Tag: algae blooms

Science alone won’t save the lake: Agricultural runoff in the Western Lake Erie Basin.

Published on July 16th, 2025 by - Blog Posts

Facing facts and moving forward: Notes from the 2025 State of the Western Lake Erie Basin Conference.

On June 26, the State of the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) conference, hosted by Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), brought together researchers, agency staff, and community advocates working in one of Michigan’s most heavily farmed—and heavily polluted—regions.

The focus was on advancements and priorities in the WLEB, especially efforts to tackle harmful algal blooms (HABs). Highlighted tracks included:

  • Implementation Science in Agricultural Systems: Potentials for and Assessments of Innovative Behavior Change Interventions
  • Healthy Soils, Healthy Waters: Understanding Links Between Soil Health and Water Quality on Farms in the Western Lake Erie Basin
  • and Understanding Legacy Phosphorus in the Western Lake Erie Basin.

A common theme ran through all sessions: the problem is well understood—now is the time to implement real solutions to reduce pollution.

Agricultural runoff is the main issue.

EGLE made it clear that the biggest threat to the WLEB is non-point source pollution, particularly runoff from agricultural sources. That aligns with what they’ve stated in their MI Environment article about harmful algal blooms (HABs). The article explains, “In May, the State of Michigan updated its Domestic Action Plan (DAP) for combating harmful algal blooms (HABs). The plan contains measures to reduce phosphorus runoff by a sustained 40% from a 2008 baseline measurement by targeting nutrient-rich releases from wastewater treatment plants and phosphorus runoff from farm fields and fertilized lawns.”

Presenters reiterated throughout the day that this problem isn’t new and it’s not only about current practices. Decades of fertilizer use have left legacy phosphorus in soils and sediments. Addressing these long-term consequences is critical to building effective, lasting solutions and achieving sustainable land management.

People are trying new things.

Despite the challenges, there were some encouraging updates. One session focused on using behavioral science—not just facts and figures—to help understand how farmers make decisions. Findings show that simply providing more information doesn’t always lead to action; real change requires meeting people where they are.

Another panel showed how improving soil health can also help reduce runoff. However, even with these promising tools, a major theme emerged again: none of it will scale up without stronger policies to support it.

Policy support is the missing piece.

A major challenge is the damage resulting from environmental rollbacks. During the Trump administration in 2020, agencies like the EPA and USDA weakened review processes, referring to it as “permitting reform.” In truth, these changes limited public input and undermined environmental protections. Fact sheets from that time detailed reduced deadlines and page counts—presented as cutting red tape—but in practice, these reforms made it easier for large-scale projects, including agricultural operations, to bypass environmental scrutiny. That’s a serious concern in regions like Western Lake Erie.

Science alone won’t save the lake.

The conference underscored a key takeaway: science alone isn’t enough to solve nutrient pollution. Policies rooted in strong science—and the enforcement to support them—are essential. Otherwise, even the best ideas remain stuck in pilot programs.
The case of the Western Lake Erie Basin shows what happens when known problems go unaddressed—but also what’s possible when land use and water protection are treated as urgent, interdependent priorities.

At Flow Water Advocates, the work continues to advocate for policies that protect Michigan’s water and communities. Clean water depends on effective protections—and real accountability—when it comes to farming, development, and pollution.

Nutrient Pollution: The Second Battle of Lake Erie

Published on October 9th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

One of the military clashes between England and the United States was the battle of Lake Erie. On September 10, 1813, nine ships under U.S. Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry bested a nine-ship English fleet in a decisive battle for control of western Lake Erie and surrounding lands. Today, a 352-foot International Peace Memorial on South Bass Island commemorates the longest undefended border in the world, uniting Canada and the U.S. 

For more than three decades now, our nations have engaged in a different kind of struggle – to rescue western Lake Erie from a tsunami of toxic algae. No one is winning except the industrial agriculture interests that profit from lax environmental regulation, as untreated factory farm sewage is allowed to pour into Michigan’s formerly pure waters. We need a fundamentally different approach to nutrient pollution.

When detergents in wastewater caused algae blooms in the 1960s, the U.S. and Canada moved quickly to control the culprit – phosphorus – with dramatic improvements in just a few years. The battle was won, but the war wasn’t over. Beginning in the 1990s, annual algae blooms returned to western Lake Erie, growing in severity until, in 2014, Toledo, Ohio had to shut down its drinking water intake and put the entire city on bottled water for days. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent on cleanup strategies in the past decade have done little to diminish the threat to Lake Erie and its many tributaries, which used to be swimmable and fishable. Today, they run brown and weedy, choked with ag-sourced sewage.

