Greal
Lakes
National
Program
&EPA
On the Web at:
www. epa.gov/glnpo
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Great Lakes National Program Office
Significant Activities Report
September 2003
IN THIS ISSUE:
• What's a Cleanup Worth?
• A Great Education
• Toxics from Afar
• Another Look at Saginaw
• Come to Greenacres
• Mudpuppy Joins Celebration
What's a Cleanup Worth?
Waukegan Harbor, Illinois in background
With Waukegan Harbor Marina in foreground
The costs of cleaning up contaminated sedi-
ments can run into multi-millions of dollars.
There is little doubt that cleaning up con-
taminated sediments is good for the envi-
ronment. But is there also an economic
benefit to the local area? If so, can it be
quantified? The Northeast-Midwest Institute
applied for and received a grant from the
Great Lakes National Program Office to an-
swer just this question, choosing the Wau-
kegan Harbor (Lake County), Illinois for a
case-study. The Institute worked in collabo-
ration with economists from the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and San
Francisco State University to perform the
actual economic study.
Waukegan Harbor became notorious in the
mid-1970's when sediments with some of
the worst PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls)
contamination in the nation were discovered
there. Following many years of legal pro-
ceedings and studies, a $20-25 million
cleanup was conducted in the early 1990's.
The cleanup greatly reduced PCB levels in
the harbor, but further cleanup is planned to
complete the restoration of full use of the
harbor and de-listing of this Great Lakes
Area of Concern.
The Northeast-Midwest Institute unveiled
the results of the economic study to the pub-
lic on September 22nd at the College of Lake
County in Waukegan, Illinois. Dr. John
Braden of the University of Illinois pre-
sented the findings of how Lake County
homeowners can benefit from the cleanup
of Waukegan Harbor. Dr. Braden estimated
that Waukegan residential property values
could increase by more than $250 million if
the harbor undergoes a complete cleanup.
There was a great deal of interest in the
study findings: approximately 60-80 people
attended the forum. Other speakers at the
forum were Mayor Richard Hyde of the
City of Waukegan; Congressman Mark Kirk
(R-10th/IL), Great Lakes National Program
Manager and USEPA Region 5 Regional
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September 2003
Significant Activities Report
Administrator Tom Skinner; Illinois EPA
Associate Director Ron Burke; Susie
Schreiber, Director of the Waukegan Har-
bor Citizens Advisory Group; Chairperson
Rosa Reyes-Prosen of the College of Lake
County Board of Trustees and the Latino
Coalition; and Nicole Mays and Richard
Munson of the Northeast-Midwest Institute.
You can read a summary of the findings on
the Northeast-Midwest Institute's Web Site
at: http://www.nemw.org/
greatl akes. htm#waukegan
To learn more about the Waukegan Harbor
Area of Concern and the status of cleanup
activities, go to: http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/
aoc/waukegan.html.
(Contact: Scott Cieniawski, cieniawski.
scott@epa.gov, 312-353-9184)
A Great Education
The Great Lakes National Program Office's
180-foot research ship, the R/VLake Guard-
ian hosted two educational courses and a sem-
inar on limnology (study of lakes) this Summer.
Students included undergraduate and gradu-
ate students majoring in science and/or edu-
cation. The courses were intended to give
students an appreciation for the both the
vastness of the resource that is the Great
Lakes as well as the fragility of that re-
source as it is impacted by toxic chemicals
and invasive species. The ultimate goal of
these classes was to pass on what the stu-
dents learned to others as the students use
and use this knowledge in their technical
careers or share it with their students and
the Great Lakes community. In addition to
the classroom lectures and films, students
got to take a hand in collecting samples us-
ing the wide array of the Lake Guardian's
monitoring equipment and then to analyze
the samples in the ship's laboratories.
The first course was held in Lake Erie and
Students learn how the Lake Guardian uses radar
and GPS to navigate the Great Lakes and position
itself for taking environmental samples
Lake Ontario in late-July. The course was
organized by Niagara University with in-
structors from the Great Lakes National
Program Office, Niagara University, the U.
S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the New
York Sea Grant office. A total of 14 gradu-
ate and undergraduate students in education
from Niagara University and the University
of Buffalo had classes in a wide range of
subjects including the geology of the Great
Lakes (taught on a field visit to the Niagara
River Gorge), invasive species and shipping
(while transiting the Welland Canal be-
tween Lakes Erie and Ontario), air and wa-
ter monitoring, sampling fish populations
using electro-shocking and trawl nets, cur-
rent research on the Lower Lakes and the
St. Lawrence River, dunes ecology, getting
involved in Great Lakes issues through non-
governmental organizations, lake and areas
of concern restoration plans. Students are
developing lesson plans from what they
learned in the class to share with other edu-
cators.
