MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — Brandon Shumaker has fished Muskegon Lake since he was a kid.
“l love Muskegon Lake. It’s a great lake,” he said. “I just caught a bass a little bit ago here. That’s the best thing you can ask for on a good day of fishing.”
But to get to one of his favorite fishing spots on Monday, he walked through sticky foam — lots of it, clinging to the shoreline.
He had no idea it was PFAS foam, which has been piling up along the lakeshore in recent weeks.
“Plenty on the boots here,” he said, pointing to the foam drying on his boots.
Just a few feet away, the foam has piled up in another of his favorite spots.
“Right over here, in the corner, it built up so quick that when you cast your line it will get stuck in it, almost like seaweed,” he said.
He says he saw foam a couple years back, but never this thick.
“I don’t even know if it’s hazardous or not,” he said.
A local expert on PFAS said the known carcinogen is foaming up along Muskegon Lake like never before.
It comes at a time when more and more developers are being drawn to the lake with big plans.
“It creates a hazard as far as contact,” said Grand Valley State University Professor Emeritus Rick Rediske. “It creates a contact hazard. You’re not supposed to use the lake in that area. You can’t go swimming in that area. If you go in there and fish, you’re supposed to wash off after that.”
Rediske helped uncover the Wolverine Worldwide PFAS plume in 2017 in Belmont.
His office at the Robert B. Annis Water Resources Institute is on Muskegon Lake.
While the state says there were reports of foam on the lake in 2020 and in 2022, Rediske says he hasn’t seen it like this before.
“So, this is something new as far as conditions on the lake promoting the foam,” Rediske said.
He said it takes only a little PFAS in the water for winds and waves to stir up foam.
It’s happened elsewhere in the state, including the Rogue River in Rockford and the Thornapple River in Cascade Township.
The PFAS hasn’t prompted any advisories against eating fish from the lake, though there are advisories tied to PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, and mercury, according to the state.
And according to the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, it hasn’t contaminated the city’s water supply, which comes from Lake Michigan.
As for Muskegon Lake, Rediske said there are plenty of potential PFAS sources, including the nearby site of a former paper plant.
PFAS has also been found in tributaries leading to the lake.
But why now?
“I don’t know,” Rediske said. “That’s the question we have to ask. Is there something new that happened? (Are) the weather conditions different this year than last year? That’s the first thing to look at.”
He said the state should conduct more tests to determine a cause. He also suggested that lake users be warned.
“You might want to see a warning sign if it keeps coming back,” he said, though he hopes it doesn’t come to that. Similar signs are posted along the Rogue River in Rockford.
“We want to fix it. And Muskegon Lake has come a long way as far as taking out contaminated sediment, fixing the shoreline,” he said. “And we need to figure out what’s going on here.”
The state says it will test the lake, though it will take time.
“We have not yet been able to identify the source of these foam events as there a number of former industries along the Muskegon Lake shoreline that could have used PFAS foam for fire protection or in their industrial processes,” EGLE spokesman Scott Dean said in an email.
The state says that while swimming and wading in lakes and rivers with low PFAS levels is not considered harmful, it still recommends that people avoid direct physical contact with any foam and rinse themselves and pets off after contacting foam.