Marquette U. study finds water issues, but some hope

There are problems with the quality of water in Kewaunee County, but there are also indications small steps are in process to address the issues, a Marquette University biological team recently told a gathering in Algoma.

Krassimira Hristova, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, and graduate assistants Mike Walsh and Rachelle Beattie spoke during a March 30 meeting sponsored by the environmental group Kewaunee CARES (Citizens Advocating Responsible Environmental Stewardship).

The three, plus undergraduate students working in the lab, studied the microbial makeup of the area's waters emptying into Lake Michigan to determine how human pollution impacts overall environmental and human health.

“Water testing wasn't something we were encouraged not to do,” said Nancy Utesch of the CARES group. “In fact (critics said) we were wasting our money ... we were wasting our time by collecting water samples where we lived, in the streams and tributaries of Kewaunee and Door counties.

“But I had a conversation with the EPA shortly after we began water testing. Testing allows us to have a longstanding story about what's going on in the waterways.

“And that was good enough for me.”

Hristova said research in a laboratory at Marquette began in the fall of 2015.

She said her group looked for “materials commonly present in electronics and other materials from industry that are leaking into the environment, organic polluters such as oil spills and other hydrocarbons that are very often found in big plumes in the environment, and recently we started looking more into the manure as a pollutant.”

Additionally, she said, “Antibiotics and pharmaceuticals are new emerging pollutants that are causing stress not only to human health but also to the environmental ecosystem in our waterways.”

Walsh was tasked with investigating “problems of point and non-point source pollution, farms large and small, sewerage treatment plants and other sources.”

“Point source is what most people usually think of as pollution,” he said. “It could be from commercial areas ... stores and shopping centers, residential areas that have septic tank systems, and also from agriculture.

On the other hand, “If it's not from a pipe, it's non-point pollution,” Walsh said.

Starting in 2015, the group sampled the water from six sites: two on the Ahnapee River, two on the Kewaunee, and two on the East Twin River. Since then, the number of sites expanded.

The samples were taken year-round, Walsh said.

“Nitrogen, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals as well as hormones (were found) in the water,” Walsh said. The lab analysis also identified bacteria in the water — some, antibiotic-resistant.

“The more exposure you have to antibiotics, the more issues you're going to have in the environment,” Beattie said. “Bacteria have in recent years adapted and are resistant to antibiotics.”

Agriculture, wastewater treatment and medical waste are significant sources of antibiotics in the environment, she said.

The most widely known resistant bacteria is MRSA, against which several varieties of antibiotics are ineffective, according to Beattie.

“Other pathogens are quickly gaining multidrug resistance. There are species of E. coli that have been found in Kewaunee County that are resistant,” she said.

Two million people in the United States each year are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and about 23,000 die from those infections, Beattie said.

The Marquette team found bacteria in the Kewaunee environment that, when cultured in the laboratory, were found to be “significantly resistant to three more common antibiotics ... amoxicillin, azrithromycin and ampicillin,” she said.

Among the conclusions of the study, Beattie said, were that E coli and coliform “are present above the EPA recommendations for recreational water use in the Kewaunee River (and) nitrates are above the drinking standard at multiple sites.”

“There is a presence at low concentrations of hormones ... and pharmaceuticals,” Beattie said. “Even low levels present a threat for chronic exposure to aquatic organisms as they move up the (food chain) and impact human life as well.

“We did find drug resistance in bacteria in river sediment and also elevated levels of antibiotic-resistant genes ... The chemical and biological assessment confirms impairment of Kewaunee County surface waters and it poses concerns for fishing, recreation and drinking water wells of local residents.”

Some movement in the “right and positive directions,” are occurring in manure management, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency response last year to a Kewaunee County citizen petition, changes proposed in state law to address the specific needs for the karst region, and emerging technologies including filters for drinking water, Hristova said.

“Those are small things,” Hristova noted, “but they are moving in the right direction.”

Contact Peter J. Devlin at 920-487-3778 or peterjdevlin@yahoo.com.