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The Toledo Blade
www.toledoblade.com
Study to list most polluted parts of Ottawa River
January 19, 2001
Residents should get a better idea in the fall about what
parts of the Ottawa River are most dangerous.
A two-year analysis of the river’s hot spots is to be released
then at a hearing. No date has been set.
Officials have long considered a mile-long section between
the Lagrange Street and Stickney Avenue bridges as the river’s
most polluted area, because of a legacy of leaky industrial
landfills there.
Health officials have urged people for years to avoid body
contact with the water or eat fish from the river.
Kurt Erichsen, environmental planning director for the Toledo
Metropolitan Council of Governments, told members of the
Ottawa River Action Group this week that the new report
probably won’t change that view.
But it will provide a detailed breakdown of the risk to
human health and general ecology of the stream at specific
points. Past studies have made statements about chemical
waste that has escaped from the landfills, with probing
too deep into the sediment, he said.
The new report will analyze hundreds of sediment samples
taken by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in the
late 1990s. An Ann Arbor, Mich., consultant, Limno-Tech,
Inc., has been hired to coordinate the overall risk assessment
of the pollution, Mr. Erichsen said.
Mr. Erichsen told the advisory group it is like cleaning
up milk that has spilled in a kitchen. "We’ve been
working on cleaning up the counter top [by focusing on waterfront
landfills] the past 10 years. Now we have to clean up the
floor," he said.
Also at the action group meeting, Howard Pinkley, a longtime
Point Place businessman and boater who serves on the advisory
group, announced that a special account is being established
to accept private donations for the proposed dredging project
near the river’s mouth.
By late January residents will be able to send donations
to a Point Place bank branch that has agreed to set up the
fund. The advisory group has made arrangements to refund
all money donated, plus interest, if the project never materializes,
Mr. Pinkley said.
More details will be announced later, he said.
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