The UMRR (pronounced "ummer") ILO had its very successful inaugural meeting over the weekend. Almost 50 local Leagues in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois have joined.
The group is so new, it doesn't have its own website or facebook page yet, but stay tuned, and we'll post an update when available. Indiana Delegate and LWV LaPorte Area member Jeannette Neagu was announced as the winner of the 2015 Art Palleon Advocacy Award at the League of Women Voters Annual Meeting in Glenview, Illinois. She was recognized for her decades of tireless work as an advocate for the environmental health and protection of Lake Michigan. Jeanette’s stewardship of Lake Michigan began when she was a child growing up in Ogden Dunes where she attended her first League meeting with her mother. Eventually, Jeannette became a part of the Save the Dunes movement that began in the 1960's and her dedication to the area has never diminished. Whether lobbying or testifying at hearings about policy matters related to Lake Michigan, writing, phoning, visiting elected officials in Michigan City, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C., or traveling to the other Great Lakes states to give public presentations, Jeanette is action-oriented and tireless. She also works to educate community members by speaking on topics such as, “Introduction to Lake Michigan,” “Combined Sewer Overflows,” “Above-Ground Storage Tanks,” “Nutrient Impacts and Toxic Algae,” and more. Her eye-opening presentations have helped recruit many new members to LWV and to the cause of environmental stewardship. Jeanette served for several terms as President of the League of Women Voters Lake Michigan Region and is currently League of Women Voters of Indiana’s Natural Resources chair. The Art Palleon Advocacy Award was begun in memory of Wisconsin’s Art Palleon, a long-time member of the League of Women Voters Lake Michigan Region Board who always encouraged careful use of words and to take action when necessary. On July 7, the Waukegan Harbor Citizens Advisory Group hosted the Lake Michigan League of Women Voters for an informative and interesting lunch at the Waukegan Yacht Club followed by a cruise in the harbor aboard the educational research vessel, W.G. Jackson. USEPA Superfund Project Manager Ted Drexler addressed our group over lunch, and Waukegan Harbor Citizen Action Group President Susie Schreiber assisted the boat crew in identifying important aspects of the cruise. We were eager to see the results of millions of dollars of spending in public money to clean up industrial waste, and also to enjoy the beautiful but windy day on the lake. In this we were not disappointed as about 35 attendees from Winthrop Harbor to Evanston asked questions and made investigations with the help of the crew. We had three elected officials in our midst, as well as some students. In 1981, prompted by the discovery of high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in harbor sediments, Waukegan Harbor was named as one of 43 Areas of Concern (AOC) on the Great Lakes by the International Joint Commission, U.S. EPA and IllinoisEPA. The harbor was identified as an AOC using protocols developed by the United States and Canada under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1987. The Waukegan Harbor Citizens Advisory Group (CAG) was formed by the Illinois EPA in 1990 to assume a leadership role in developing a remedial action plan (RAP) for the Waukegan Harbor AOC. The harbor at one time had the largest known concentrations of PCBs and PCB-contaminated sediments, left from previous industrial uses of the site, including the Outboard Marine Corporation. In addition to lessening contamination in the harbor, the CAG also worked with state and local government officials to deal with the open dumping of litter, garbage and tires, and has worked to identify older commercial properties that are candidates for redevelopment. The CAG has received a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) Grant to restore portions of the Glen Flora Ravine and the coastal habitat located south of Illinois Beach State Park to the City of Waukegan public beach. The League of Women Voters Lake Michigan Region has lobbied hard for the continued funding of the GLRI since it was first introduced in 2010. We believe that investment in the Great Lakes should be a national priority, as they hold 84% of America’s surface fresh water, with only 1% being “new” water each year as what we have is left from the Glaciers passage 10,000-14,000 years ago. For Further information: http://epa.gov/greatlakes/aoc/waukegan/index.html http://www.epa.gov/region5/cleanup/outboardmarine/index.htm Triple Play –One: The Stickney Water Treatment Plant Thirty guests from Illinois, Indiana and Michigan came with the LWV Lake Michigan Region on June 26 to the Stickney Water Treatment Plant, the largest wastewater treatment facility in the world. This Plant serves 2.38 million people in a 260 square mile area including the central part of Chicago and 43 suburban communities. MWRD has other smaller plants, as well, to serve the rest of their jurisdiction. The Stickney Plant has a design capacity of 1,200 million gallons per day. When wastewater enters the plant, the first phase physically removes contaminants, either large non-biological items or sand and grit. These materials are dumped in a sanitary landfill after being washed. The water then flows into a primary settling tank where revolving skimmers continually collect the solid waste at the bottom and the oily film on the top. The second phase employs a large population of micro-organisms in a series of tanks. These bacteria feast upon the remaining biological compounds and convert the waste into a form that's easier to separate from the water. The first tanks are aerated to provide sufficient oxygen for the microbes to grow, eat and multiply. The second tank separates the bacteria culture from the treated water. “Keeping the bacteria happy” is a primary job for plant engineers, who attest that these organisms do lots of work for us for free. Treated water is either discharged to the Sanitary and Ship Canal (and onward to the Illinois, then the Mississippi Rivers), or else it goes to a third stage of cleaning to remove the last 5% of contaminants, which can include the nutrients that cause algae blooms. Not all the water goes through this stage due to lack of capacity – but there is a large nutrient recovery facility under construction, which we saw. Right now, the entire cleaning process takes a bit less than 12 hours. Triple Play –Two: A bus tour of LASMA (Lawndale Avenue Solids Management Area) What to do with all of that sludge that was mechanically removed at the Stickney plant? It is sent by rail to LASMA, where it is centrifugally separated from any remaining water, then dried in large outdoor beds and ultimately hauled off to be recycled. Golf courses, sod farms, street medians and park districts all use these bio-solids as fertilizer. Triple