CLEVELAND — Mike Ferner lives off Lake Erie in Toledo, and he can count on a harmful algae bloom to appear every summer.
He still remembers in 2014 when Toledo’s municipal water supply became overrun with blue-green algae and made the drinking water unusable.
“It was one thing for restaurants to have to use paper plates, but hospitals had to have emergency water on hand, or they wouldn’t have anything. It was terrible, terrible,” Ferner recalled.
To understand the problem, it helps to know what causes algae blooms.
“Harmful algae blooms are composed of blue-green algae or, more accurately, cyanobacteria,” explained Dr. Jeff Rueter.
Reutter is the former director of the Ohio Sea Grant, a program that studies Lake Erie. He worked as the director from 1987 to 2015 and spent 47 years working at the Stone Lab in the western basin of Lake Erie.
He says these blooms can release toxins that are damaging to wildlife and cause ‘dead zones’ in Lake Erie.
“Every summer, the cold bottom layer loses all its oxygen and becomes anoxic, and things that need oxygen, like fish, can’t live there,” Reutter explained.
He remembers being part of the team of scientists that fought the blooms back in the 1960s and 1970s
“We already knew that phosphorous was the limiting nutrient, or the nutrient in Lake Erie that could control algae blooms, and we had very bad algae blooms in the 1970s, 1960s.”
Phosphorus fuels the algae blooms. At that time, sewage treatment plants were the primary source of phosphorous entering the lake, so Reutter said they made a goal to reduce phosphorous entering the lake by 60%.
“The Clean Water Act allowed us to regulate point sources, and sewage is considered a point source. So we can put in regulations that reduce the load by more that 60%.”
He said they hit their reduction goal in 1981.
“The lake responded and became the walleye capital of the world,” the doctor said.
But the blooms didn’t stay away for long, with the phosphorus again causing blooms in the late 90s and early 2000s. This time the source was agricultural runoff.
“Agricultural runoff is considered a non-point source load. You can’t go to a particular pipe and see it coming out, you know, and say that’s the point of inflow. And the Clean Water Act doesn’t allow us to regulate non-point sources,” said Reutter.
The runoff is mainly manure, which is rich in phosphorus. Manure is spread on the fields and runs off into nearby waterways, ending up in Lake Erie. Reutter said action to curb this runoff has so far been ineffective.
“We’ve been trying to reduce it with voluntary programs, education and with some incentives, but only carrots, no sticks,” Reutter said.
Reutter says without stricter regulations, harmful algae blooms are here to stay.