In addition to the industrial complexes dotting the lakefront, municipal sanitation sites also expel millions of pounds of chemicals and treated wastewater into the Lake Michigan basin every year.
And some Calumet Region and Chicago-area municipalities are allowed to discharge far greater volumes of pollutants into the lake and its waterways than the more criticized industries, an eight-month Times investigation of Lake Michigan pollution shows.
A Times analysis of state and federal regulatory records for municipal sanitary districts in the Lake Michigan basin revealed:
-- Seven local municipal sites are allowed to dump more of some types of chemicals into lake-connected waterways than the BP Whiting Refinery, where industrial pollution limits have been widely criticized.
-- At least six municipal districts from three states have violated wastewater permits in the last five years -- permits that are intended to keep lake water quality intact.
-- Unlike other cities, Chicago does not disinfect all of its wastewater, leaving area waterways and beaches more vulnerable to contamination.
Dumping: What, where
After scathing criticism last year, BP abandoned plans to increase by 54 percent the level of ammonia and by 35 percent the level of suspended solids it would be permitted to dump in the lake each day. The company vowed to abide by its previous permit limits after a firestorm of criticism from environmentalists and political leaders in Illinois.
But sevenmunicipal sites -- including some in Chicago -- are currently allowed to dump more of at least one of the pollutants per month than BP would have been able to under its expanded limits, a Times review of municipal wastewater permits shows.
Of those public facilities, five are part of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
In Indiana, the Gary Sanitary District can dump two to three times as much ammonia and suspended solids a month than BP into the Grand Calumet and Little Calumet rivers, which eventually flow into Lake Michigan.
Permits for municipal sites often include seasonal limits of some contaminants. The permit for the Hammond Sanitary District allows the plant to dump 1,200 more pounds of ammonia than BP's expanded limit in the winter, but not in summer months.
Though Chicago's plants do not discharge directly into Lake Michigan on an everyday basis, three dump into a tributary to the lake or the Chicago River. Collectively, they can dump 50 times as many solids and almost 60 times as much ammonia a month than would have been allowed under BP's controversial permit.
Although a massive, decades-long project in the early 1900s reversed the Chicago River to send waste away from the lake, some experts say dumping into the waterway still damages the lake.
"Despite the fact that Chicago Area Waterway System flows most of the time away from Lake Michigan, the two are still connected," according to a 2007 report by the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
The report, "Protecting Public Health, Caring for Chicago's Waters," also stated: "The irony of the Chicago River is that to protect water quality in Lake Michigan, we have chosen to harm the river.
"To protect the lake, we must protect the river."
Full Story: http://nwi.com/articles/2008/04/21/special/water/doc
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