Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | Here's the story.
WRA asks attorney general to investigate DNR
The Wildlife Restoration Assn. (WRA) has asked the state attorney general’s office to investigate the DNR and its decision to allow Dairyland Power to draw Lake Flambeau down by 30 feet without providing any erosion protection in the 1,200 acres of exposed lakebed.
WRA believes that the erosion will lead to further mercury poisoning of not only the Dairyland flowage but the rest of the downstream portions of the Flambeau River in Rusk County and that DNR staff knew or should have know that would be the outcome.
Jerry Carow, President of the WRA, explained that WRA has informed the attorney general that as a result of the lack of erosion protection, an estimated 150,000 cubic yards of lake sediment has already eroded from the exposed bed and has settled into the remaining river channel, and that much more can be expected over the next month and a half, even with normal rainfall.
Carow said that testing done this summer showed the eroded sediment contains mostly organic particles which are more likely to have mercury attached to them both now and in the future. He said by virtue of their location in the very bottom of the river bed without a source of oxygen, the mercury will very likely methylize and enter the water column and eventually the flesh of fish, adding to the accumulation of mercury contamination, which is already above the advisory level.
Carow said that Fisheries Biologists told him that after investigation, the exposed bottom shows very good evidence that the area above the 30-foot depth line was extremely aerobic, harboring freshwater sponges, burrowing mayflies and mud puppies. They also indicated it would have been extremely unlikely that any mercury found there would have methylized to enter the water column, if, the sediment containing that mercury had stayed there.
Carow said the WRA was required to provide erosion and storm water plans for the proposed Dairyland Power/WRA habitat project entry points, structure locations and even the upland material storage sites for their project in the flowage bottom under DNR rules governing the containment of sediments.
In addition, WRA planted winter rye and grass buffer strips on the exposed bottom around the proposed structure sites. Carow said the buffer strip worked to perfection and captured sediments during the recent rains that otherwise would have eroded into the existing river channel and added to the contamination problem.
Carow said he showed the DNR the buffers in early August, but found no movement on their part to protect the rest of the flowage or the people who will use it in the future from contamination. And that since the beginning of the planning for the project, the WRA has tried to explain to the DNR its mercury study and treatment possibilities that could make life better for everyone. “The DNR was not interested and said they had no time or money,” said Carow, a retired DNR warden.
Carow believes that with information that has been made available to everyone this summer, it is clear that the reason for mercury accumulations in fish flesh in the flowage and the resulting consumption advisories have almost certainly been accumulations from the sediment erosion on the exposed bed of the flowage in each of the previous flowage drawdowns and the methylization of mercury in those anaerobic areas.
Every action on the flowage this summer by the DNR has been consistent with controlling erosion, except this most serious one, according to Carow. A permit was even required for Dairyland Power to access the base of their own dike.
Carow said the WRA would just like to know why the people of Rusk County have been singled out for this contamination disaster, which will outlast every person living today, considering the talk all spring and summer has been about mercury, mercury, mercury.
“If wrongdoing is discovered, those responsible for the misusing the public trust should be prosecuted with a fervor granted only the most reprehensible criminals,” said Carow. |
more news on dairyland project