www.mlive.com 75¢MONDAY, JULY 12, 2010

Father grieves for daughter, A3Credit scores take a nosedive, A12

Check out statewide employment listings: mlive.com/jobs

INDEXAdvice/Puzzles ............B2Business ......................A11Classified Ads ..............C5Comics ......................... B4

Daily Briefing............. A12Deaths ......................... A9Lottery..........................A2Opinions ..................... A13

Region ..........................A3Sports ........................... C1TV/Weather ............... C10Your Life ....................... B1©2010, The Grand Rapids Press

SECOND IN A SERIES

BY JEFF ALEXANDER

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

H eavy rains routinely turn the Grand River the color of

cappuccino in Grand Haven, where the river sends a large plume of light brown fi lth into the clear blue water of Lake Michigan.

The conventional wisdom in Grand Haven holds that sewage dis-charges in Lansing and Grand Rapids discolor Michigan’s longest river fol-lowing heavy rains. But that theory doesn’t hold water, experts said.

“A lot of people continue to focus on combined sewer overfl ows as the major source of pollution in the river, but that’s really not the case any-more,” said Rick Rediske, a professor of water resources at Grand Valley State University.

“The issues facing the Grand River have changed.”

It turns out that tiny particles of light brown clay, not sewer over-fl ows, change the river’s hue when it rains. The Grand River drains a

5,572-square-mile basin laden with clay soils, Rediske said.

The river’s periodic chameleon act illustrates what experts said is the most serious problem facing the Grand — polluted stormwater runoff from farms and urban areas.

Large livestock farms, failing septic tanks and dirty runoff from streets and parking lots are feed-ing the Grand River and many of its tributaries a heavy dose of sedi-ment and pathogens that hurt water quality, jeopardize fi sh and wildlife and threaten human health, Rediske said.

The magnitude of the storm-water problem — also known as nonpoint source pollution — was illustrated in 2006. Manure from an unidentifi ed farm drained into Ty-ler Creek that year, killing hundreds of trout in a 4.5-mile stretch of the scenic stream in southeast Kent County.

Jim Bedford, a retired environ-mental toxicologist and outdoor writer, stumbled across the disaster while fi shing for brown trout in Tyler Creek.

“It was sickening,” he said. “The manure killed all the fi sh — manure is loaded with ammonia and it sucked all the oxygen out of the water.”

The Grand River’s problem with excessive stormwater runoff dates to the early 1800s, according

SEE WATER, A7

PRESS PHOTO/REX LARSEN

Today, the water’s fine: Molly Grant, 12, plays with her yellow Lab, Sadie, in the Grand River near the Northeastern Sportsman’s Club in Lowell, where her family has a campsite. Molly’s father, Mike Grant, of Cascade Township, said the river is the main attraction of the campground. “We use it for fishing, tubing and swimming; it’s the perfect kid’s playground,” he said.

THE GRAND TOURDISCOVERING OUR GRAND RIVER

2004Lansing: 420 million gallonsGrand Rapids: 196 million gallons

2005Lansing: 1 billion gallonsGrand Rapids: 50 million gallons

2006Lansing: 392 million gallons`Grand Rapids: 32 million gallons

2007Lansing: 478 million gallonsGrand Rapids: 1.6 million gallons

2008Lansing: 694 million gallonsGrand Rapids: 11 million gallons

SOURCE: Michigan Department of Natural

Resources and Environment

Up the river

Sewage overflows in Lansing and Grand Rapids have decreased dramatically in recent years as those cities invested hundreds of millions of dollars to separate sewer pipes that can be overwhelmed by heavy rains. Lansing, the largest source of overflows in the river, still has much work to do, according to state records. A comparison of recent overflows:

PRESS NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO

What’s in the water? Researchers say the brown plume that empties into the blue of Lake Michigan after a rain, such as this example from 2004, is mostly sediment, not sewage.

Clear improvementSewage overflows are no longer the Grand River’s biggest problem,but the water remains plagued by polluted runoff and too much sediment

WARDROBE MALFUNCTION?Wonder Woman’s

changes are not what some want to see. B1

BY MATT VANDE BUNTE

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP — An attempt to remove three people from township offi ce is the work of a small, special-interest group trying to force its agenda on the broader populace, the targeted offi cials said.

