Portman's bipartisan senatorial efforts pay off with algal bloom control legislation

Ohio’s junior senator and Republican Rob Portman has managed to cross the fractious political divide and engage several of his Democratic colleagues to come aboard in an effort to deal with massive algal blooms.

Portman joined with Florida’s U.S. Senator and Democrats senators Bill Nelson of Florida and Gary Peters of Michigan to see to it that the full Senate successfully passed the “Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act.”

This act reauthorizes the 1998 act that bears the same name, with Portman and Nelson also working together in 2014 for a reauthorization of the act. In that reauthorization Portman managed to secure a Great Lakes’ associated segment that helped to prioritize efforts directed at such freshwater bodies as Lake Erie.

Portman says the program – which is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - was birthed by the original act which fueled the federal government’s research and subsequent response toward dealing with harmful algal blooms.

Such blooms have plagued Lake Erie for several years. The record-breaking heat in September along with a general lack of both wind and rain exasperated the algal bloom situation on Lake Erie and the Maumee River in September, scientists say.

Nelson has a proprietary interest in the subject as well. That is because algal “dead zones” have cropped up in the salty Gulf of Mexico just as they have in Lake Erie’s freshwater and the Chesapeake Bay’s brackish water.

In the case of the Gulf of Mexico, an algal-created oxygen-deprived dead zone the size of New Jersey occurred in 2014 while one measuring more than 8,481 square miles developed in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 2002.

Importantly, said Portman, recent program efforts include NOAA’s seasonal forecasts on the expected severity of algal bloom events in Lake Erie along with a biweekly Lake Erie Harmful Algal Bloom bulletin issued by NOAA. This bulletin provides forecasts of the movement and toxicity of bloom events in Lake Erie as well as such inland water bodies as Buckeye Lake or Grand Lake St. Marys, Portman said, noting the size and scope of the problem.

"This legislation takes critical steps toward protecting Lake Erie and other freshwater bodies throughout Ohio and the nation from toxic algae,” Portman said, noting that it’s “important that these water bodies are protected, as they supply drinking water to millions of Ohioans and are critical for Ohio’s tourism and fishing industries.”

Portman said also that for the first the renewed legislation will allow for possible funding to be made available to communities with significant algal bloom outbreaks to “help protect against environmental, economic, and public health risks.”

“I look forward to working with my colleagues to get this important legislation to the president for his signature," said Portman. 

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net