The St. Louis River was listed as one of 43 contaminated sites around the Great Lakes. The site was designated as an Area of Concern (AOC) in 1987. But, the river may be one step closer to restoration.
The St. Louis River was listed as a polluted hotspot because of nine benchmarks for quality of life for humans and wildlife that hadn’t been restored. Matt Steiger, AOC coordinator with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said they hope to remove one of the so-called beneficial use impairments related to fish tumors and deformities.
“At the time of listing, there were increased observations of tumors in a lot of AOCs, and that’s why it became an impairment that was listed,” he said.
Stay informed on the latest news
Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.
But, Steiger said the St. Louis River is seeing very few tumors in fish. Less than five percent of more than 622 white suckers sampled over the last six years had tumors, according to data from the Wisconsin DNR.
“We can look at the incidence rates and be confident that the population in the estuary as a whole that these data are really telling us what’s going on with the fish tumor rates,” he said.
Steiger said they are looking to remove fish tumors and deformities as one of the nine originally listed impairments to the river. He said they are hoping to do so yet this year. However, Steiger noted ongoing investigations into fish deformities that were discovered in Newton Creek. So far, only one of the original nine impairments was removed in 2014 after work had been done to restore aesthetics around the river.
Similar studies in other Area of Concerns across the state have revealed much higher rates of fish tumors. About 48 percent of fish sampled in the Milwaukee Estuary AOC had skin tumors while about 33 percent of fish sampled in the Sheboygan River AOC had skin tumors.
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2024, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
