Quote Originally Posted by airshot View Post
Well thought I would jump in here and add a couple of things which are public knowledge but kept under wraps as well as possible. The city of Toledo is the number one contributor to the problem in lake erie. They are now and have been for the last 50 years. The sewer system in Toledo has not functioned properly for the past thirty years. Toledo pays EPA fines each year because they "can't afford" to update and replace the sewer system. Studies over the past 15 years show that Maumee and Ottawa rivers contribute to more than 80% of the pollution in Lake Erie. In fact the last open EPA research from around 10 years back, claimed if those two rivers could be closed off, the big lake could clean itself within 5 years from the water flow
from the Detroit river. Toledo was one of the first cities to violate EPA regulations and tie their sanitary and storm sewers together to handle excess rain water and the city has been paying yearly fines for that for quite sometime. When heavy rains occur the entire sewer system including sanitary run directly into the river without going through any treatment.
Now if you have paid any attention to the latest indirect comments the city has now gotten control of the chemical balance to make the water Ok to drink. Why was the balance allowed to get out of control? I know somebody screwed up. Have a friend that used to work in the area of water and sewer for the city and has said many times....today's water standards would not meet those set in 1960 as they have been lowered every few years to allow the water to pass. All I can say is I am certainly glad I got out of there many, many years back, and I have my own well and have for 40 years..No regrets!
It seems to me from what I have gathered that there is some incorrect information in this post. I know the city of Toledo has combined sewer overflows (CFO) but they are not even close to the number 1 contributor to the problems in Lake Erie, though they are a contributor. Toledo settled a case with the EPA more than 10 years ago and agreed to system improvements and have been implementing them for years. Detroit which has I believe the biggest sewage treatment system in the country dumps far more sewage in the lake than Toledo and has done far less to fix their problems. In 2011 they dumped more than 4x the CFO into the river and ultimately the lake than Toledo did. I don't have many facts about the Maumee river's contribution but I do know that the Maumee has the greatest drainage area of any river in the Great Lakes system and a good portion of it is farm land. That said I wouldn't be surprised if the Maumme is the greatest contributor to the problem in Erie though not chiefly due to Toledos treatment system. Here is a link to a report that outlines the CFO problem. http://www.greatlakes.org/document.doc?id=1178The Maumee drains over 8000 square miles of land. That's a lot of run off from yards, golf courses, farms, animal operations, etc. The Maumee is said to supply about 5% of Lake Erie's water but about 50% of the phosphorous.

I would like to see a link or source for the claims made about the water standards being lowered since the 60's too. I have lived here all my life and I know the standards for water discharges have been getting more strict for decades. I would be shocked to see evidence the the EPA has lower any standard for drinking water. I can't find where they have in my researching. A link perhaps?

Now I don't work in the city water treatment dept. but the understanding I have based on the chemistry is the problem was twofold. The carbon beds that would typically remove the toxin were not doing the job. Probably an issue with the levels on the raw water I would guess. Also chlorine can oxidize the toxin the way I understand it. We tested the city water at work and we could not detect any free chlorine so I would guess they chlorination system wasn't up to the task or they could not put enough in and meet the test numbers at the plant. The EPA limits the chlorine level in treated water. If you have the level at the max and your water goes out with a substance that the chlorine will oxidize the chlorine will be consumed and your won't detect any in a test. That is our suspicions at work and we have some really smart chemist on staff. We make a liquid based food grade product so we could not produce at that time.

I'd like to see the sources of these claims. I think they are off base a bit though I certainly don't claim to be an expert.