ENVIRONMENT: Lake Ontario, on the rebound

[Spiel]

ENVIRONMENT: Lake Ontario, on the rebound

 

 

March 17, 2010

Jeremy Moule / www.rochestercitynewspaper.com

 

 

About two miles off the shore of Lake Ontario, the water's often so clear that a measuring device submerged 40 feet is visible from the surface.

 

That's a major improvement from the 1970's and 1980's, when "if you could see down 10 feet, you'd be lucky," says Joseph Makarewicz, a SUNY Brockport environmental science and biology professor who studies aspects of the lake's ecosystem.

 

Makarewicz and others attribute the clear water to advances such as efforts to reduce the amount of phosphorus discharged into the lake, as well as stricter controls on sewage treatment plants.

 

Lake Ontario's health has improved greatly over the last 30 to 40 years; so much so that researchers and environmental officials have begun serious efforts to reintroduce native fish species that disappeared long ago. That's good news, but it would be na�ve to say there aren't still problems to address. Among them are emerging invasive species threats - Asian carp has a lot of people worried - and the evolving nature of lake water pollution.

 

Even phosphorus remains a pesky problem. When the state banned the use of the nutrient in laundry detergents, officials wrote the law too specifically, says Ray Yacuzzo, a DEC special assistant to the commissioner, who's tasked with Lake Ontario issues. At the time, dishwashers weren't ubiquitous and dishwasher detergent wasn't included in the law. Dishwashers are now common in households and the detergent is typically high in phosphorus.� And since wastewater treatment plants aren't terribly effective at removing phosphorus, the substance is still making its way into the lake.

 

The phosphorus, combined with residential and agricultural fertilizer runoff, contributes to substantial aquatic vegetation growth in the near-shore areas.

 

"We're basically over-fertilizing Lake Ontario," Yacuzzo says.

 

It's that vegetation that contributes to the frequent closings of Ontario Beach to swimming.

 

While pollution levels in the lake are decreasing, the nature of the contaminants is changing. No longer is industrial pollution the chief concern - in fact, industry contributes roughly 10 percent of the lake's surface pollution, Yacuzzo says.

 

Industrial pollution is still an issue. In places like the Rochester Embayment Area of Concern, an impaired area that surrounds the mouth of the Genesee River, officials are trying to sort out how to deal with pollutants that have settled at the bottom. Those include industrial chemicals and heavy metals.

 

Airborne contaminants from sources like coal power plants - they're a source of mercury - are another problem, Yacuzzo says. But contamination from runoff is a bigger problem - perhaps the biggest. The runoff carries fertilizer nutrients as well as herbicides and pesticides into the lake. This kind of pollution is challenging because it often doesn't involve a single source and can be difficult to pinpoint.

 

Authorities are also struggling with newly recognized contaminants, including pharmaceuticals. When people dump or flush household drugs down drains, the compounds ultimately end up in Lake Ontario via treated sewage. The chemicals build up in the lake ecosystem, and there's no definitive answer as to what the long-term outcome may be.

 

Some local governments and organizations have established pharmaceutical collection events. The county recently announced that the Sheriff's Office A-Zone substation on Linden Avenue in Pittsford will accept unwanted medications on the second Tuesday of each month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The B-Zone substation in Henrietta collects unwanted pharmaceuticals on the first Tuesday of the month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Law enforcement officials take the collected medications to an incinerator.

 

The state of the lake is reflected in the lake fish consumption advisories issued by the state Health Department. The concentrations of harmful chemicals like PCB and the insecticide Mirex have been declining in the lake's fish.

 

"They are coming down, and in a rapid fashion in some cases," Makarewicz says. "That becomes then a health concern and a political concern in terms of when do you tell people it's really OK" to eat the fish.

 

Chemical concentrations in fish have been routinely monitored in the Rochester Embayment Area of Concern. That area could receive some attention as federal officials begin awarding Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding - there's $475 million set aside for the Great Lakes region.

 

Researchers, state officials, and environmentalists are anticipating the first round of the grants, which they say will be a significant step toward addressing some important Great Lakes issues. More than 100 funding applications were submitted for New York State.

 

The best way to improve the lake's water quality is to work at the watershed level, Yacuzzo says. Watersheds are the areas that drain into the lake, so attacking things like runoff from those areas would improve Ontario's waters.

 

One important project would be establishing "maximum daily loads" for watersheds, essentially a plan to help reduce certain materials - phosphorus, for example - that pass from a watershed into the lake.

 

Improvements in the lake and some, if not all, tributaries have led environmental officials to reintroduce long-departed native species.

 

The US Fish and Wildlife service is working with DEC and SUNY Brockport to reintroduce lake sturgeon into the Genesee River. Overfishing and pollution drove the fish out, but the river's improving health - a benefit to Lake Ontario since the Genesee feeds into it - may aid a comeback. The big question is whether the fish will ultimately reproduce, or if toxic sediments at the bottom of the Genesee will prevent that.

 

The Department of Environmental Conservation is also looking into a program to reintroduce to the lake deepwater ciscoes, a fish species that spawns in January and February in water that's 300 to 450 feet deep, says Steve LaPan, DEC's Lake Ontario fisheries unit leader. DEC officials shared the plan in public meetings across the state last week. As the theory goes, the four species of ciscoes that were once common in the lake were done in by overfishing and by the invasive alewife, which ate the newly-hatched ciscoes.

 

The once-booming alewife population has dropped off some, however, so DEC officials says it's a good time to try to reintroduce the ciscoes.

 

The story's more complex than that - since their introduction, alewives have found a place in the Lake Ontario food web. They're the favored diet of Chinook salmon, something of a prize for lake fishermen.