Chronic pollutants still plague rivers

Samples show road salt, phosphorus, bacteria

The Milwaukee River attracts more enthusiasts today than it has in decades as an ever-increasing number of people live, work and play along the state’s most urban river system.

But the latest results of water sampling show the Milwaukee River and its companions, the Menomonee and Kinnickinnic, continue to struggle with chronic problems — notably, pollutants such as phosphorus, sediments, bacteria and road salt.

The grade for 2016 for the entire basin: “D-plus.”

That’s the lowest mark given by Milwaukee Riverkeeper since 2011.

“It’s a wake-up call that there is a lot more work to do,” said Cheryl Nenn, who heads up water management programs for the environmental group.

The group’s annual report card re-

leased this week coincides with recommendations by the state Department of Natural Resources for required pollution reductions across the 900square-mile river basin over the next two decades.

The DNR’s proposals, sent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in October, call for cuts in phosphorus, total suspended solids and bacteria from an array of sources: factories, wastewater treatment plants and contaminants from streets and fields.

In a 2014 report, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that despite $5 billion in government spending since 1980, many sections of Milwaukee’s rivers are polluted and fail to meet state water quality standards. Many of the problems can be traced to pollution that washes off the land.

Phosphorus is a nutrient that spurs the growth of weeds and algae, comes from lawn fertilizer, manure and other sources. Suspended solids, or sediment, are the tiny bits of sand, soil, sewage and other organic matter that degrade water quality.

Bacteria can come from the waste of pets and birds, but also from aging sewer infrastructure that can leak sewage into waterways, especially in the Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers.

The mandated reductions — known as total maximum daily loads, or TMDLs — are tailored to individual sections of the watershed. TMDLs are required by the federal Clean Water Act when water bodies fail to meet standards. Over the next 20 years, the reductions are expected to cost millions of dollars.

The findings show that the health of the river system is far from uniform for a region that stretches from farming areas in Dodge, Fond du Lac and Sheboygan counties to a growing residential population in downtown Milwaukee.

With its report card, Riverkeeper takes data that it gathers and from other sources and compares them to state and federal water quality standards, then gives sections of the rivers a grade on how often they meet the standards. The grades for the three rivers: Milwaukee – C. Key measures like phosphorus and bacteria received failing grades, but there were higher scores for other measures, such as the amount of oxygen in the water, water temperature and chlorides.

Chlorides are noteworthy because the results spike in the winter from road salt. Testing in January 2016 showed that 23.5% of the samples in the basin exceeded the standard for chronic toxicity, meaning it is harmful to aquatic life.

Pushing up the grade in the Milwaukee is the east and west branches of the river — an area that mostly includes Fond du Lac and Washington counties and is less urbanized. It earned a separate grade of B-plus — the highest across the entire watershed.

Menomonee – D. Problem areas include phosphorus, bacteria and turbidity, which is a measure of how cloudy the water is. Many of the river’s problems can be traced to pollutants entering the river from erosion and stormwater runoff.

Despite the low grade, there has been significant work on the river in recent years, including the removal of 2,700 feet of concrete, removal of concrete structures in Hoyt Park in Wauwatosa and taking out 30 piles of woody debris in the river.

Kinnickinnic – F. Wisconsin’s most urban river, it has long struggled with water quality issues. Roughly 4 of every 10 acres of the basin is covered with hard surfaces and miles of the river are lined with concrete.

Among the problems are high levels of phosphorus, bacteria and chlorides. But it, too, has benefited from significant restoration work, including a project announced in March to remove 1,900 feet of concrete from the river bed in Pulaski Park.

Riverkeeper has long pushed for better regulation of pollutants in the basin.

Despite its advocacy, Riverkeeper’s assessment is based on water samples that follow DNR guidelines for testing.

Riverkeeper collects its own samples at designated spots in the river system with the help of more than 100 volunteers. It also uses data from testing by the DNR, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and Ozaukee County.

Last year’s grades originated from more than 1,200 water samples and more than 8,000 total data points, according to Nenn.

Mike Shupryt, leader of stream and river monitoring for the DNR, said Riverkeeper’s grades “are a really nice way to make these issues digestible to the public.”

He noted they are snapshots in time. For a longer perspective, he said there have been sharp improvements in water quality in the river, primarily from point sources like factories and wastewater treatment plants since the 1970s.