The second limnology course was held in
mid-September in Lake Ontario. Clarkson
University was in charge of this course, and
instructors were drawn from the Great
Lakes National Program Office, USEPA
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Students analyze water samples
in the Lake Guardian's wet lab
Region 2, Clarkson University, the Univer-
sity of Tennessee, and Bowling Green State
University. A total of seven undergraduate
and graduate students took part, including
one from Brazil and one from Canada. As
the Lake Guardian sailed from Kingston,
Ontario on the East end of Lake Ontario to
Toronto and Niagara on the West end, lec-
tures and field exercises covered included
basic limnology, ecological principles, bac-
teria and viruses, ornithology (surveying
bird populations), the Lake Ontario lower
food web, and phosphorus and eutrophica-
tion. The classes were conducted in tandem
with the USEPA Region 2 LOLA (Lake
Ontario Lower Food Web) Study, so stu-
dents also had a chance to see real Great
Lakes research and monitoring.
The educational seminar was held on
Lake Michigan. It was organized by
Loyola University - Chicago, and included
instructors from the Great Lakes National
Program Office, Loyola University - Chi-
cago, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice. The student body was comprised of 5
undergraduate students, 2 graduate students,
and a recent Master's in Biology graduate.
Two of the students were education majors
who would be able to use what they learned
in developing lessons for their classrooms.
Students gained first-hand knowledge of
how biological, sediment, and water moni-
toring are conducted and learned how the
data are interpreted to understand the ecol-
ogy of the Great Lakes.
Feedback from both the students and in-
structors was unabashedly positive, with
several students remarking that this class
was the best experience they had in 4 years
of college, and many words of praise for the
professionalism and helpfulness of the Lake
Guardian crew and Great Lakes National
Program Office scientists.
Proposals for educational courses aboard
the Lake Guardian in 2004 are being solic-
ited now (deadline for applications is De-
cember 12th). For further information on this
request for proposals go to: http://www.epa.
gov/glnpo/fund/rfp/guardian2004.html.
(Contacts: George Ison, 312-353-1669,
ison.george@epa.gov; David Rockwell,
312-353-1373, rockwell.david@epa.gov; or
Glenn Warren, 312-886-2405, warren.
glenn@epa.gov)
Toxics from Afar
A two-day workshop on Long Range Trans-
port of persistent bioaccumulative toxic
substances was held in Ann Arbor on Sep-
tember 16th and 17th. The event was co-
sponsored by USEPA and Environment
Canada, with the support of the Commis-
sion for Environmental Cooperation, the In-
ternational Joint Commission, and the Delta
Institute. The workshop was organized in
response to a challenge within the Great
Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy to evalu-
ate the contribution and significance of
long-range transport of toxic substances
from worldwide sources to the Great Lakes.
Drawing on both a commissioned back-
ground paper and over 70 experts from
around the world, the workshop reviewed
U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office
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September 2003
Significant Activities Report
Long Range
Transport-.-
Workshop
2003
Ann Arbor.
Michigan USA
Long Range Transport Workshop logo
the latest research on the global fate and cy-
cling of persistent bioaccumulative toxics,
or PBTs, identified critical knowledge gaps,
and provided recommendations on future
activities necessary to adequately address
long-range transport.
Some of the most significant findings from
the workshop include:
• the need to harmonize monitoring net-
works sampling intervals and methods,
• the urgency to establish sentinel sites to
assess the trans-Pacific transport of
PBTs,
• the utility of passive air samplers as an
inexpensive method for assessing POPs
in source regions,
• the importance of model inter-
comparison studies for improving the
reliability of model results, and
• the use of newly available models to as-
sess the long-range transport potential of
substances to the Great Lakes.
The workshop participants are currently in
the process of drafting an "Ann Arbor State-
ment." This Statement is intended to be a
comprehensive, compelling, and unambigu-
ous declaration of a set of actions required
to expand our understanding of long-range
transport and PBTs in the Great Lakes re-
gion.
