Jeff Reutter News Today

Phosphorus pollution feeds cyanobacterial blooms in the western basin of Lake Erie. Ohio submitted a plan to reduce phosphorus runoff, but many believe it will fail.

Cleveland Plain Dealer. September 1, 2023.

A new documentary film explores the science, public sentiment, politics, and the powerful farming lobby as Ohio wrestles with how to confront the drivers of toxic algae in Lake Erie.

CHICAGO — Hundreds of miles south of Chicago, decomposing algae in the Gulf of Mexico makes life so perilous for fish they swim away — or die.

While sewage plants have reduced contributions to waterways through permits, addressing pollution from farms largely depends on voluntary efforts.

When Terry and Ernest Bateson hear rumbling, they know the trucks are coming.  Every year, semi-trucks filled to the brim with liquid manure drive by the retired farmers home in Wood Countys Portage Township. The semi-trucks are carrying waste from the CAFOs, or "concentrated animal feeding operations" – in laymans terms, factory farms.  "The road turns brown from the spillage," Ernest Bateson said.  The number of animals in the Maumee watershed has doubled from 9 to 20 million from 2...

Time to Cut the Manure! Author: Jun 1, 2021 As we roll into summer, there may be some encouraging news for many of the nation’s waterways as predictions are calling for smaller Harmful Algae Blooms due to an unusually dry spring in many areas. But don’t be lulled into backing off demands that the real problem still must be addressed — in a word, manure! First, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg Univer...

Credit NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) are forecasting the cyanobacterial bloom in western Lake Erie is likely to be smaller than average this year. But, it’s early in the season and things could change. At this point, less precipitation in the Maumee River watershed has reduced the amount of nutrients that are washed into the western basin of Lake E...

The Beacon A Lake Erie fisherman battles a walleye and algal blooms while fishing in 2013. (Photo by D’Arcy Patrick Egan) BY D’ARCY PATRICK EGAN Ohio has been working with farmers and funding research and tactics for reducing the flow of phosphorus from the Maumee River Watershed into Lake Erie, the major culprit for the annual noxious green algal blooms that have plagued the Western Basin. Mother Nature gave the quest quite a hand this spring to potentially reduce the annual Harmful Algal ...