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Since 1997, Great Lakes states have warned women of child-bearing age and children under the age of 6 not to eat more than one meal per week of sport fish caught in any body of water in the state because of high levels of mercury or polychlorinated biphenyls, chemicals that can accumulate in the body to health-harming levels.

That advice has been extended to everyone in general rules written this year.

The more restrictive rules are the result of persistent PCB and mercury contamination of Ohio waters, caused mainly by coal-fired power plants, and better fish monitoring by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

The fish advisories are issued jointly by the Ohio EPA, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Ohio Department of Health. Read the rest of this entry »

London and other municipalities that draw water from the Great Lakes may have to begin paying for it, a former city treasurer warns. “That’s a possibility,” Nigel Bellchamber said.

Bellchamber is co-chair-person of a committee announced that will advise the government early in the new year on how charges for water should be applied.

London and other area municipalities do not pay for water they draw from lakes Erie and Huron.

The situation is the same for companies that extract water directly from the ground, rivers and lakes.

But much study of the option of making municipalities pay a royalty for water lies ahead, Bellchamber said. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ontario Liberals are working overtime on painting their government green in an attempt to return Ontario to the days when its environmental reputation was recognized around the world.

But critics say while it’s a distinct change from the former Conservative government, many of the measures the Liberals have introduced over the past two months amount to feel-good bluster, rather than concrete improvements.

From the mid-1980s to the early ’90s, Ontario’s environmental standards for water, air and land were recognized as some of the best in the world. But after the Tories made drastic cuts to grapple with the deficit in 1995, that reputation soon faltered, and Ontario was suddenly being compared with the likes of Mississippi and Texas when it came to the province’s environmental record. Read the rest of this entry »

Wisconsin and Minnesota natural resource officials are trying to snuff what’s become the largest source of dioxin pollution in the nation — backyard burn barrels.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources received a report earlier this month that recommends using education, cooperation with local governments and increased enforcement to curb what’s now seen as a global environmental issue.

And the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance will ask the 2004 Legislature to end loopholes to a 1969 law that still allows some garbage burning. Read the rest of this entry »

The Green Bay Water Commission started the flow of processes that may lead to suburban water sales.

The commission ordered staff to start legal work on agreements - picking up in some cases from where they left off when past talks failed - and started to look at its own negotiating teams.

They’ll probably be led by commission vice president Tim Nixon. The commission has finished technical talks with the Central Brown County Water Authority and with Ashwaubenon. Now, it’s going to look at the outlines of a deal. Read the rest of this entry »

BP Products North America has agreed to pay the state $106,000 to settle four violations of air pollution laws at the company’s refinery on Cedar Point Road in Oregon.

One of the violations requires the company to install a newly designed seal system on a compressor unit.

The existing seals leak. Records show the refinery has had problems with them for months, resulting in excess releases of airborne chemicals classified by state officials as volatile organic compounds. Efforts to repair the seals have failed, Dina Pierce, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency spokesman, said. Read the rest of this entry »

Nine suburbs seeking a drinking-water agreement with Green Bay pitched a new proposal that could be a last attempt to save a deal more than two years in the making.

The suburbs have sweetened a previous offer to share the costs of a second Lake Michigan pipeline with the city by offering to also build and donate to the city a needed second lake water intake and pump at an estimated cost of about $14 million.

The suburbs, which operate as the Central Brown County Water Authority, would turn the new facilities over to the city following a model used by communities that join the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District. Read the rest of this entry »

People all over the world create tons of garbage and sewage every day. As the population of the planet increases, the problem of what to do with this waste increases. I am sure you have heard the foolish statement that all of the people on the planet could be put into Florida. That means standing in one place, on one yard square in Florida. One still has to have a place to lie down, a place to work, a place or two to recreate, a place to make beer, and of course, a place to put our wastes.

Wisconsin has been dealing with this waste problem for years. If you consider the dredging of the Fox River, if it wasn’t polluted with toxic chemicals like PCBs, the dredging spoils would be a rich additive to any cropland. The situation is further complicated by other pollution dumped into rivers by industry illegally and legally, and by legally I mean it has been made legal by constant prodding and piles of money from lobbyists for special interest polluters. Read the rest of this entry »

State environmental officials have worked with paper companies and utilities for several years to cut air and water emissions of toxic chemicals, said Jack Sullivan, acting administrator for the Department of Natural Resources’ Enforcement and Science Division.

“There’s a lot of emphasis on this, and we’re now seeing some of the results,” he said.

In 2001, the latest year for which figures are available, almost 35 million pounds of chemicals were released into Wisconsin’s environment, mostly air emissions. That’s down from 38.4 million pounds in 2000.

Although the decline was below the national decrease, Sullivan said it’s difficult to compare Wisconsin with the national average because the types of industries vary in each state. Read the rest of this entry »

Milwaukee - A new invasive species is threatening the waters of Lake Michigan, but not without a fight from area teachers.

Fourth-grade teacher Randy Watts joined 11 other teachers from southeastern Wisconsin in a summer research project to protect the lake from such species.

Last week, teachers studied with scientists from the Great Lakes Water Institute as they examined the water in which zebra mussels, and the lesser-known quagga mussels, live. They learned first-hand how to collect water, soil and animal specimens while aboard the Water Institute’s research boat, the Neeskay. Read the rest of this entry »