Play –Three: Inside the Deep Tunnel Mainstream Pumping Station Construction of Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) began in 1975 and the first phases were operational in 1985 but the whole system will not be finished completely until 2029. Phase I includes 109.4 miles of deep, large diameter, tunnels down in the bedrock which provide 2.3 billion gallons of volume. Phase II of TARP, the reservoirs, were intended primarily for flood control. When the Stickney plant reaches capacity during heavy storms, excess water now goes into Deep Tunnel. When the tunnel is filled, water can overflow into the waters of Cook County at numerous points for CSOs, and/or can go to the reservoirs. Reservoirs are not fully functional yet but do increase storage capacity and thus reduce the need for CSOs in the rivers, or the even more drastic need that occurs from time to time – to open locks in Chicago or Wilmette which send untreated storm and wastewater into Lake Michigan. When storms abate and the Stickney plant can handle it, water held in deep tunnel and the reservoirs is pumped up to the plant for treatment. LWVLMR tries to keep tabs on the MWRD as it is a huge government agency which has impact on our Lake, drinking water, stormwater management and pollution in multiple watersheds. We are always looking for area-volunteers who wish to be observers of their meetings. Please contact LWVLakeMichigan@gmail.com if you are interested in helping with this important work. The League of Women Voters of the United States joined well over 100 other organizations from across the country in sending a letter to the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee urging them to protect mandatory funding for the farm bill conservation program. This program provides incentives to farmers and ranchers to voluntarily implement common sense conservation practices. Projects often involve water conservation and pollution prevention.
Read the letter and see the extensive list of groups that join LWV in opposing these funding cuts. If you are like us, April means its Drug Take Back time, and you are in the habit of going through your prescription and over-the-counter drug containers to weed out the expired and unneeded drugs. That is still a good idea, but this year you may have to rethink where you will bring the drugs for safe disposal so they stay out of our freshwater sources. After organizing highly successful National Drug Take Back Days in April and October of the last four years, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has discontinued the program. Ongoing local collection sites are now available thanks to the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010. To find a drug collection site near you, search the DEA's database, or find a site run by Yellow Jug Old Drugs®, a collection program operated by the Great Lakes Clean Water Organization in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. LWVLMR thanks and salutes the Leagues of Women Voters of Downers Grove/Woodridge/Lisle, Elmhurst, Glen Ellyn, Naperville, Roselle/ Bloomingdale, and Wheaton, for taking action on a matter to safeguard the Great Lakes. In February, these Leagues jointly testified in favor of a proposed DuPage County, IL resolution which opposed development of a deep geological repository for low and medium level nuclear waste in Canada. The proposed site is about 1 km (that's about .6 miles) from the shores of Lake Huron. Opposition to the proposed waste site is coming from all levels here in the Great Lakes region. Numerous communities throughout the Great Lakes Basin - on both sides of the border - have also passed resolutions. I have just returned from Washington, D.C. where Debbie Chub and I represented League of Women Voters of Indiana at Great Lakes Day. This is an annual event where citizen lobbyists from throughout the country come to address the need for continuation of federally funded programs to protect the Great Lakes from pollution and to restore the Areas of Concern, and discuss other important concerns about the health of the Great Lakes. LWVIN is a member of Healing our Waters, the Coalition that organizes Great Lakes Day. The Indiana team was able to meet with Representatives Stutzman and Walorski as well as staff from the offices of Representatives Carson, Visclosky, Donnelly and Coats. The other Indiana Representatives did not respond to meeting requests. The first day we were updated on all the marvelous projects that have been completed because of Great Lakes Restoration Funding. Please take a look at the Great Lakes, Great Impact website from the Joyce Foundation which gives you more information about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). We would appreciate any efforts you can make to gain your legislator’s support for $300 million federal dollars to continue the work of restoring the Great Lakes. Healing Our Waters has put out an action alert with valuable information about how individuals can help. Debbie and I were also able to attend a most informative hearing called by Representative John Conyers (MI-3) and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee on how federal, state and local agencies can work together to ensure universal access to quality drinking water. The hearing was supported by Representatives Charlie Rangel (NY-13), Earl Blumenauer (OR-3), Brenda Lawrence (MI-14), Debbie Dingell (MI-12), and Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18). This link describes the problem addressed: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-conyers/drinking-water-a-human-ri_b_6754308.html Representative Stutzman is a farmer and was most amenable to our suggestions on the necessity of reducing nutrient outflows from farm lands into our waterways. We expected to spend fifteen minutes with a staff member and instead spent forty minutes with him. The trip was very valuable. Jeanette Neagu, Chair Natural Resources Committee LWV of Indiana Today, League members join other advocates on Capitol Hill to share the need for continued restoration of the Great Lakes. They will be discussing clean water protection, runoff pollution, and invasive species, and funding of programs like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, all of which are critical to the health of the lakes.
LWVLMR is a member of the Healing Our Waters - Great Lakes Coalition, which organizes Great Lakes Day every year. On January 4, League members from Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin gathered in Madison to get a jump on water advocacy work in the new year.
Exciting news was shared: local Leagues in several states bordering the Mississippi River are interested in following the LWV Lake Michigan Region model, and exploring how they can collaborate on Upper Mississippi River Watershed issues. We look forward to increased League focus on water policy issues, and stand ready to assist the fledgling group in any way we can! |
Archives
December 2017
Categories
All
|