[All] Update on Lake Erie condition

[John Jackson]

Fertilizer Limits Sought Near Lake Erie to Fight Spread of Algae
 
 

By MICHAEL WINES 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/michael_wines/
index.html> FEB. 26, 2014
                
    
  Some of the algal blooms are so poisonous that they have killed dogs and
sickened swimmers.   Credit Brenda Culler/ODNR Coastal Management
 

 
A United States-Canadian agency called on Wednesday for swift and sweeping
limits on the use of fertilizer around Lake Erie to reduce the amount of
phosphorus entering the water and creating a vast blanket of algae each
summer, threatening fisheries, tourism and even drinking water. 

In a report on the algae problem, the agency, the International Joint
Commission, said that fertilizer swept by rains from farms and lawns was a
major source of phosphorus in the lake. It recommended that crop insurance
be tied to farmers¹ adoption of practices that limit fertilizer runoff,  and
that Ontario, Ohio and Pennsylvania ban most sales of phosphorus-based lawn
fertilizers.

The commission, which studies and regulates water uses in streams and lakes
along the border of the United States and Canada, urged Michigan and Ohio to
invoke the Clean Water Act to limit phosphorus pollution from farmland as
opposed to from factories and other places where pollution can be pinpointed
and measured. 

The proposals are likely to encounter strong opposition from the
agricultural industry and fertilizer manufacturers. Both groups have already
asked a federal appeals court to prohibit the Environmental Protection
Agency from regulating farm-related pollution from phosphorus and other
chemicals along the Chesapeake Bay.

Phosphorus ‹ and especially phosphorus in fertilizer, which is designed to
be easily absorbed by plants ‹ is the source of the algal blooms, some of
which are so toxic that they have killed dogs and sickened swimmers. Beyond
clotting the lake¹s surface, decomposing algae consumes the oxygen in the
lake¹s deep center each summer, creating a dead zone where deepwater fish
that are essential to the lake¹s food chain cannot exist. 

National and state governments rid the lake of algae in the 1980s, ordering
big cuts in phosphorus pollution from factories and sewage plants.  But the
blooms returned in the late 1990s as farmers started applying fertilizer on
frozen fields in the winter, and spreading or spraying it instead of
injecting it into the ground.

In 2011, heavy spring rains washed so much phosphorus into the lake that the
succeeding summer, algal bloom, at 1,920 square miles, was three times
bigger than any previous one.

That and other large blooms have crippled tourism in a region where sport
fishing and lake recreation are major industries, and they have forced towns
and cities to filter and even shut off drinking water. The
multibillion-dollar commercial fishing industry could be hit hard. The
lake¹s growing dead zone has prompted deepwater fish to move upward in
search of oxygen, only to run into warmer waters that they find hard to
tolerate. Deepwater fish such as perch ‹ a favorite food of one big
commercial fish, the walleye ‹ could suffer if the dead zone continues to
expand.

³The long-term potential impact on fisheries is something we¹re really
worried about,² said Donald Scavia, a scientist at the University of
Michigan¹s Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.

Although the sources of phosphorus range from leaky septic tanks to storm
sewers to ordinary rainfall, the biggest contributor is farming, the report
indicates ‹ and the biggest farm source is the fields along the Maumee River
watershed in Ohio and Indiana.

Both the United States and Canada have set targets for reducing Erie¹s
phosphorus load by 2018, but the commission¹s report states that those
targets are too low. To return the lake to the mostly algae-free state it
enjoyed in the mid-1990s, it states, the Maumee¹s phosphorus runoff must be
cut by 39 percent. 

Both governments and private organizations conduct programs that encourage
farmers to voluntarily limit fertilizer runoff, but regulatory limits are
mostly nonexistent. The commission¹s report urges a mix of voluntary and
legal programs to achieve large reductions by 2022, with a focus on
dissolved reactive phosphorus, the sort used in fertilizers.

The report also states that farmers in lakeside states and provinces should
prohibit spreading fertilizer on snowy or frozen ground, where it is most
likely to be carried away by melting or rains, and should limit applications
in the fall.

For homeowners, the report recommends that Ontario, Ohio and Pennsylvania
ban the sale of phosphorus-based lawn fertilizers except during the first
growing season of new lawns, or when soil tests show that the phosphorus
content is too low. It also says that Michigan and Ontario should require
inspections of septic tanks to ensure they do not leak.
  
 

-- 
John Jackson
17 Major Street
Kitchener, Ontario N2H 4R1
519-744-7503


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