15
2012
Wolverine Lake to install disinfection station at DNR site
An article by Leslie Shepard
To help mitigate the proliferation of viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) in Michigan waterways, the Wolverine Lake Village Council has accepted the terms of a contract with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to erect a boat disinfection station at the department’s Wolverine Lake public access site this spring.
“Essentially the village will install, maintain and carry a level of insurance for the station,” said Village Council President John Magee.
Council acted on a recommendation by the village’s Water Management Board, which has already forwarded the design plans to council.
The station is akin to a large containment tank filled with a chemical solution that is disbursed through a hand-held spraying unit. The station would need to be managed by volunteers who would fill the tank with the solution and educate people on its use.
VHS, a potentially fatal fish virus, can spread when boats or bait are moved from VHS-infected waterways into non-infected ones. Fish can also become infected with the virus by eating other infected fish.
“My sense is that people would use it before they pull out vs. coming in, but we would encourage them to use it before and after (using their boats on Wolverine Lake),” Magee said.
The base of Wolverine Lake’s fishery is an aggregate of perch, walleye and crappie, all species known to be affected by VHS.
However, the DNR has been monitoring state waters for any sign of VHS and in recent years found only two inland lakes in other counties that have turned up VHS-infected fish.
Magee added that aquatic weeds have been problematic for decades and the station would help mitigate this concern, as well.
“It’s also something we can do to prevent the spread of invasive species,” he said.
Starry stonewart, zebra mussels, Eurasian milfoil and curlyleaf pond weed have been invading the village’s namesake over the past several years.
“It’s all invasive species that are not part of the natural ecosystem that have no natural predators and have grown out of control,” Magee said.
Village Council budgeted $1,500 for the total cost of installing and maintaining the disinfection station. The annual cost of chemicals for the station’s solution would be between $500 and $800.
About the Author: Leslie Shepard
3 Comments + Add Comment
Leave a comment
SCN E-Edition
Oakland Homes E-Edition
Tipoff Weekly
West Oakland Women’s Section
Sections
Sign up for our E-Edition
Loading...
Will this also help wash off the still lingering 30,000 gallons of raw sewage that still rests at the bottom of the lake well as the fuel that continues to leak into the lake from the pair of mothballed storage tanks that still rest there on village and state dnr lands?
What is the specific gravity of sewage? That is, are you sure it’s on the bottom.
How deep do you sink your wells; aquifer is hardly beneath the septic fields.
In most cases, the specific gravity of sewage will be very close to 1,000 or 1 liter will weigh approximately 1000 grams and for this reason parts per million can be considered equivalent to milligrams per liter. Because of this discrepancy, however, the use of milligrams per liter is now the more favorable expression of concentrations. The use of just milligrams per liter eliminates any opportunity for confusion.
Expression of concentrations in terms of percent is generally used in cases where the concentrations of pollutants are high. In sludge analyses, for example, results are expressed in terms of percent solids, percent moisture, percent volatile matter, and percent ash. Percent is a weight to weight ratio. A 5 percent sludge solids concentration indicates that there are 5 parts of solids per 100 parts of sludge, or 5 pounds of solids per 100 pounds of sludge.
Considering the lake is only an average of 5.2 feet of depth and most ski/pleasure boats have a shallow 1.5 to 3 foot draft, a single pass across the lake by a single watercraft will drastically disturb any sewage that has settled on bottom there by completely tossing any and all equations above totally out the window. With a wake law ceasing @ 11am, this would mean that by 12 noon the lake has essentially been “re-polluted” by a factor of nearly 1000+. Considering cracker jack engineer Powell has carefully taken this into consideration to “save the a$$es” of the Village Council, his own job well as the OCWD, the whole situation stinks.