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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | The walleye run on the Tittabawassee this last year has already broken a few records. That may be due to much improved river conditions as a whole. Check out all the extensive work those survey boys I taxied around on the Tittabawassee for the last 2 years did on the river last summer. Makes me feel good about being a part of it. These new stabilized bank areas should produce some great fish holding holes and natural spawning areas in the near future.
http://www.epaosc.net/image_list.asp?site_id=3298
Edited by walleye express 5/4/2008 10:12 AM
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| Do you know why those banks are stablized? It's because Dow had to dig out the dioxin contamination there. It wasn't done for habitat purposes. In fact, the dredging that was done probably damaged the habitat much more than the dioxin ever would have. |
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Member
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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Wow is right. You sir know squat about this. I've listened for the last 3 years to all the EPA, DEQ and Soil erosion experts involved and attended many meeting talking about just what the benefits would be to the river system, besides getting rid of the contaminants lodged within and in the flood plains behind these particular banks. Why contaminants of any kind are stored in areas like these in the first place is because of the banks own dynamic and strata type failures. These restorations strengthen and reinforce the positive. I was also a member and part of a sports group funding project that stabilized banks on the Pere Marquette river system in exactly the same way. A permire Trout stream in our state and no contaminants there I know off. That particular stabilization project produced miles more of spawning gravel, improved the rivers own cleaning and flood control dynamics and moved tons of debris, sand and sediment out of the system quickly and cleanly during those flood stage events. These will do the same thing. Why this restoration was initiated at all was indeed because of Dow's bad habits back in the 70's. So shame on them. But it's over and done with. I for one will always be a watchful and involved stewart for the environment I enjoy. And what I see right now is a good thing.
Edited by walleye express 5/6/2008 3:07 PM
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| No need to get so defensive. Funny you mention going to all of these meetings. Strange I've never seen you at any of them? Perhaps you'll be at the one tomorrow night in Saginaw. Maybe then you'll also know "squat"?
My point is that this "bank stabilization" you refer to was only needed because of the work done to remove the contaminants. You should know that. It was not done for fish habitat purposes ala Pere Marquette. The simple fact is that these riverbanks should have been left undisturbed, and the habitat would have been better for that.
If you think that lining a riverbank with aggregate is developing prime walleye habitat, I'd like to know which limnology course you picked that up in.
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Member
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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | You mean identify myself at the meetings like you did in your post? Is WOW your first or last name? But your right I did get overly defensive. I re-read your post and it did seem more aimed at Dow versus me. And I'm sorry for not annoucing myself at the only 4 public meeting I attended in both Midland and Saginaw these last 5 years. Or the one I was personally invited to by Dow, the EPA and the DEQ to give them testimony of the changes I've noticed on the river I've been fishing on for the last 24 years. Your response just kinda reminded me of the people at the first Midland meeting with all the press around. With the people that wanted Dow to not only clean up the river but to buy their river side properties and homes at 4 times the going rate and take care of their future children from crib to grave. And I'm afraid I won't be at the meeting tomarrow. The settlement and my part in it is over. I'll be fishing on the river that I consider to be one of Michigans best walleye factories. I'd say see you sometimes on the river, but I'm guessing that won't happen. Good luck with your law suite. 
Edited by walleye express 5/6/2008 8:26 PM
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Member
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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | I'm sorry but I just have to add this. I spent probably 40 plus hours in my boat with these professionals from all sides of the issue, setting up all this dredging and bank work. I wasn't listening to Reo Speed Wagon on a I-pod all that time, I was asking questions about what and why they were doing what they were doing. Most of these heavy contaminents are not buried deep in the banks that they restored. They were and are close to the surface or in some instances right in the open where anybody could come into physical contact with them. These are the Hot Spots they describe in all their liturature on the project. I also worked with the EPA 7 years ago on their research vessel the "Mud Puppy" taking core samples of the Saginaw River. They found these hot spots to be 3 or more feet down, buried under that much sediment. I for one do not see the merit in dredging up contaminents buried that deep. Leave that sleeping dog lie. But these were an immediate danger to all. We can leave the river/fish habitate debate in neutral for the next few years and see who comes out right on that subject.
Edited by walleye express 5/6/2008 8:52 PM
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| What was the cost to DOW to remove and restore? Any money left over to get rid of the municipals sewage dumping into the rivers? It is always dissapointing to hear word that the "browns" are running after a good rain storm. Matter of fact it is disgusting, and of a greater, more relevant concern.
