State must target algal blooms

By David Spangler

The Vindicator

On Aug. 2, 2014, the good people of Toledo, a metro area of a half-million residents, woke to the fact that they were without a source of safe drinking water. A harmful algal bloom in Western Lake Erie had descended on the city’s water intake — leaving the water unfit to drink due to levels of the toxin microcystis exceeding World Health Organization recommendations.

The drinking water crisis lasted nearly three days — and without a significant change in public policy and public involvement, it will not be a one-time occurrence. The Toledo crisis provided the entire state with a wake-up call that this issue must be taken seriously. Now the question remains: Will our elected officials respond to the alarm or hit the snooze bar?

Dramatic effects

The drinking water crisis was the latest reminder that the state of Ohio needs to act now to curb harmful algal blooms. As a charter boat operator for 23 years, I have seen the dramatic effects of the blooms on Lake Erie. Each year, I have to travel farther and farther, scanning satellite imagery, to find fishable waters. Late in the year, August to October, my runs can be very long, and that hurts my bottom line. For the first time in 23 years, people calling to charter my boat pointedly ask about the algal bloom. Whereas they used to ask: “How’s the fishing?” Now, they ask: “How’s the algae?”

Unfortunately, even in the wake of the Toledo drinking water crisis, Ohio’s public officials have failed to take swift, decisive action in addressing the well-known cause of harmful algal blooms: agricultural run-off, combined storm sewer overflows, wastewater treatment facilities and failing septic systems. Scientists agree that farm run-off is the major contributor with rains washing excess chemical fertilizers and manure into the lake and its tributaries, vastly raising the levels of phosphorus that nurture algal blooms that now sometimes extend hundreds of miles.

While we were fortunate to avert a health disaster in Toledo, moving forward without tackling the underlying cause is simply unacceptable. Until we deal effectively with the causes of the Toledo water crisis, similar crises will, without a doubt, revisit us with ever greater calamity. In addition to unsafe drinking water, it will also be the loss of fisheries, loss of Lake Erie recreation and tourism that contributes $12.9 billion to the Ohio economy, serious illnesses from algal bloom toxins, loss of property values (and tax revenues), and the collective shame of the avoidable loss of such a productive and beautiful resource placed in our stewardship.

Thankfully, there is much that can be done. Gov. Kasich has the authority to put in place effective safeguards against farm run-off. He can ensure that the Healthy Lake Erie Fund has adequate resources in place to help farmers to initiate different forms of nutrient management. He can ensure that localities have state resources to help manage farm run-off. He can invest in research and development of best practices. He can propose regulations on fertilizer and manure application and eliminate certain exemptions. Most importantly perhaps, he can set the tone in his State of the State address Tuesday that there is a moral imperative to make a healthy Lake Erie a priority for his administration.

A good start

Earlier this month, I testified on Senate Bill 1, the Clean Lake Erie Act of 2015. It is not perfect. Given competing interests, few pieces of legislation are. But it’s a good start. It puts in place some common-sense protections, such as the prohibition of spreading of manure on frozen ground — a harmful practice that, ultimately, leads to manure contaminating Ohio rivers, streams, inland lakes, and Lake Erie. The bill also puts many provisions in place in time for the 2015 growing season.

Both Gov. Kasich and the state Legislature have taken some modest steps forward — and we need to give credit where it is due — but they still need to explain how their actions are part of a larger strategy to reduce phosphorus into Lake Erie by at least 40 percent. That is the level of reduction that scientists think is necessary to put an end to harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie.

One of my great frustrations is that I do not see many Ohioans taking the problem as seriously as they should. This is not a Toledo problem; it is not a Lake Erie problem. It’s an Ohio problem. And it certainly is a problem for the 11 million people whose drinking water comes from Lake Erie.

We all need to urge the governor and the Legislature to take the kind of action that will put this problem to rest once and for all.

David Spangler is the vice president of Lake Erie charter boat Association and the president of Lake Erie Waterkeeper, an advocacy and education organization. He has been a charter boat captain for 23 years.