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

CHAPTER D

EPILOGUE
John C. Ayers
In this contract the University of Michigan undertook the task of devising, proving out, and evaluating several sorts of collection, preservation,
and analysis techniques related to determining whether: 1) the ability of
Lake Michigan to safely accept radioactive wastes could be predicted; and 2)
whether biological reconcentration of radionuclides up through the food chain
could be demonstrated and computed.
The University has developed, tested, and shown to be satisfactory,
metal-free techniques for collecting, preserving, transporting, and analysing
comparatively massive samples of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and benthos. To
our knowledge these things have not previously been done.
The University has adapted and modified older techniques for collection
of water and sediment samples, and has demonstrated that they, too, can be
collected, preserved, transported, and analysed without contact with foreign
metal.
The suite of samples collected for the Lake Michigan Utilities Study Group
is not only unusual in its massiveness, it is absolutely unique in its freedom
from contamination by contact with foreign metals. It is, in a word, the only
existing set of samples adequate to be the departure point in approaching the
goals set out in the first paragraph above.
The University has devised, tested, and proven out analysis techniques
abundantly adequate for the purposes set forth in the first paragraph above.
There have been difficulties encountered, and overcome, and new knowledge has
been acquired in so doing.
Analyses for radioactivity have encountered fewest problems, have lost
least time, and are virtually 100% accomplished. They, and the conclusions
drawn from them, are reported in Chapter A.
Analyses for stable elements by atomic absorption techniques have encountered some problems and lost some time. These analyses are about 85% finished.
The problems encountered in atomic absorption analyses are tied in with those

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