A joint United States-Canada agency is
seeking to convince both Ohio and Michigan to grow some teeth in
order to help take a bite of caustic algae blooms that have plagued
Lake Erie the past several summers.
What the International Joint Commission
did was release Feb. 27 a report calling on the two states'
governments to “declare the waters of the western Lake Erie basin
impaired from nutrient pollution.”
With the awkwardly worded title “A
Balanced Diet for Lake Erie: Reducing Phosphorous Loadings and
Harmful Algal Blooms” does not make for light reading.
Important to be sure, but not something
one would sit in a recliner and pore over with the enthusiasm of a
spy novel.
Even so, the document is essential in
stating not only what is wrong with Lake Erie water quality today but
even more vital, how to fix the problem by highlighting 16
recommendations.
And such a declaration, agrees a number
of environmental and conservation groups, would thus trigger what is
called a Total Daily Maximum Load protocol, or more commonly known as
a TMDL. This scientifically based yardstick would then quantify just
how much nutrients are allowed to enter Lake Erie's Western Basin.
Much of what has precipitated such
urgency, the Commission, environmentalists and a growing chorus of
elected officials acknowledge, began in 2011. That is when a massive
and dangerous algal bloom swarmed across the waters of Lake Erie from
Monroe, Michigan in the west clear to Cleveland in the east.
So bad was this explosion of toxic goo
that it was 1,000 times more potent than what the World Health
Organization recommends for recreational contact.
And much of that bloom came about by
algae feeding on nutrients (read, fertilizers and such) washed from
farmland into Lake Erie tributaries.
A second prong – and perhaps the most
challenging to accomplish in the long-term - would consist of
developing a reduction plan to throttle back on nutrient loading with
the target goal of achieving or exceeding established clean-water
standards.
“So much is at stake, from our
economy to human health,” says Kristy Meyer, the Ohio Environmental
Council's managing director of Agriculture, Health and Clean Water
Programs.
Asked then if any adopted TMDL likely
would include both fang and claw, Meyer says “yes and no.”
“A TMDL would set limits and then
when a new or existing permit for point-sources or confined animal
feeding operations come up for renewal, new limits would be inserted
into their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
documentation,” Meyers says.
As such this account would also
establish recommendations for other sources of pollution as well, and
which are not covered by NPDDES requirements, Meyers said.
“Those recommendations could then be
turned into laws and rules, or those responsible for manufacturing
these sources could see the handwriting on the wall and voluntarily
participate,” she said.
Then too participating cooperators
could apply pressure on those who are not doing their part or on
those operations and operators who remain unregulated.
New or emerging anti-pollution
technologies may yet arrive also as science, industry and governments
strategize on ways to limit nutrient loading from farm to watersheds
and ultimately into Lake Erie, Meyers, opined.
“I imagine that is how water-quality
trading started, but I'm not 100-percent certain,” Meyers says.
Consequently, should research, elbow
grease and a coming-together of like minds point the way to a source
of nutrient activity then the money would almost certainly follow
this trail, Meyers says.
“Federal and state agencies as well
as other entities could spend their funds working with folks to
install the best management practices on agricultural land; reduce
storm-water run-off through green infrastructure and other means,”
Meyers says. “And efforts could be directed toward expanding,
building or refurbishing waste-water infrastructure.”
The thing is, says Sandy Bihn,
executive director of the Lake Erie Waterkeeper group, the region's
stakeholders need to work collectively on a problem that stubbornly
resists a unilateral response by any one entity.
“A Western Basin TMDL would require
consideration of the Lake Erie waters in Ohio as well as Michigan
along with cooperation from Ontario,” Bihn says.
Simply put, Meyers concluded the stakes
are too high in allowing the status quo to manipulate Lake Erie's
water quality via toxic and avoidable – as well as costly –
nutrient loading.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and Environment Canada have a duty; a responsibility, to
develop a TMDL or a TMDL-like plan that is geared toward nutrient
reduction,” Meyers says. “And they must also ensure that the
states and provinces are implementing such a plan.”
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
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