The algae that ate Lake Erie. The green blob that swallowed Toledo. The Lake Erie Monster that dissolved into floating slime.
It’s human nature. When a public tragedy or a natural disaster occurs, someone always comes up with a joke of questionable taste about the subject. It is a reaction, some psychologists say, to uncertainty or fear, a way of handling the horrible. So it’s no surprise that harmful algal blooms (HABs) — excessive growth of algae on Lake Erie — have spawned standup comics.
But in reality, no one finds the serious threat of toxic blue-green algae a laughing matter. The key question is if HABs (generally seen between June and October in the lake’s western basin) can be significantly decreased in the future. Experts say it depends on the joint efforts of the state and national government, agribusiness and the nonprofits whose mission it is to protect Lake Erie. That, and a little help from Mother Nature.
HABs are not just aqua or green in color, however, but red, black, purple, white or brown. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency describes the blooms as looking like film, grass clippings, dots, pea soup, wool or green cottage cheese curds. Forget swimming. Toxic HABs can cause a skin rash, as well as liver and nervous system problems. But HABs play havoc with more than summer vacation.
The negative health and economic repercussions of HABs are huge. Think unsafe drinking water (remember the summer of 2014 when 400,000 Toledo residents were told not to drink their water?), wildlife death (blooms reduce oxygen levels in the water) and spoiled recreational opportunities, a kick to Ohio’s important tourism and sports fishing industries.
HABs are not new to Lake Erie. Tim Davis, research scientist with the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, explains that when Lake Erie was declared a dead lake in the 1960s and 1970s, the “death” was primarily due to the excessive nutrients being dumped into the lake from industrial runoff and sewage outflow. (Algae love sunlight and nutrients, particularly phosphorous and nitrogen.) Now primary sources include the runoff of fertilizers from agricultural fields, animal manure, sewage treatment plant discharges and storm water runoff.
“I find manure the most egregious. It’s sacred; we don’t talk about it,” says Sandy Bihn, vice president, Lake Erie Improvement Association, and executive director, Lake Erie Waterkeeper. “A growing problem is that more animals for meat and dairy are locating in our watershed. We are attracting more poultry and definitely more hogs and dumping more manure into the lake. We are going backwards. You can’t bring in more and expect progress.”
Davis understands the pressure on farmers to grow more food per acre, which to many means more fertilizer and manure. But farmers need to know when, how and how much to apply so huge amounts of nutrients don’t get washed away by rain into our rivers and end up in Lake Erie. That scenario is how hungry blooms multiply, according to Davis.
The Maumee River, which collects runoff from the state’s northwest agricultural fields, contributes 40 percent of all phosphorous coming into Lake Erie. That’s the most of any river, according to Jeffrey Reutter, past director and current special adviser for Ohio Sea Grant College Program and Stone Lab, Ohio State University’s island campus.
“The bottom line is that there is no compromise when it comes to health,” says Reutter, who was chair of a team of scientists that helped develop an initiative to achieve a 40 percent reduction of phosphorous into the Lake Erie basin. Governors from Ohio, Michigan and Ontario approved and set a target date of 2025. “There is no reason why farmers can’t continue to produce as much as they are producing. They just have to change methods. An algal bloom doesn’t care if it is commercial fertilizer or manure — it likes both. But there are still a lot of farmers who broadcast their applications (over the fields). The Ohio Farm Bureau is key. They are a trusted source for farmers, and we really need their support and encouragement if we are going to change things. I think we have it.”
Anyone who applies commercial fertilizer to more than 50 acres for agricultural purposes in Ohio is now required by state law to obtain a fertilizer application certification no later than Sept. 20, 2017. Since before this year's growing season, the OFB has been encouraging farmers to get that certification, according to OFB spokesman Joe Cornely. The bureau has also partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to create three demonstration farms to teach farmers how to reduce nutrient run-off, according to information supplied by the organization. (Farmers are now banned from applying manure or fertilizer on frozen, snow-covered or rain-soaked ground.)
Last summer’s algal bloom in Lake Erie was the largest on record, according to Sonia Joseph Joshi, NOAA’s communications and outreach specialist. Scientists aren’t sure why.
