Watching John Gillespie this week fish in lacrosse talking about water quality and someone on the show mentioned pool 2 is polluted? Did I hear wrong? Never heard of this before. Didnt go into details just that the fish around lacrosse were safe to eat.
Probably referring to this among other things.
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/c-pfc1-21.pdf
-J.
That’s alright, I’m sure John had a cooler full of Johnsonvilles to eat instead! (Sorry couldn’t help myself)
The PFC contamination is widespread through the area. See this map:
Also, for the first 100 years or so of St Paul, much of the waste (raw sewage) was dumped in Pigs Eye lake. (Connected to Pool 2) There is also an old landfill there that seepes contamination. A lot of the really bad stuff has been cleaned up. But you never get it all. So any time there is any dredging, it kicks up a ton of old polluted material.
-J.
Is there a body of water anywhere in the world that isn’t polluted to some extent?
That’s alright, I’m sure John had a cooler full of Johnsonvilles to eat instead! (Sorry couldn’t help myself)
He would need that on p2 even if the water was pristine, it’s a catch-and-release fishery
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>ThunderLund78 wrote:</div>
That’s alright, I’m sure John had a cooler full of Johnsonvilles to eat instead! (Sorry couldn’t help myself)He would need that on p2 even if the water was pristine, it’s a catch-and-release fishery
In most cases JG is a catch and release fisherman also, taking fish from a fishery that has bountiful numbers, generally takes less than the legal limit in most cases too. My only issue is believing that Lake Erie can continually pump out enough fish for the entire commercial and sports fishing industry!!!
Mark
Funny, I was just talking to Joel Stiras, the MN DNR’s Pool 2 specialist. The question was, should P1 and P2 be catch and release only for all species because of pollution.
His reply:
Contaminants are no worse in P1 or P2 than many places. Little bit of restrictions. Keeping an eye on the PFAS stuff in P2 though.
We’ve never made any bodies of water catch and release based on pollution. Only reason P2 is catch and release is because anglers asked for it because they thought it was going to get slaughtered once people found out the fish population was of high quality. Lake Elmo is under a do not eat advisory because of PFAS contamination, but we haven’t altered the angling regulations.
Joel Stiras
Perfect, Brian. Thanks.
P2 is contaminated with what I believe is the same chemical — made by 3M — as lake Calhoun in MPLS. The result is those high PFC(?) levels.
I need to go look that up again. Pretty sickening, ignorance or not…
I’ve worked on many old building along the Mississippi all through the cities. The steam plant by the 35 Bridge used to dump 55 gallon drums of mercury in the river long before it was frowned upon along with tons of other chemicals.
It used to be just a way off life. Tons of raw sewage from other plants down there and other stuff. Back in the day that was pretty normal. Minnetonka deals with the same stuff.
I talked to a retired fella from the DNR a long while ago. He was telling me, back in the ’70’s, the nets in Pool 1 they used for counting fish, never had fish in them, just pieces of toilet paper. The Clean Water Act changed that dramatically.
The sanitary systems were connected with the storm sewer systems. When it rained, the sanitary sewers over filled the plants and the raw sewage went directly into the river.
The good thing for us is that sewage is biodegradable. With a little time, it’s gone. Unlike mercury, PFAS/PFC, theses last for ever (although some is swept down stream).
I’m no expert, I know just enough to be dangerous and not enough to be dangerous.
My dad always tells me about how there were vacant lots on the shores of Lake Pepin that they could not give away in the 60s. The smell on the west shore was terrible from the water. The joke (and partial truth) was that swimming in Lake Pepin you kept your face out of the water while doing the front crawl and exhaled before your breaths to push the pieces of floating TP away from you. The lots were eventually bought for essentially nothing and used as a parking area for some equipment. Fast forward to today and there are million dollar homes there. One spot turned into a very popular trolling run just out the front window.
As far as the 3M situation goes, there was no ignorance. They had documentation of the effects of PFAs going back to around 1970. There was an active effort to suppress the information while continually polluting the area. The lawsuit against them was a slap on the wrist for the permanent damage that was knowingly done.
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