Why Lake Erie Algal Blooms Persist
Pete Bucher earned a degree in environmental policy from Ohio State University and then worked as a legislative aide at the Ohio House of Representatives. For the past two years he’s served as the water resources director for the Ohio Environmental Council where he leads the algal bloom agricultural and water program.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What causes algal blooms in Lake Erie?
Pete Bucher: In Lake Erie, it is really the right combination of food source and temperature. So the blooms really get out of control when there’s excess sources of phosphorus as their food source and the time of year, normally right around July 1, is when the water starts to get warm enough for them to thrive and grow. And so the amount of that available phosphorus that’s coming in mostly through the Maumee River for inland Ohio, that is coming out into the western basin of Lake Erie near Toledo is really going to be the predictor for how big a bloom is going to be and really the fuel for how big it’s going to spread. And then winds play a huge role and kind of pushing the bloom around once it persists. Being the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes, really, unfortunately, you know, in the case of the people that live on the shore, sets the perfect scene for these algal blooms to occur and take over.
Q: Why is it such a big issue?
PB: So the amount of phosphorus that gets driven into the watershed, I would say is why it’s a big issue. We’ve got a lot of agricultural operation in the watershed which they need the nutrient to grow. There’s a lot of people. So through the wastewater treatment and human inputs, that provides a lot with the greater western Lake Erie basin community. And to some extent, septic systems, they’re normally single digits as far as what percentage they provide as far as human waste, but there’s a lot of rural communities and places where septics are still heavily utilized and if those systems leak into a watershed that provides phosphorus as well. The toxicity of these algal blooms is pretty severe, it can cause skin issues, respiratory issues. It’s a liver toxin so it can cause some serious health issues to humans and pets. Coming in contact with it is just not going to be good for anybody whether it’s a minor skin irritant, for example, or something more serious where people have been killed and hospitalized across the globe with this issue. It’s a very serious public health threat. Back in 2014, during the Toledo water crisis, the bloom formed over the intake pipe for the city of Toledo’s water treatment, which is about a mile off of the coast and it got sucked up into the water intake system. They weren’t able to treat it right away because it had just occurred. It took about three days for the city to get the toxin levels down to a safe level for the people to be able to safely use it. To my knowledge, it’s really the biggest city that’s ever had to not use its water due to this. And again, it was somewhat of a freak accident. But anytime there’s a balloon out in that part of the lake, this is just a threat that these communities that take surface water are going to have to be worried about and deal with the year before. And nearby township also had the same problem that was about 3000 people impacted that could not use the water until it was resolved.
Q: How do you prevent something like the Toledo water crisis from happening again?
PB: So you can do source water protections all the way through to the drinking water, which has been really where the focus has been. When the water crisis happened in Toledo, so many in the research community, the regulatory community, the water utility community, were doing triage trying to figure out as much as they could figure out how do we make sure we treated if this happens again. Obviously the three days when it was in there treating it at the moment, and so a ton has occurred around upgrading the Toledo area water treatment plants. In particular, their main plant has gotten nearly $3 billion in water infrastructure funding in that part of the state. The city now claims that it will never happen again because of improvements. But then you really need to look at the front end of the problem where we’re having a lot of phosphorus come off of the land from nonpoint sources. So things like a farm field or a driveway or any area that’s not a single point because point sources like a wastewater plant, places that are permitted to discharge something into the water, it does occur but with a lot of the improvements that we’ve seen to reduce phosphorus from point sources, that really just leaves us with the bulk of the problem coming from nonpoint sources. Given the land use in the Maumee watershed in particular, with agriculture being a huge industry, that’s really where we need to focus now. Farmers will use commercial fertilizer or manure predominantly to get their nutrients onto the field for the crops. They’re growing and the way in which they handle either source is really going to be key in determining how susceptible they are to nutrient runoff when they do get a rain event and flooding events.
Q: How did the toxicity levels from this summer kind of compared to previous years?
