A recent study suggests that the majority of the nutrient pollution in the Lake Erie basin may be coming from huge, unlicensed animal farms in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.
The toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie may be fueled by this pollution, endangering the drinking water of at least 11 million people.
Unauthorized Animal Feeding Operations are Contaminating the Lake Erie Basin
MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP via Getty Images
In Indiana, if a person owns at least 300 cows, 600 pigs, or 30,000 poultry, the state will need him to obtain a permit to manage waste on the farm, as per WFYI
However, according to the Environmental Working Group analysis, animal feeding facilities without enough cattle to require a permit are responsible for more than 60% of the manure that enters the Lake Erie basin.
That implies that nobody is monitoring the movement of all that excrement.
So, according to Anne Schechinger, head of EWG's Midwest region, more has to be done to monitor these unpermitted AFOs (animal feeding operations) that are smaller and create the majority of the manure phosphorus in the basin.
The permitting standards in Indiana are more stringent than those in Michigan and Ohio.
However, in Indiana's portion of the Lake Erie basin, around 78 percent of animal feeding enterprises operate without a permit.
According to the EWG analysis, manure from these farms is typically dumped on surrounding cropland, but in areas with several large livestock farms, the soil probably can't retain all of that manure.
More runoff that contaminates nearby waterways could result from that.
According to Schechinger, states like Indiana can utilize EWG's maps to locate nearby crop farmers.
Conservation practices in the watershed cost billions of dollars.
In order to find the farm fields and farmers to contact in the basin where this financing could have the greatest impact, she suggested using the new research.
According to Schechinger, no-till farming techniques can help keep that manure on the soil.
The number of animals required for a permit might be reduced in Indiana, but lawmakers would have to make that decision, according to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
The Lake Erie watershed contains around one-third of the whole Great Lakes basin's population, as per EPA
The watershed is home to over twelve million people, including seventeen urban centers with populations greater than 50,000.
For around eleven million of these people, the lake serves as their drinking water source.
In the 1960s, problems with the Great Lakes' water quality emerged, and Lake Erie was thought to be dying.
By the late 1960s, both American and Canadian regulatory agencies had concluded that a coordinated lakewide approach was required to address the phosphorus problem and that restricting phosphorus loading was the key to managing excessive algal development.
The combined efforts resulted in a decrease in the phosphorus concentrations in open lakes.
Through international cooperation, these controls constituted an extraordinary success in delivering environmental outcomes.
The Lake Erie watershed is one of the most varied in the Great Lakes basins and is also the most populous.
It is heavily industrialized, heavily urbanized, and largely agrarian.
The Lake Erie watershed is home to around one-third of the Great Lakes basin's total population.
The most pressure from urbanization, industry, and agriculture is placed on Lake Erie compared to the other Great Lakes.
Because of its underlying geology and land usage, Lake Erie receives more sewage treatment plant effluent than any other Great Lake and is thus more likely to be susceptible to sediment loading.
Particularly in southwest Ontario and northwest Ohio, exposed agricultural and urban sites add significant amounts of sediment to the lake.
The volume-wise smallest and shallowest of the Great Lakes is Lake Erie.
In the spring and summer, it warms up quickly, and in the fall, it cools down quickly.
The shallowness of the basin and the higher temperatures make it the Great Lake with the highest biological productivity.
