Cause and Effect of Pollutants on Our Lakes Seminar

Yesterday I attended a sweet presentation about the cause and effect of pollutants on our lakes that was part of Cari Delong's seminar series. This Presentation was presented by Carla M. Koretsky who is an Associate Professor in Geosciences here at Western.


Professor Koretsky's main focus of this presentation was three lakes in Michigan where she has been drawing samples from to see the types of chemicals in the lake and if or when the lake would turn over. The lakes are Asylum Lake and Woods Lake that are in Kalamazoo and Brewster Lake that is in an Rural area in Hastings.

Asylum Lake

Woods Lake

There are organic and inorganic pollutants to the lakes. The inorganics are our main focus where phosphorus and Nitrogen levels from treatment facilities, sewage leakage, fertilizers, detergents, ect. are in the process of being reduced. There also is higher levels of lead and Zinc than normal levels from lead gasoline and chemicals from tires driving on the highway.

Phosphorus is a limiting nutrient and forms algal blooms on top of the lakes that limit the exposure of the sun so the life on the bottom of the lake can not grow or live.There slowly becomes less and less oxygen as you approach the bottom of the lakes so no amount of life can live in almost over half depths of the lake.This is a major concern and they have been working hard to try to reduce phosphorus and the algal blooms.
There are a few examples of where the amounts got too high  and the lakes ended up really suffering. 

• In the 1950's hypoxia hit the Kalamazoo River. Hypoxia happens when the dissolved oxygen content of a body of water is decreased and oxygen dependent organisms die off. This event resulted in a massive fish kill.



This is not an actual picture of the Kalamazoo River but a massive fish kill that happened in a Louisiana Marsh from the same conditions


Phosphorus levels were once so high in Lake Erie, it was declared dead in the 1960's. This is why the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was formed.

Solutions:

• Control residential run off
• Reduce use of phosphorus in fertilizers and detergents
• Control agricultural runoff
• Reduce phosphorus in sewage
• Install fountains in bodies of water. 

Fountains are not just for looks, they actually are aeration systems that helps oxygen mix with the water.
"Dilution is the Solution to Pollution!"
Problems with road salt:

NaCl has became a big problem in body of waters next to paved roads that get salted for ice. Salt in the water can cause freshwater and groundwater to turn into salt water which would decrease the biodiversity in the waters. 

A quote made by Professor Koretsky meaning that the only way we can solve the problem of getting road salt in the lakes is to dilute the salt they use with other types of dilutions like sand. Other types of solutions are to reroute the storm water to go to bigger bodies of water but that just moves the problem it doesn't solve it. The only problem with trying to reduce road salt in the water is that NaCl is cheap and alternative ways are expensive.

Professor Koretsky and her classes have been working on a project where they are seeing the effects of road salt from paved roads on two urban area lakes (Wood and Asylum) and one rural area lake (Brewster). The results so far have been that Brewster Lake have very low levels of salt in its waters but the two urban area lakes have very high levels of salt in their waters. 

The worst is in Woods Lake where a student of Professor Koretsky has been working the most on finding the effects from this high amount. In this lake, it is not experiencing it's spring "turn over" where the cold less oxygen filled waters mix in a cycle like motion with the top, warmer more oxygen filled waters. This keeps the body of water alive and healthy. By December the lake is not even turning over in Woods Lake. Professor Koretsky and her students will be still sampling the lake to see when it when it finally turns over and if there is any hope for this lake.

Professor Koretsky was very impressive in her presentation. She is a great speaker and really knows her stuff. She teaches GEOS 3350 (Minelogy) and GEOS 5500 (Environmental Field Geochem) in the fall. I think she would be an amazing professor and I am considering taking a class by her sometime when I get higher up in my school status.