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Restoring aquatic quality challenging

LAKE LINDEN – Torch Lake Superfund shoreline work in the Copper Country appears to be a success, but undersea improvements still have a way to go.

Years ago, said Meral Jackson of the Houghton Keweenaw Conservation District, the federal Environmental Protection Agency named Torch Lake an area of concern, citing three specific beneficial use impairments.

Torch Lake fish, the EPA said, had tumors, for one, and restrictions on eating fish from the lake were necessary. Also, they said, the benthos, the layer of plants and animals living on the lake floor, was degraded.

Underwater remediation is more complex than above ground, said Jackson. So far, “progress comes in fits and starts.”

Just one of those three areas, the fish tumors, has been checked off that list so far, she said. The news there isn’t really as good as it sounds, either.

An audience member pointed out that the tumors had mainly been on fish called saugers, a relative of walleye, and that the saugers hadn’t recovered – they’d actually died out in the lake entirely.

Charles Kerfoot, a Michigan Tech professor who also spoke at the meeting, confirmed that analysis. He said no one was sure why the saugers got the tumors or why they died out in Torch Lake, but theories included a lake that wasn’t murky enough for them due to poor benthos health, or specific agents in the water that may have caused illness.

Jackson admitted it can be hard to get to the top of big-money remediation funding lists, and said the key is to break the project into small pieces.

“There are definitely a lot of resources out there,” she said. “We’re all in this together.”

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