MUSKEGON -- Environmental regulators are proposing a $13 million cleanup of toxic mud from the bottom of Muskegon Lake.
The recommended plan would combine dredging and disposal of the most contaminated sediment, near Hartshorn Marina, with a 12-inch-deep cover of clean sand placed over the rest.
| IF YOU GO | ||
What: Public meeting at which federal and state officials will present plans for cleaning up contaminated sediment in Muskegon Lake near Hartshorn Marina. When: 7 p.m. Monday Where: Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, 200 Viridian, off Shoreline Drive in Muskegon. | ||
The cleanup is expected to start next spring and take about a year. It would disrupt marina and shoreline use for a time, but the outcome would be a safer lake and a long step toward removal of Muskegon Lake from a federal list of polluted sites -- a scarlet letter local leaders would love to lose.
The Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership is hosting a public meeting Monday on the draft results of a feasibility study on how to clean up the lake bottom between Heritage Landing and the Muskegon Family YMCA, near where the Division Street storm sewer drains into the lake. The study is by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
EPA and DEQ officials will outline alternative cleanup plans and take questions and comments from the audience.
Most emphasis will be on the plan researchers concluded makes the most sense, taking into account cost, impact and community acceptance: a combination of dredging with sand cover.
The goal is to clean up a 46.4-acre area of lake bottom contaminated with mercury and petroleum products, believed to have been dumped into storm sewers before 1980 by foundries and other industries. The Division Street drain is believed to discharge only storm water nowadays.
The contamination is not dangerous to swimmers, but eating too much mercury-laced fish is harmful to humans. And the toxins do pose a health risk to the lake's aquatic life, from tiny organisms to big fish.
Researchers examined seven alternative approaches to the problem and wound up recommending the dredging-sand cover combo. It's similar to the approach taken with the recent cleanup of Ruddiman Creek. It's cheaper and less disruptive than removal of all of the mercury-contaminated sediment, but more effective and permanent than simply covering all of it with sand or a cap.
The most contaminated sediment -- mostly the gunk nearest the shoreline, with a mercury concentration of more than 2 mg per kilogram -- would be dredged out and dewatered in a plant to be built on the shoreline nearby. After initial treatment, the drained water would go to the Muskegon County Wastewater Treatment Facility, according to Kathy Evans, director of the Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership. The dry sludge would go to a landfill licensed to handle it.
Twelve inches of clean sand would be laid over lake bottom with a mercury concentration of between 1 and 2 mg per kilogram -- less hazardous but still above the level deemed safe. Six inches of sand would be placed over the dredged area. Monitoring of the area would continue.
The total cost is estimated at about $13.4 million -- some $7 million cheaper than dredging all of the mercury-laced sediment. Of that, 65 percent would come from the EPA, with the state and other sources covering the rest.
Officials hope the project could help lead to removal of Muskegon Lake from a federal list of Areas of Concern, environmental hot spots. Final removal might still await a later cleanup of the Ryerson Creek area.
E-mail John S. Hausman at jhausman@muskegonchronicle.com