PB: As far as the magnitude of the bloom, the research community from regulators as well as the higher education institutes that work on this issue really look at the amount of bioavailable phosphorus to make a prediction mid-July every year. Then they monitor it continuously now that we’re in the bloom season, so you can get real time imagery, but their prediction is almost always extremely accurate. So, last year’s bloom was the fifth biggest bloom recorded on record, just based on the density of the blob in the bloom and that was a 7.2 on their measurement scale. Then, this year, they forecasted it to be much smaller, based on the amount of phosphorus that was going to be in the watershed and right now, it’s around 4 to 5. Probably a 4.5 is going to be where it ends up being close to. Really, rain that drives it in during the spring and early summer, is going to be the predictor. So not quite half as big but not far from it, which is good. You know, we always want it to be a smaller bloom, but it’s still pretty significant. It’s just kind of the unfortunate standard we have for the lake now is it feels like a better year.
Q: So what role does climate change plan all of this?
PB: Climate change, like everything, is making this harder. The majority of the phosphorus that gets driven into the lake to fuel this problem comes from only a handful of severe rain events. Because again, you know, you think about say rock salt on your driveway. If you were to get a winter rainstorm for some reason, you know, the rain will really drive all that off into your gutter or your grass. So, same thing if you’re thinking about nutrients on a field, if it’s a commercial fertilizer or manure, if it’s not incorporated well enough for binding to the surface at all and it’s just kind of scattered out in the field. As soon as a significant rain event comes, if it’s just sitting there hasn’t been taken yet by the crop or the soil, it’s going to likely wash somewhere. And so the climate change impact is really increasing those severe rain events.
Q: So you talked about farmers and what they can do, but is there anything the average citizen can do to help?
PB: It’s not a huge contributor, but if you have a lawn, making sure what you’re putting down is responsible. If you’re using something with phosphorus, or nitrogen, just being really smart about where you’re using it. Don’t use too much. Don’t put it on your sidewalks or other surfaces for it to just wash off and be of no use to anybody. I’d say that’s probably the biggest one if you’re using any nutrients in your home itself. Then really just when it comes time to potentially talk to a candidate or an elected official, you know, making sure you speak up and you’re heard. If this is a priority issue for you let them know, because we’ve got to make sure that that’s at the forefront because it is, but we still have a long way to go for what we’re doing in Ohio. You have to let people know or it might fall at the bottom of the priority list.
Q: What are some legislative steps being taken?
PB: More recently, Governor DeWine has been in office about a year and a half in that role. And through the two year state budget process, Governor DeWine was able to champion a new priority for him, which was a fund that was created called H2Ohio. And so through the budget process, the state set aside $172 million for two years. We’re we’re near two now to go to the Department of Ag, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to work with farmers to pay them to do more of these practices I kind of touched on for ODNR to create more wetlands where they can across the state to help filter water and slow water to prevent harmful algal blooms. Then the EPA is going to focus on the septic system part of the problem as well as just general water infrastructures. So connecting people to better water utility systems and then they also have a piece about lead service lines, which is the only non-nutrient piece of that program. So that’s a big thing that’s got off to a pretty good start. It’s hard to see the impacts right away. But simply getting these things in place is going to set us up to better deal with heavy rain events from climate change, and just generally getting more farmers to do more best practices. The next budget cycle will be after the next year after the election’s done and new officials are sworn in potentially. So that’s something where we’ve got to again, get more money put into those coffers so the program can keep going. If a farmer does one thing year and then stops, that doesn’t do much good for anybody. So we’ve really got to continue, keep people in these type of programs and then grow them because we have a long way to go to reach our goals. In 2015, the state committed under Governor Kasich to reduce the phosphorus coming into the lake by 40% by 2025. This past June was supposed to be a halfway mark, where we got down to 20% of it was reduced going into the lake and we are single digits. The research community indicated that we really haven’t moved the needle at all, in five years, which I would probably attribute to the last administration’s approach which was really voluntary, and didn’t really want to get too regulatory on that community in that industry. By just simply kind of putting out suggestions, you’re not going to get very many people to take them up, if there’s no incentive or there’s no requirement to do so. We’ve started to see that the incentive side of things really kick up here with Governor DeWine because he knows that we’ve not moved the needle and he knows this is important, and it’s important to him.