Document e7Om0mdN258O2D1qGVpN6a9Bg

Cities Lag in Treatment Plants Great Lakes Still Have Problems By MARGOS HORNBLOWER The Washington Post MILWAUKEE - The Great Lakes, North America's largest freshwater reservoir and the cradle of America's industrial revolution, are slowly reco vering from decades of environmental abuse. But while industries and cities have spent billions cleaning up the chemical and sewage wastes they pour into the lakes, enormous problems remain. Fish are poisoned by mercury, pesticides, PCB*s and other dangerous chemicals. Drinking water ia Lake Superior con tains asbestos, a possible cancer-caus ing agent. Scene beaches are closed because of sewage bacteria. - "In five years, we've come a long wav toward cleaning up the Great Lakes," said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Russell E. Train after a four-day trip aroiad the lakes. "Tremendous resources are being brought to bear, atid thaw are real suct cess stories. But it is a very mixed pic ture You can't cure the ills of 100 (years overnight." TEN YEARS AGO, NEWSPAPER headlines across the county decried TULSA, OKIA. D. 117.736 SUfL 193.964 AU6 22 W76 the "death" of Lake Erie, and the lake 1 became a national symbol of environ-' mental destruction, sparking tbe fled gling ecology movement Tbe late, a 12,000-year-old inland sea, Last week. Train said the treatment approach has faded. "Even as we get our sewage treatment plants on tine, we're finding they doo't give us ade quate phosphate reduction/' he said. - suffered from a premature agmg process called "eutrophication" which threatened to turn it into a swamp. "I DON'T SEE ANY ANSWER TO tbe problem short of a severe limita tion on phosphate detergents in the Cities around tbe late, such as Cleve Great Lakes area." He said EPA will land, Detroit and Buffalo, were pouring encourage states around tbe lakes to untreated sewage and phosphorous toto its waters. Phosphorous, a pervasive nutrient cfe4dned in find, household enact restrictions -- so far, only In diana, New York and Mintwiant? have strict phosphate laws. detergents and fertilizers, stimulates Although adequate sewage treatment underwater plant growth -- which in turn depletes oxygen necessary for fish to survive. Today, the dead, oxygen-depleted area milch ooce covered 60 per cent of tbe late bottom has begin to recede. However, Late Ontario also is suffer ing from eutfarophication, and has not facilities in Great Lakes cities will not be ready until 1961 at tbe earliest, in dustry is well on its way to complying with dean water regulation* by next year. As a tribute to industries' efforts. Tram donned a hard bat to tour Moth santo Co.'s phosphates plant^jn improved since 1967. IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, THE United States ha* undertaken of the largest public works projects in its ton, Mich., and Republic Steel's giant Cleveland mill. Monsanto's products appear in such familiar items as Coca-Cola, Kent ciga for water treatment facilities and tests show its discharges are cleaner than the river water it takes ia. history to build sewage treatment plants around the nation. Of the $16 billion allocated, about $5 billion is to be spent in tbe Great Lakes region by Sep tember 1977. Today about 60 per cent of the sew age produced by Americans living along tbe lakes receives adequate treatment. On tbe Canadian side, 97 per cent of the population is served by modem treatment plants. Tbe lag, produced in part by federal grant red tape, by local contractor biddung squabbles and the cities' financial problems, has produced some tension between Cfcnada and tbe United States. Tbe two countries signed a treaty in rettes, Colgate toothpaste and Tide de tergent In tbe late 1960s the plant, the largest phosphate operation in the world, was dumping 5,000 pounds of phosphate wastes a day into the Detroit River. Today, after 6750,010 worth of in-plant treatment facilities, the dis charge is 30 pounds a day. Republic's largest steel mill until re cently discharged cal, iron, zinc, phenol, ammonia and cyanide in 70 million gallons of water a day. A few years ago, tbe Cuyahoga River, which empties into Lake Erie, became so dirty from steel and chemical compa nies' discharges that it caught fire. Today, Republic has spent $55 million WHILE MOST OF THE 400 INDUS trial discharges along the Great lakes have agreed, often reluctantly, to comply with the water pollution control laws, 17 plants, including four owned by U.S. Steel, are fighting EPA in court Republic Steel and Armco, owners of Reserve Mining in Silver Bay, Minn., are locked in combat with tbe federal government over the company's pollu tion of Lake Superior. Reserve has dis charged 67,000 tons of taconite tailings daily for 21 years, contaminating the drinking water of Duluth with asbestos fibers, a possible--------------- '--------causing agent). 1972 pledging a joint cleanup by 1975. T------------------------- "--" Under the 1972 amendments to the ! Federal Water Pollution Control Act, EPA has authority to grant money for sewer plants and to require industry to restrict discharges. In 1972. it was thought that new sew age plants could clean up the phospho MONS rous that was killing the lakes -- al though environmentalists said a total ban o phesophates in detergents was tied. 037235