Activists hope report spurs action

Published: Monday, 3/3/2014 - Updated: 13 hours ago

BY TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER

Excess fertilizers and raw human waste are hardly new problems for western Lake Erie.

But clean-water advocates are hoping a long-awaited report issued last week by the International Joint Commission will put more pressure on the U.S. and Canadian governments to rally around the issue, one that many see as having been dragged out by painstaking bureaucracy and not enough meaningful action.

In its report, A Balanced Diet for Lake Erie: Reducing Phosphorus Loadings and Harmful Algal Blooms, the IJC a State Department-level commission assigned since 1909 to help the two countries resolve mutual boundary water issues laid out 16 recommendations after collaborating with more than 60 U.S. and Canadian scientists.

The recommendations include: calls for better management practices for agriculture, including better timing for fertilizer application, mandatory certification standards for applicators tying crop insurance to soil-conservation performance, and something pretty basic that lake scientists have been urging for years: a ban on manure applications to cropland when the soil is frozen or has snow on it.

The recommendations also call for better sewage controls, including mandatory septic-system inspections, and more work in wetland restoration, a mandatory elimination of phosphorus in lawn fertilizers, and the establishment of a cap on nutrient pollution under the Total Daily Maximum Load provisions of Americas Clean Water Act, known in environmental circles by the abbreviation TMDLs.

The commissions recommendations differ in scope from others including the latest report issued last fall by the state of Ohios phosphorus task force as well as the number of mandatory actions it seeks. Many state-level efforts, including legislation now before the Ohio General Assembly, continue to be largely voluntary and incentive-laden programs to minimize impact on the farming industry. One of the biggest criticisms of the pending legislation in Ohio is that it does nothing to address growing concerns about manure generated in the Lake Erie basin by livestock farms big enough to be classified as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

The binational commissions recommendations came in response to Lake Erie's record algae bloom of 2011.

Last September, Ohio hit a new low in its ongoing battle against algae, though, when the tiny municipal water treatment plant that serves 2,000 customers in Ottawa Countys Carroll Township was so overwhelmed by a toxin called microcystin that the facility was forced offline. Public officials frantically warned people not to drink the water until further notice, using Facebook, Internet Web sites, and any other form of rapid communication they could.

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Activists hope report spurs action