Seems a fisherman, or boater could choose to avoid "hot spots" but it is difficult to avoid contact with water when trying to catch fish or otherwise. Too bad the money spent could not have been diverted to a more widespread issue.
Hats off to DOW anyway for taking responsibility and employing several scientists, lawyers etc. in the process. Dioxin is 1down, now it's time to take on global warming...another somewhat useless quest, in comparison to a more tangible issue, and not neccessarily their issue. |
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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | E.C. - 5/7/2008 12:45 AM
What was the cost to DOW to remove and restore? Any money left over to get rid of the municipals sewage dumping into the rivers? It is always dissapointing to hear word that the "browns" are running after a good rain storm. Matter of fact it is disgusting, and of a greater, more relevant concern.
Seems a fisherman, or boater could choose to avoid "hot spots" but it is difficult to avoid contact with water when trying to catch fish or otherwise. Too bad the money spent could not have been diverted to a more widespread issue.
Hats off to DOW anyway for taking responsibility and employing several scientists, lawyers etc. in the process. Dioxin is 1down, now it's time to take on global warming...another somewhat useless quest, in comparison to a more tangible issue, and not neccessarily their issue.
E.C.
I'd be afraid to see what the bill was to Dow for all of this. And I stand neutral on the point of rather I think they deserved it or not. They contributed to the mess during a time when everybody was making messes. And being the last biggest dog standing it falls on them to clean it up. I heard a few years ago that they came very close to shutting the whole Midland Dow Complex down and moving to China, taking the same way out many of the other offenders did. I think few people realize how big this complex is and just what they do (besides the good wage employment they provide) for the well being of Midland and many surounding counties. Their recent building of a new Minor league baseball stadium in the city of Midland. Their non-profit sponsoring of just about anything and everything in that city and many others county wide. Their recent sponsoring of the PWT championships and the Bay City River Roar boat races just to name a couple of public functions in my neck of the woods.
Over 24 years ago the Tittabawassee was little more then a chocolate colored sespool with buzzards eating the dead carp, shad and suckers who themselves could not get enough oxygen out of the waters. In recent years I've seen as many as 3 Bald Eagles in one tree on the river up near the Dow Spillway. Seen deer, beavers, otters, ducks and geese both in and around the river suffering no ill effects that I ever detected. Caught more walleyes and bass then I can count, along with Salmon and Steelhead trout in the waters I can now see bottom in in 7 FOW when the rains allow. The contaminated bleeding on this river has stoped. It's just the left over scabs that have to be removed.
As far as the sewage spill problem on the Saginaw River, as you might know this problem is unique to the City of Saginaw itself. They stalled for years bringing their facility up to standards and now that their tax base is all but destroyed, loosing many of the manufacturing plants they once had, only a federal grant would build a bigger/better holding pond and stop the flow of (excuse the expression) MUD downstream. But that just may be in the works with a new Congrssional Grant from the feds. Time will tell. |
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| "this problem is unique to the City of Saginaw itself".
What?? Better double check your info...Bay City, Essexville, West Bay County, the City of Flint and a number of smaller communities upstream all dump sewage to the river. Unique to the City of Saginaw itself...what a laugh.
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Location: Rhinelander | Wow2,
Can you please provide the location of the sewage dumping, what utility is responsible and when those events occur from those cities? |
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| I know you are not doubting me, Steve. Just looking for info.
Here is the DEQ site that tracks each event. You can look for details by county or water body. This page (which is the first of several under these search results) shows dumping to Bay County (Saginaw River). You can scroll through them. The first on the list happens to be Bay City...49.4 gallons from 1.5 inches of rain. Nice huh?
http://www.deq.state.mi.us/csosso/events_by_county.asp?lstCounty=09...
So, please take the Capt's info with a grain of salt at all times. |
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Steve.
I'll have the real info for you in a bit. Saginaw dumps 10 times more then all the others combined and 10 times as often. You've used enough of my SALT over the years to know I'm the real deal. 49.4 gallons for 1 1/2 inches of rain is nothing. When Saginaw dumps they issue a river wide ecoli alert. WOW is just another of my fans.
