SSA Questions & Answers

“Wonder Lake is the most polluted lake in the State of Illinois”
- Testimony of Hickory Falls Unit 3 Subdivision Director to the McHenry County Board Meeting, March 18th, 2008

This comment is an example of an on-going effort by those opposed to the restoration of Wonder Lake to raise fears of polluted sediment, without having any facts, peer reviewed data, or reports to back up their statements. Whenever these allegations have been raised in the past, the MPOA has encouraged those parties to provide them with a copy of their information so that it could be reviewed, but to our knowledge, no such information has ever been provided to the MPOA. Copies of any such information should be forwarded by mail to the MPOA office, or to by e-mail to lakemanager@gmail.com.

It is uncertain as to why certain community leaders would try to tear down their own community, particularly when it is based upon misinformation, information that doesn’t exist, or information that they will not allow to be reviewed by the MPOA project consultant.

All that can be done is to refute these false allegations, and to present factual information.

Sediment Quality Testing

As part of the 12+ year effort to restore Wonder Lake, the MPOA has retained a nationally recognized engineering firm, HDR/CWI, to serve as the MPOA lake restoration consultant. Their experience, http://www.hdrinc.com/, LINK involves numerous dredging and water resource related projects across the United States, in which they performed feasibility analysis, design, regulatory permitting, and oversight duties.

At the direction of the MPOA, in 2001, and again in 2006, the consultant collected sediment samples from Wonder Lake, and had the samples analyzed by a state approved laboratory. A full suite of tests was conducted, looking for the chemical constituents most frequently encountered in Illinois lakes, or that could pose regulatory issues. The results of that testing are presented in Table 3, which was part of An Updated Feasibility Study and Restoration Plan for Wonder Lake, produced by HDR/CWI in January 2007.

To help place the Wonder Lake results in context with results encountered on other Illinois lakes, the Wonder Lake sediment analysis results were compared to a sediment classification protocol produced in a 1996 Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) report entitled: Sediment Classifications for Inland Illinois Lakes. LINK
www.epa.state.il.us/water/watershed/publications/sediment-class-inland-lakes.pdf

In this IEPA study, the pollutant levels encountered in 1,876 sediment samples taken from 307 lakes across the State of Illinois from 1977 to 1994 were reviewed and compared. Based upon these findings, and the frequency and occurrence of pollutants being encountered, the IEPA established a comparative value system to classify pollutant levels as encountered in any given sediment sample, as being “low”, “normal”, “elevated”, or “highly elevated”.
These IEPA “levels” are comparative values, and have no regulatory status whatsoever, as indicated in the following excerpt from the IEPA report:

Simply stated, just because a sediment sample may be classified as “highly elevated” does not mean that it a level that would signify a need for concern, exceed a regulatory standard, or pose a risk. The intent of this IEPA classification is simply to identify when additional sediment analysis should be performed, because, relatively speaking, the pollutant levels are higher than the norm.

For example, encountering pollutant values at an “elevated” or “highly elevated” level for heavy metals would suggest that additional testing, such as the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Test (TCLP), should be done. This is the IEPA mandated test to determine compliance with an actual regulatory standard.

This is why for the 2006 Wonder Lake sediment samples, TCLP testing was performed for chromium and mercury, which resulted in chromium and mercury levels an order of magnitude or more below the actual State regulatory threshold, as shown below:

WL Chromium TCLP Result <0.0150 mg/l vs. 0.60 mg/l IL Pollution Control Board Standard
WL Mercury TCLP Result 0.0006 mg/l vs. 0.025 mg/l IL Pollution Control Board Standard

Based upon these results, and their professional judgment, the consultant determined that TCLP testing would not be warranted on Nickel and Silver at that time.

Given this analysis, and the lack of any substantiated evidence or indicators of pollutant contamination of Wonder Lake or Nippersink Creek from any reputable source, our consultant concluded that there are no chemical / heavy metal parameters in Wonder Lake sediment that would exceed an IEPA regulatory threshold. As a result, the lake consultant, who deals with the regulatory agencies on a daily basis, indicated that no problems in obtaining the proper water quality related regulatory permits for Wonder Lake dredging are anticipated or expected. The consultant summary of these findings is included below.

In addition, all of this information was summarized in a Northwest Herald Article printed on March 16th, 2008. LINK
http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2008/03/16/news/local/doc47dce841144e3452630028.txt

Under any circumstance, if the SSA/dredging goes forward, the MPOA has committed to conducting any additional sediment sampling required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, or by NRB Land, who is donating the use of their land as a temporary sediment de-watering facility.