Pollution alert!
Severe contamination found in White Ditch demands immediate clean-up

Infectious E-coli bacteria has been detected in concentrations 33 times the amount considered safe for swimming beaches in White Ditch that runs through Indiana and Michigan to enter the Lake between Michigan's Grand Beach and the Village of Michiana.  E-coli infested waters pose a serious threat to swimmers as well as to the drinking water supply.

Results from sampling White Ditch Creek by Berrien County Health Department staff on 8/13/14 are as follows; 11,000, 10,000 and 10,000 (E. coli per 100 mL). 

Compare results to beach standards-- geometric average no more than a count of 300.   Compare to Recreational use of stream standards-- (not bathing, but partial body contact like wading, canoeing, etc.) present an average no greater than a count of 1,000.

Please pass the sampling information along - the situation needs urgent attention!  These contaminants affect the Lake at the point where of entry as well as the swimming beaches up and down the coast where currents carry them.  These polluted waters also contaminate areas along White Ditch as it meanders through inland and coastal neighborhoods in both states.

Dear Fellow Lake Michigan Fans,

Standing together, our grass roots campaign can make the Lake a mercury-free zone.

Bordering states charged with upholding the Clean Water Act are not up to the task.   Indiana permits BP to discharge 6 times amount of mercury into the Lake than is allowable under EPA guidelines; BP’s oil spills have been massive and they’ve tripled their Whiting refinery to process hazardous Canadian tar sands oil.  Wisconsin stubbornly dumps raw sewage into the Lake; Michigan privatizes water rights to Lake Michigan and Illinois is notoriously corrupt in its clean water enforcement.  Coal-powered plants all around the Lake spew toxins that settle into the Lake.

Americans are subsidizing these polluters and permitting them to poison our drinking water source.   Now is the time to stop this wanton waste occurring at our expense.  Let’s put a stop to industry’s use of the Lake as its cesspool. 

Technology exists to scour the mercury from the Lake; corporate magnates could easily donate their bloated bonuses to keep our waters clean.  Clean energy can provide more jobs than the polluters can and will save our lake from a terrible fate. 

Life-threatening for fetuses and pregnant women, neurotoxic mercury accumulates rapidly and remains mostly invisible.  As one of the largest fresh water sources in the world, the Lake already contains such high levels of mercury that commercial fishing has been destroyed.

The Lake belongs to all of us.  

Let’s keep clean water, food and jobs here - and stop rewarding polluters.