Lake Erie isn’t the only Great Lake affected by harmful algal blooms (HABs), but it experiences the worst, in size, duration and toxicity.
The lake provides some of the prime ingredients of HAB growth, as the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes, and recipient of 44 percent of the total phosphorus runoff of all the Great Lakes.
HABs also occur near Green Bay in Lake Michigan, Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron and Lake Superior.
According to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), the causes of algal blooms, primarily agricultural nutrient runoff, and efforts to address that problem, farm conservation measures, are similar throughout the region.
The GLRI, funded by the EPA and other federal agencies, provides support for programs to improve monitoring and prediction of blooms, and agricultural conservation efforts to prevent HABs.
Since its inception in 2010, the GLRI has spent more than $2 billion on some 3,600 projects in the eight Great Lakes states, with Ohio ranked fourth in funding, according to a 2018 University of Michigan study.
Another public agency tackling algal blooms on a regional scale is the Great Lakes Commission, created in 1955 to promote conservation of the overall basin. The group coordinates federal funding for such projects as a nutrient reduction program, and research efforts including a HABs Collaboratory to link scientists with decision-makers.
Nicole Zacharda, water quality program manager, said progress in controlling agricultural phosphorus runoff has been made in recent years across the region through such practices as cover crops that improve soil health and prevent erosion.
Most of these efforts are voluntary, as in Ohio, Zacharda said.
But she also mentioned two exceptions in Wisconsin’s requirements for nutrient management plans, maximum field phosphorus levels and manure runoff controls, and Minnesota’s law requiring water-filtering vegetative buffers along waterways.
As in Ohio, the challenge is convincing farmers to adopt conservation measures that can carry extra costs. “It’s very hard to ask producers to do more conservation, when they look at their balance sheet,” Zacharda said.
Ohio stands out among efforts in Great Lakes states to control HABs, according to Anne Weir Schechinger, a senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group.
“Ohio is really a leader in trying to monitor and find out what’s happening,” she said. “It also does the most testing.”
Chris Winslow, director of the Ohio Sea Grant program, also noted that researchers in the state are being used as an information resource by other states, such as Florida, coping with HABs.