“I remember the charter boat captains calling me in early July last year and saying, ‘Sandy, it’s really bad.’ That was right after the record June rainfall. But some researchers were reputing it,” says Bihn. “I said, ‘I am sorry, you are not out on the lake. The captains know blooms.’ It happened really fast and showed the relationship between rain and the blooms. The best predictor of algae is how much rain we get.”
It’s no secret that a rainy 2016 summer would increase this year’s bloom. Even an average rainfall means HABs get their way if nothing changes this year or in the future.
Lake Erie is the 11th-largest lake in the world by surface area and contains 20 percent of the world’s fresh water supply. Its water has made possible navigation, manufacturing, power production, agricultural and recreational opportunities that made Ohio great. States without an abundance of fresh water in their backyard look at Ohio with envy. A dead zone lake would be a disaster of huge proportions. The Lake Erie Improvement Associations reports Lake Erie contributes more than 100,000 jobs and more than $12 billion to Ohio’s economy.
Larry Fletcher is the executive director of Lake Erie Shores & Islands, a visitors bureau in northwest Ohio. Fletcher says any negative experience or inconvenience, including vacationers not being able to swim in water affected by HABs or fishing charters having to travel farther out on the lake to find clean water, can result in negative referrals. Fletcher says the majority of people who come to the shores and island region, Ottawa County or Cedar Point, however, do not have direct contact with the water.
“There are plenty of other things to do here if it is a day a beach has posted a sign saying it is not a good idea to go swimming,” says Fletcher, adding that his organization’s visitors bureaus could be good places for tourists to get information about HABs and closed beaches. “I think about what other parts of the country have, like the red tide in Florida. It’s become part of what we live with, a part of realty.”
(The 12th annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference hosted by the Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Coalition is Sept. 20-22 at Cedar Point’s Breakers Hotel in Sandusky. The conference, open to the public, addresses HABs in Lake Erie and that threaten all the Great Lakes. Fletcher encourages anyone who cares about the lake to attend. Visit healthylakes.org for more information.)
Some experts are cautiously optimistic but not ready to accept HABs as the new normal. Davis says Toledo’s drinking water crisis was a reminder of “how dangerous these blooms can be.” But for the most part he believes “our drinking water treatment plants can effectively mitigate the toxicity.” (Algae adds significant costs to water intake treatment for drinking water, however, according to the Lake Erie Improvement Association.) But, obviously, Davis thinks the better answer would be to decrease the blooms instead of just reacting to them.
“The threat is there,” says Davis, who, like Reutter, worries climate change and more annual rainfall may mean even a tougher fight ahead. “There is no short-term answer. It’s a long-term effort.”
What is being done?
The State of Ohio has spent more than $2 billion to improve the Lake Erie water watershed, according to the Ohio EPA. The collaborative agreement between Ohio, Michigan and Ontario has given Ohio a jumpstart on fulfilling the new phosphorous reduction targets that were released in February by the U.S. EPA. Ohio's detailed plan on its portion of that agreement will be announced later this year.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) is a co-chair of the House Great Lakes Task Force, a bipartisan congressional group that examines issues that influence the economic and environmental status of the Great Lakes. Kaptur has brought the issue of Lake Erie’s HABs to Washington, as well as her local constituents.
Joseph Joshi looks to new tools and methods to detect and evaluate the toxins in HABs. Reutter says it now takes six hours to detect soluble forms of phosphorous in a water sample, but in the future a probe should be able to do it almost instantly.
“We need to develop new policies/regulations to reduce the amount of phosphorous supplied,” says Reutter. “Without them, it is not likely we'll achieve the necessary reductions.”
He and others also encourage the general public to get involved. The use of rain barrels and rain gardens to keep water on one’s property can be a cost savings to families, as well as a way to divert runoff that eventually finds it way to Lake Erie. Permeable driveways, low-flush toilets, low-phosphorous detergents and no-phosphorous lawn care products can also help. All Ohioans have an interest in a clean lake, but those living lakeside also can see property values fall when blooms are in view.
We also have the lake itself as a reason for hope. The Lake Erie Improvement Association describes Lake Erie as “resilient, and, with nutrient reductions, can recover quickly.” The association says western Lake Erie, where the blooms originate, turns over every 30 to 45 days and the rest of Lake Erie every 2.6 years.”