Edited by walleye express 5/12/2008 10:58 AM
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| Well, Capt. If you do the research, you're going to be surprised. Anybody can go to that site and do the math. In fact, while Saginaw is bad, they are no better / no worse than the rest of the facilities along the watershed. The spent a bundle of many a while back on improvements (not enough in my opinion) but it did put them at the same level of discharge as their neighbors. Still not good, but not worse. In fact..look at the dates...Bay City is just as much of an offender as Saginaw. In some cases, worse.
My point is that you specifically stated that the "problem is UNIQUE" to Saginaw. You are incorrect and publicly available data points that out. I think that the simple thing is just to admit that you were incorrect and move on.
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| "Saginaw dumps 10 times more then all the others combined and 10 times as often"
But, I will be happy to look at the data that supports that claim. |
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| In case you can't find the info, one example of many:
March 31, 2008:
City of Saginaw 36.6 million gallons
City of Bay City 71 million gallons
So, who has the bigger problem? And no, riverwide ecoli alerts are not posted for the whole river when Saginaw discharges. Each health department does their own monitoring and posts the advisories in the individual communities. Frankly, most of the time (and please understand that I'm not making excuses for Saginaw because in my opinion 1 gallon is too much) by the time the water gets down to Bay City the discharge is diluted enough that it no longer would require a body contact advisory. In fact, advisories on the lower river are nearly 100% of the time a result of Bay City and Essexville treatment plants.
Like I said, not UNIQUE. |
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | I'll eat some crow on this for the word Unique. Saginaws Problem has historically been because of their older/smaller holding pond system which is automatically flushed during medium rain events. Even winter melt off events trigger Saginaws dumping as shown below. Bay City and others do all they can too hold and treat rain waters and have a bigger holding facility, but they to can be over loaded.
Sewage overflow totaled nearly 49 million gallons
Posted by By Times Staff February 23, 2008 19:54PM
Categories: Breaking News
Nearly 49 million gallons of combined sewage overflowed to the Saginaw River, officials from the Saginaw Wastewater Treatment Plant reported Saturday.
The overflow, of partial treated sanitary sewage and stormwater, occurred on Feb. 17-18 due to "excessive warm weather mixed with rain" that totaled 1.8 inches and filled all retention basins in the system, reports state.
The sewage was pretreated with hypochloride and solids were settled out before the discharge, but bacteria still remains without full treatment.
Samples for E. coli bacteria were not taken after the discharge because the river was frozen at the time and the ice was too thin to walk on safely, plant personnel said.
Edited by walleye express 5/12/2008 12:55 PM
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| During that same event, Bay City discharged 36.2 million gallons, and Essexville discharged 3.3 million gallons.
The bottom line is that Bay City and Essexville simply do not do a better job of handling this wastewater. In fact, Saginaw has much more capacity to handle these events, yet their combined system (like that in BC and Essexville) simple overwhelms the system.
There can be no apology (or excuse) for Bay City.
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| Yea, lets see, when it rains, don't touch the water....
Don't eat any fish caught above Dow in the Pine River.....
Who ya going to bill for those two? ??? I got it, lets make Dow pay, they have a ton of money....
Seems like our government agency's base their clean up efforts on who has the deepest pockets not what is best for our environment.
Sorry little Johnny, we cant go swimming in the water today, it rained last night. No we can't go fishing in the river either it rained last night, and we might get splashed.
Hey what do you say we spend this wonderful sunny day inside, playing checkers......
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| Agreed. I don't think that there is any question that Dow should pay for remediation activities that are required because of them. I don't think that they are not agreeing to that. What they disagree with is the no-holds-barred approach to destroying habitat for questionable gain. They are also disagreeable to paying for work (sewage overflows, Alma chemical contamination etc) that is not their fault. You want to see this get really messy? Just wait until Dow decides that in addition to the dioxins that they are dredging out of the river, they are also pulling out PCBs from General Motors, mercury from logging activities, and various other toxics. Fact is, PCBs have been identified as being a much larger problem in the system than dioxins (which, by the way, have not been identified as causing ANY human health effects, and recent studies of fish and game indicate that not only are those species healthy...their health surpasses that of control groups elsewhere in Michigan). And, Dow is not responsible for PCBs. There will be books written about the lawsuits that will come of that. Either there is some common sense injected into this process..or DEQ should concern themsleves not just with Dow...but also with every other company and community that has caused pollution of the system.
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