen that can combine with oxygen to form a type of water. It is created in nature when hydrogen reacts with cosmic rays. Its half-life is 12.3 years. In the nuclear reactor, it's found in what's called ``utility water.'' That water is pumped to holding tanks.

A year ago Palisades found a level of 22,000 picocuries per liter of water, 2,000 above the reportable level for drinking water, although none of the monitoring wells is used for drinking water. more

Dredge work stuck

William Webber has two bottles of chilled champagne he'll uncork when crews dredge the silt-clogged Saginaw River.

Webber, leader of the Saginaw River Alliance, may have to keep the bottles on ice -- maybe until the daffodils sprout.

Engine problems on a dredge delayed the start-up of the $1.9 million project, said Tom Zatkovic, general superintendent of Luedtke Engineering Co. in Frankfort. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hired the west Michigan company to remove up to 200,000 cubic yards of silt along the upper river channel from Saginaw to Bay City.

But if the waterway ices over, it could mean several weeks more before the dredging starts, he said, possibly postponing work to spring.

''If I knew what the weather was going to do, I could give you a definitive answer,'' Zatkovic said. ''If temperatures stay cold and freezing, we probably won't start up until we see a break in the weather, which could be spring. If we get a warming trend, we're anxious to get it done, too.'' more

Latest Queen City waterfront plan

It's a story you saw First on 4.

Revealing the latest Queen City waterfront plan, designed to rival attractions in Baltimore and other great harbor cities, the planners and visionaries said Buffalo is poised to reinvent itself as a first class tourist destination.

"Probably some of the most exciting pedestrian environments within a thousand miles," said Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation Vice Chairman, Larry Quinn.

Anchored by a new 150,000-square-foot Bass Pro Outdoor Store with underground parking, visitors will enter an Erie Canal themed district to be entertained, fed and housed.

Jordan Levy, Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation Chairman, said, "It's going to be great restaurants, great nightlife, lots to do, lots to see, lots to enjoy."

Bars may recreate the atmosphere of the bawdy saloons of yester-year.

Water and canals are the main theme. An 80-foot-long water tunnel, for example, will connect Bass Pro with a Great Lakes Museum. You'll be surrounded by fish.

Waterfront Architect, Hilary Bertsch, said, "We're gonna figure out how to put fish in, and then above it, we're going to have real water that you can have boats and, ya know, skating in the winter, boating in the summer."

The Donovan Building will be converted into a hotel, apartments, and office space. There will be a boutique hotel at the water's edge. Small scale restaurants, shops, and apartments will offer a family friendly place to visit and hopefully attract more people to live downtown.

"You're going to see people living downtown. People living downtown ultimately link into more retail, more restaurants. It's a snowball in a positive way," said Erie County Executive Chris Collins. more

Harbor funding in place

The city of Gladstone recently received the last of three grants from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust fund (MNRT) to fund phase one of the city's Harbor Point Improvement project.

Gladstone was awarded $100,000 from the MNRT this month for the project as well as a $150,000 grant from the Great Lakes Fishery Trust (GLFT) in November and a $75,000 grant in July from the Department of Environmental Quality.

Gladstone Parks and Recreation Director Nicole Sanderson said the city has been trying to get contract dates moved up so the project can get underway this summer. As it stands, work on the project, including installation of infrastructure by city crews, will begin in summer 2010.

Phase one of the Harbor Point project will include installing fish cleaning stations and restrooms.

Other improvements include utility upgrades like electricity, water and sewer, installing new boat slips and replacing old ones in the harbor and sidewalk installation. The Harbor Point Improvement project plan was first developed two years ago.

Sanderson said Gladstone was not only successful in getting the grants, but also coordinating them so they would pay for the entire project. In this case, the grants act as matches for each other, so the city has no out-of-pocket expenses. "This allows us to continue to improve our facilities without using general fund or tax dollars," said Sanderson. "When residents see these projects being done while people are out of work and the economy is so bad, they need to know that it's not their tax dollars paying for it." more

Erie Canal Harbor plan meets with widespread approval

Buffalo News

A reworked $325 million vision of Buffalo’s Erie Canal Harbor neighborhood as a regional destination for working, living and playing debuted Sunday, eliciting many positive reviews and a few suggestions.

Many of those briefed on the updated master plan, which proposes more than 700,000 square feet of new retail, entertainment, residential and office space across more than 20 acres of the downtown waterfront, are encouraged by the blueprint.

“It’s a very exciting concept. It seems like something we could all be proud of,” said Joseph Mascia, a resident of the Marine Drive Apartments, which abuts the massive redevelopment site. “I’ve traveled to Boston, Baltimore and Cleveland and seen what they’ve done with their waterfronts, and in many ways this will be even better,” Mascia added.

But Mascia, a resident representative on the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, and his wife, Lorraine, a member of the Marine Drive residents council, both want to see citizen involvement as Canal Side plans move forward.

“There has to be resident involvement, because this is for the people of Buffalo, not just the developers and politicians,” Lorraine Mascia said.

David A. Franczyk, Buffalo Common Council president, whose district includes Canal Side, also was upbeat about what the massive public and private investment could mean for the city.

“It seems very creative, and it makes a good impression,” Franczyk said. “Because there are a lot of different components, it should bring people to downtown Buffalo.”

Franczyk did raise a concern that the plan includes a site labeled “Public Market,” which would house a collection of food vendors and small shops.

“Buffalo already has a public market, and that’s the city-owned Broadway Market. This will be a privately owned market, so they should call it something else,” Franczyk said. more