Every summer, there’s a big stink at the lakefront. Most people assume it’s caused by sewerage overflows, but the smell actually arises from the growth of algae – tons of cladophora blooming in the shallows of the lake. I had long wondered where the stuff comes from, and whether it could be harvested and used. So I set off on a little adventure to find out.
I took a ride on the research vessel manned by UW-Milwaukee’s Great Lakes WATER Institute. “Keep your eye on the water,” one of the scientists on board told me. About a mile from shore, the color of the water changed from baby-diaper brown to pure blue. “There,” said my guide. “We just crossed the edge of The Plume.”
The Plume is the notorious brown fan shape carrying all the gunk from the rivers that empties into the lake. While some of it comes from infrequent dumping of sewage, The Plume is mostly soil and fertilizer runoff from farms and homes (all that Weed and Feed, folks). It creates a chemical cocktail in which algae flourish.
“Runoff feeds the algae beds, and the stink comes from nitrogen when they ferment,” says Mike Flynn, whose Richfield-based company, Green Quest, is a specialist in natural gardening and lawn care.
“Cladophora is the canary in the coal mine, telling us we are living in our own filth,” says Brian Hans, an Appleton botanist who runs a company called EarthMimic. But both Hans (whose company slogan is “Turning Poop into Cash”) and Flynn say the algae could be harvested and used as fertilizer.
“Cladophora is 9 to 10 percent nitrogen, and nitrogen is very good for the soil,” Flynn notes. “If we think of cladophora as a resource instead of a problem, new possibilities are suddenly feasible.”
In short, July and August could become harvest time in Milwaukee: The crop is gathered, its water (algae is 98 percent water) is squeezed out with hydraulic presses, and the dry product is transported to a composting location. “It would cost something to start the program up,” Flynn says, “but consider the cost – in water quality and the quality of life and health in Milwaukee – of doing nothing.”
Instead, here’s what the county does. Each summer, crews of young Milwaukee Community Service Corps workers hit the beach to rake it up and bag the algae. In 2004, they gathered an estimated 25 tons. Each year, the crop gets bigger, and now approaches 50 tons. Next, the county Parks Department takes over, loads the bags onto dump trucks and hauls them off to landfill.
That’s right: Hundreds of tons of naturally organic matter is bagged in plastic and dumped in landfills, where it could sit for centuries. The county’s policy may be cheap and fast, but like the stuff it’s disposing of, it stinks.
So I called the department to ask, “Is this the best you can do?” Starting at 414-257-PARK, I finally reached a worker named Mike Wrench. Mike said he knew about the disposal problem, “but they tell us not to talk about it.” He gave me someone else to call.
That was Brian Zimmer, who apologized that he couldn’t be of any help: “I only do the golf courses, not the lakefront. You want to talk to Guy Smith.” I sure did, and Guy was certainly cheerful, but as secretive as Russia’s old Kremlin. “I can direct you to a person who knows about the cladophora problem, but I’m not going to tell you his name. I’d rather call him, give him your number, and have him call you.”
Within a half-hour my phone rang. It was Mr. X returning my call. His name, I hope I’m allowed to tell you, is Chuck Ward, director of operations for the County Parks. Plastic bags seemed the only reasonable option to Chuck, although he was open to new technology: “I would be happy to do away with the plastic bags if someone would invent a machine that could get the stuff from the shoreline to the truck.”
Someone, it seems, has. Over in West Bend, I found Roger Walsh, chairman of the Big Cedar Lake Protection and Rehabilitation District. His group has a lake weed harvester to gather the weeds, and a conveyor to move them from the shore to a dump truck. They average 50 truckloads a year, and every green scrap becomes natural lawn and garden food – free for the residents. Leftover greens were scattered on the Slinger Ski Hill to enhance the turf there, but once homeowners saw the value of what they were getting, there were no leftovers.
It seems pretty simple. The Parks Department has untold acres of parkland and Milwaukee has some 200 miles of grassy street medians, all of which probably use fertilizer, all paid for by taxpayers. Maybe we should start harvesting the 50 tons of high-nitrogen algae that is stinking up the lakefront even as you read this.
