Water Chemicals Make News in Japan

A film crew from Japan interviews Steve Johnson, operating services division manager at the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD) in Duluth. The crew was in Minnesota this summer filming an hour-long documentary on University of Minnesota research and outreach efforts related to the impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals in aquatic environments. The documentary, part of a weekly show sponsored by Toyota, was broadcast to 11.7 million Japansese viewers in October.

In addition to Johnson, who explained harbor clean-up efforts over the past several decades, the crew interviewed Sea Grant researcher Peter Sorensen, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, and graduate student Dalma Martinovic in St. Paul about their field research at WLSSD and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Mid-Continent Ecology Lab in Duluth.