Responding to a recall petition vali-dated last week by the Kent County Elections Commission, Supervi-sor George Meek and trustees Victor Mat-thews and Chuck Wel-don issued statements claiming allegations about them are false.

“They want to get us out of there and get some of their own people in there,” Meek said. “Iam really appalled at our system, that the accusations do not have to be the truth.”

The petition lists the following rea-sons for removing the offi cials from their posts:

Repeated violations of the Open �Meetings Act.Increasing water and sewer rates �rather than considering budget cuts.Employing a convicted sex �offender.The county elections commission

rules only on whether the petition is clear, not whether it is accurate.

Details of the allegations are debat-able, but together they show a trend of incompetent leadership, said Nick Prill, the resident who submitted the petition.

Prill must get 3,794 signatures by July 30 to put the recall on the Nov. 2 ballot. A February election also is possible if signatures are presented later this year.

“They’ve made one bad decision af-ter another, and those three have been the leaders of the pack,” Prill said.

Prill said the board should have dis-ciplined township Manager Robert Homan and Fire Chief David Peterson for keeping Jeffrey Hawkins employed as a fi refi ghter and deputy clerk even though he was a registered sex of-fender after a 1997 conviction.

Hawkins was fi red in November by township Clerk K. Scott Harvey after being charged with soliciting sex from two boys. He pleaded guilty in May.

The accused officials said they didn’t have the authority to hire or fi re Hawkins, pointing the fi nger in-stead at Harvey. They claimed to lack detailed knowledge of the 1997 con-viction, knowing only that Hawkins

SEE PLAINFIELD, A2

BY JEFF ENGEL

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS — Mirsada Rah-mic said she would have liked a doll or a nice pair of shoes for her seventh birthday.

Instead, Rahmic, a Bosnian Muslim,

lost her father, grandfather and sever-al other relatives 15 years ago Sunday in Europe’s largest mass killings since the Nazi era.

About 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were executed by Serb forces in the U.N.-protected town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, during the three-year Bosnian war.

Rahmic and nearly 100 others gath-ered at Sixth Street Bridge Park on Sunday to remember the dead.

“It’s one deep mark on a heart that as long as this world continues to

exist, no one can evaporate,” Rahmic said, her voice wavering and hands shaking as she read a handwritten speech in Bosnian. Her speech later was read aloud in English by Imam Muaz Redzic.

“The biggest favor you could do for the perpetrators would be to forget,” she said.

Rahmic, whose birthday is Monday, moved to the U.S. with her mother, brother and sister in 2002. Each July, she is fi lled with haunting memories

SEE HONOR, A2

George Meek

Recall targets

face false charges?PETITION LANGUAGE

RAISES OFFICIALS’ IRE

PRESS PHOTO/MARK COPIER

Remembering: Bosnian immigrants toss roses Sunday into the Grand River from the Sixth Street Bridge to commemorate the 1995 mass murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims.

Bosnians honor massacred loved onesLocal immigrants mark

15 years since mass killing

THE GRAND TOURDISCOVERING OUR GRAND RIVER

Success through Conflict & DisagreementJULY AHRM PROGRAM

Wed., July 21, 2010The Prince Conference CenterEvent Time: 7:30am to 9:30am

Register On-Line at www.ahrm.net

Wayne Klausing is the president of Performance Partners Consulting, a company that provides consulting, training programs, and training materials for in-house training. Through Performance Partners Wayne has worked with a wide variety of companies and organizations both large and small to improve operational performance through organizational development.

Confl ict and disagreement are natural and regularly occurring events when people interact. When ignored or handled improperly it can become a distraction, a source of stress, lead to work disruptions and lower organizational performance. Learn why and how organizations should embrace confl ict and handle it in a manner that enhances communication and performance. This workshop helps the participants understand confl ict and the benefi ts properly handled confl ict bring to an organization. Attendees will discover their ownconfl ict resolution style and methods of resolving confl ict effectively.

By, Wayne Klausing, Performance Partners ConsultingThis program has been awarded:

One General HRCI Credit

3630817-01

3764689-01