The Independent Newspaper Serving Notre Dame and Saint Mary ’ s VOL XXXIV NO . 11 EPA : St . Joe River pollutes Lake Michigan

A study by the Environmental Protection Agency will report that the St. Joseph River is contributing pollutants to Lake Michigan later this year, officials from the EPA said this week. The study Lake Michigan Mass Balance, founded in 1994. discovered two toxins that are particularly prevalent in the river. High levels of atrazine and trans-nonachlor compounds were found in the water. “St. Joe is one of the two major contributors of atrazine,” said Glenn Warren, the technical lead for the project. Atrazine is the most common herbicide used in the United States for corn and so rghum production. It is known to disrupt the endocrine system in humans and is currently being looked into as a cancer-causing agent. In one of the samplings of the river, atrazine was found at chronic toxicity levels. At these levels, prolonged exposure to water from "the river would effect human health. “[Atrazine] is such a w idely used h e rb ic id e ,” said Christopher Dunlap, an analytical chemistry professor at Saint Mary's. “The fact that it is showing up in our rivers is scary." Trans-nonachlor compounds were used primarily as insecticides in the middle part of this century, but have since been eliminated from commercial use. Chlordane compounds, as t r a n s -n o n a c h lo r com pounds a re also known, can disrupt the functioning of the endocrine sys­ tem and cause vision and digestive problems. The study found that the St. Joseph River and the Grand River were the two biggest con tr ibu to rs of t rans-n o n ach lo r com ­ pounds. In addition to the above compounds, the study also looked into mercury deposits and PCBs, components of rubber and plastic products, in an effort to determine where they were entering the lake. The data that is col­ lected and analyzed will be used to better understand how to reduce these toxins. “If we want to reduce the toxic contaminants entering the lake, we need to know where the main sources are,” C om bined Tributary Loadings 1002 g/yr Manltiique