Lake Michigan environmental survey : final report / [edited] by John C. Ayers.

CHAPTER C

ESTIMATES OF THE RADIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL
WASTES TO BE RELEASED TO THE LAKE
John C. Ayers
INTRODUCTION
The information presented in this section represents an attempt to accumulate and summarize available data necessary to determine the quantities of
wastes, chemicals, and other solutes or suspended materials that arrive in
and depart from Lake Michigan. There was, and still is, little hope that present information will be adequate for meaningful materials-balance studies.
However, efforts to locate all available data were needed to fully define
those areas from which information was partially or entirely lacking.
As was expected, the information that exists is scattered, buried,
fragmentary, and often weak. Undoubtedly there exist data that we have not
found; what we have unearthed is reported here.
RADIOACTIVE INFLUENTS
A single paper by Risley constitutes the only significant available data
on radioactivity in the lake and entering the lake via tributaries.1 This
material is covered in Chapter A.
The states around Lake Michigan all appear to be maintaining radioactivity
monitoring programs of greater or less extent. While these data are undoubtedly
available from the individual states, they are not summarized in any convenient
form or place that we have discovered.
CHEMICAL INFLUENTS
The single best available set of data on chemical influents that has yet
come to light is contained in "Water Quality Investigations, Lake Michigan
Basin, Physical and Chemical Quality Conditions, Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago, Illinois. January 1968." In this
publication, Tables 3 through 7, 9, and 10 (with errata corrected) present the
results of surveys during 1962-64 in Lake Michigan and its major tributaries
1 Risley, Clifford Jr. 1965. Radioactivity in Lake Michigan and its tributaries. Proc. 8th Conf. Great Lakes Res., p. 160-167.
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