The commissioned background paper, the
workshop's program, the workshop presen-
tations, and the draft Ann Arbor Statement
are available on the Web at: http://www.
delta-institute.org/lrtworkshop/open.html
(Contacts: Todd Nettesheim, 312-353-9153,
nettesheim.todd@epa.gov; Melissa Hulting,
(312) 886-2265, hulting.melissa@epa.gov;
or Ted Smith, (312) 353-6571, smith.
edwin@epa.gov)
Another Look at Saginaw
Approximately 175,000 cubic yards of
PCB-contaminated sediments were removed
from the Saginaw River in 2000 and 2001
as part of an Natural Resource Damage set-
tlement. In an effort to document the suc-
cess of this effort in meeting the cleanup
objectives, the R/VMudpuppy was in its
home port of Bay City, Michigan to assist
the Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality (MDEQ) to sample the Saginaw
River. On September 2nd and 3rd, the MDEQ
and GLNPO collected approximately 15
sediment cores from the river. MDEQ's
state lab is conducting the analysis of the
samples, and results should be available in
November 2003.
(Contact: Scott Cieniawski, cieniawski.
scott@epa.gov, 312-353-9184).
Dredging contaminated sediments
from the Saginaw River
(photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
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September 2003
Come to Greenacres
White Asters
Come learn how to landscape with beautiful
native plants. Because native plants are ac-
climated to their local environment, they
need minimal care, minimal irrigation, fer-
tilization, and are resistant to insects. At the
same time, they provide wildlife habitat and
help preserve the area's natural history.
The Green Landscaping with Native Plants
web site (www.epa.gov/greenacres/),
"Greenacres" for short, is one of the most-
visited parts of the Great Lakes National
Program Office's Web Site, has been redes-
igned to facilitate ease of use. This very
popular web site is looked to as a resource
by the public and professionals alike. In
September 2003, the site had over 41,000
hits. Usage has been as high as 60,000 hits
in a month.
Come see what all the excitement is about,
come to Greenacres and stay awhile.
(Danielle Green, green.danielle@epa.gov,
312-886-7594)
Mudpuppy Joins Celebration
On September 26th and 27th, the Great Lakes
National Program Office's sediment-
sampling boat, the R/VMudpuppy, was in
the Lake Erie Metro Park to join in the cele-
bration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice's 100th anniversary of the National
Wildlife Refuge System. The Detroit Inter-
national Wildlife Refuge is one of the few
wildlife refuges sited in an urban area. The
purpose of the celebration was to educate
the urban population on the importance of
conservation, and the need to preserve our
remaining wildlife areas in urban areas.
Several thousand people (including many
business leaders from Detroit companies, as
well as hunters, fishers, photographers,
bird-watchers, conservationists, and fami-
lies) attended the centennial celebration.
Activities included everything from bird
walks to hunting dog demonstrations to a
Native American invocation. Among the
VTPs at the celebration were Department of
Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Congress-
man John Dingell (D-15th/MI); Bill Hart-
wig, Director of the Wildlife Refuge System
for US Fish and Wildlife Service; Wayne
County Executive Robert Ficano and Cana-
dian dignitaries.
GLNPO's Rose Ellison and USEPA Region
5's Laura Lodisio conducted an environ-
mental education activity with eight groups
of area students as part of the "Kids in the
Field Day" activity. The Mudpuppy's crew
handed out brochures and answered ques-
Polly and Joe Bonem of Cetacean Marine, Inc. and
GLNPO's Rose Ellison prepare to answer visitors'
questions about the Mudpuppy
(Cetacean Marine, Inc. provides the operating crew
for the Mudpuppy under contract to GLNPO)
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Significant Activities Report
A lesser scaup, one kind of diving duck that spends
part of its migration each year in the Detroit River
International Wildlife Refuge
(photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
tions about the 32-foot vessel that's spe-
cially outfitted to take sediment samples in
Great Lakes rivers and harbors. The Mud-
puppy has been used extensively for charac-
terizing the sediments in the Great Lakes
Areas of Concern.
For more information about the Mudpiippy,
see: http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/sediment/
mud work/mudpup. html.
To learn about the Great Lakes Areas of
Concern, go to: http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/
aoc/index.html.
To learn more about the National Wildlife
Refuge System, surf over to: http://refuges.
fws.gov/.
(Contacts: Rosanne Ellison, ellison.
rosanne@epa.gov, 734-692-7689 or Laura
Lodisio, lodisio.laura@epa.gov, 312-886-
7090)
We welcome your questions, comments or
suggestions about this month's Significant
Activities Report. To be added to or re-
moved from the Email distribution of the
Significant Activities Report, please contact
Tony Kizlauskas, 312-353-8773,
kizlauskas.anthony@epa.gov.
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