In 1987, White Lake was identified as being among 42 of the most severely degraded Areas of Concern (AOC) within the Great Lakes. To get off that list requires restoring a series of "Beneficial Use Impairments" (BUI). Those BUIs represent the reasons the lake got put on the AOC list.
Last week, Dr. Rick Rediske, senior researcher with Grand Valley's Annis Water Institute, presented a program for the White Lake Public Advisory Council (PAC) to answer questions like "How do we get off the list?" and "Why Develop Targets, Now?"
Rediske told the group he needs PAC input to help develop scientifically measurable, achievable, understandable targets to move the delisting process along.
Jeff Auch, executive director of the Muskegon Conservation District and staff resource for the PAC, said the Remedial Action Plan for White Lake calls for delisting individual impairments by 2008. He said the PAC hopes to see White Lake delisted as an Area of Concern by 2010.
In a separate interview, Auch said it is critical the PAC and community keep up its efforts to clean and protect the lake.
"Delisting as an Area of Concern by 2010 will require participation by White Lake area residents and municipalities to meet such a goal. If we continue to remove valuable habitat for fisheries, or refuse to resolve issues like eutrophication we will never reach that goal. White Lake has made extraordinary progress already and the PAC hopes to facilitate complete recovery in the near future," he said.
The individual impairments, or BUIs are:
* Restrictions on fish and wildlife consumption      
* Degradation of fish and wildlife populations      
* Degradation of the benthic community (including organisms that live in or on the bottom of a body of water)      
* Restrictions on dredging activities      
* Eutrophication, or excessive growth of aquatic plant life      
* Restrictions on drinking water consumption, or taste and odor problems      
* Degradation of aesthetics      
* Loss of fish and wildlife habitat
For example, Rediske told the group the PAC could probably successfully argue that the BUI for aesthetics might be removed because the reason that it was listed in the first place has now been removed.
"At one time the lake was burdened with unnatural physical properties which included tannery waste, hides and hair," he said.
Because those items have primarily been removed through a dredging project at the tannery site, Rediske said the PAC is in a good position to petition for delisting that component without extensive monitoring at the site.
Norm Ullman, chairman of the PAC, said he is hopeful delisting can happen, even though he, like the state, is certain additional work will need to be done at White Lake once it is delisted.
"White Lake is never going to be what Father Marquette saw in the 1600s," said Ullman.
Rediske said deciding on targets is important now and told the PAC it needs to develop targets that are achievable.
That may mean setting a target measuring a return of diversity of organisms rather than trying to reach a goal of having a specific number of a specific type of organism, he told the group.
Rediske said during the years he has been involved in work on White Lake he has seen the public perception change for the better about the lake.
"I used to get, probably, 15 to 30 calls each year asking if it was safe to buy property on White Lake, or eat fish caught in White Lake," he said. "Those kinds of calls have stopped. The public perception about the lake has improved."
Rediske noted that putting an end to contaminated groundwater plumes entering White Lake from sites such as the former Hooker and DuPont Chemical companies help in the delisting process, even though groundwater contamination is far greater, here, than at any of the other 42 AOCs, he told the PAC and audience. "No one else has a Hooker Chemical," he said.
He also noted that once White Lake is removed from the AOC list, funding for the PAC comes to an end.
"That is the Catch-22, because the lake will still need remediation for continued recovery," he said.