Nutrient pollution includes nitrogen and phosphorus, both products of agriculture and other human activities. It’s tricky to regulate because nutrients are essential to the food cycle, but too much quickly turns toxic for humans and animals alike. Nutrient pollution causes fish kills and dead zones. It contaminates private wells by leaching through soil. Exposure can cause diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, irritation of the skin, eyes, and throat, allergic reactions, or breathing difficulties. Prolonged exposure can cause cancer.

Wastewater plants were responsible for some of the nutrient pollution, but research quickly identified factory farms as the leading source of the algae resurgence.

The International Joint Commission, which deals with issues affecting waterways along the U.S.-Canada border, called for a 40% reduction in phosphorus in western Lake Erie, but every year we miss that goal by miles, despite an agreement by Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario to reach the 40% goal by 2025. They won’t come close. Western Lake Erie’s target phosphorus load was met only once from 2013 through 2024. Some say there has been virtually no reduction. This year’s bloom was detected on June 24, the earliest date ever, reaching 620 square miles, and was still visible as October began.

Clearly, we need more tools in our toolbox. In other parts of the world, holistic approaches to nutrient pollution show promise. The Netherlands, for example, has implemented “nitrogen accounting,” which makes individual sources of nutrient pollution responsible for tracking their outputs. It’s a flexible approach that allows for creativity and customized practices at the local level, as long as nutrient outputs stay below the required levels.

Nutrient pollution has become a global problem that requires innovative, game-changing thinking and cross-border collaborations. We have no time to lose.

 

Evaluating the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement on its 50th Birthday

Published on April 11th, 2022 by - Blog Posts, News

When Lake Erie algae blooms worsened to a crisis in the 1960s, Canada and the United States shared the problem—but no mechanism to combat it jointly.

Out of that gap came the binational Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Signed by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and U.S. President Richard Richard Nixon in Ottawa on April 15, 1972, the pact embraced the reality that Great Lakes water flows across the international boundary and that only through joint effort can the lakes be restored.

Has it worked?

The answer: yes and no. Yes, the Great Lakes are better off than they would be without the Agreement. The two countries have coordinated efforts to clean up the lakes for decades, keeping the commitment they made 50 years ago. That commitment is to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Waters of the Great Lakes.” These efforts have reduced, but not eliminated, both conventional and chemical forms of pollution and broadened the perspectives of both governments and the public to grasp the importance of regarding the Lakes as an ecosystem, instead of a jumble of unrelated pieces.

But the Agreement’s 1972 goals are unfulfilled. In particular, the Great Lakes are not “free from nutrients entering the waters as a result of human activity in concentrations that create nuisance growths of aquatic weeds and algae.” After early successes in reducing the phosphorus pollution that spurred algae outbreaks, the two nations have witnessed a rebound in both nuisance and harmful algae in Lake Erie since the early 2000s. A toxic bloom forced Toledo, Ohio, officials to warn residents not to drink city water for two days in the summer of 2014. Algae blooms also occur in Saginaw Bay and pockets of Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario. Lately, blooms have appeared in Lake Superior, the coldest and cleanest of the Great Lakes, for reasons not yet clear.

Has it worked? The answer: yes and no. Yes, the Great Lakes are better off than they would be without the Agreement. But the Agreement’s 1972 goals are unfulfilled.

While the scientific explanation for the Lake Erie algae trend is complicated, the social and political explanation is simple. The primary culprit in the 1950s and 1960s, when a University of Toronto researcher said the lake was dying, was phosphorus soaps and detergents, discharged primarily from sewage plants after household use, and thus easy to attack. Today, runoff of farm fertilizer and animal waste is the primary cause, and there is little political appetite for enforcing strict phosphorus limits on agriculture. Similarly, politicians on both sides of the border are generally unwilling to spend political capital challenging industry to reduce the use and introduction of toxic chemicals that often contaminate sportfish. Pollution also limits other human uses in areas of the Great Lakes, including swimming.

This is just one of several problems undermining the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which has been significantly altered three times, in 1978, 1987 and 2012.

Report cards issued by the two governments and by the International Joint Commission (IJC), which the Agreement charges with evaluating progress, are mixed. The governments’ 2019 State of the Great Lakes report characterizes the lakes as “fair and unchanging. While progress to restore and protect the Great Lakes has occurred, including the reduction of toxic chemicals, the indicator assessments demonstrate that there are still significant challenges, including the impacts of nutrients and invasive species.”

The biggest threat to the Great Lakes is undoubtedly climate change. It will alter the lakes in many ways, some of them not foreseeable. Warming groundwater, changes in the aquatic food web, and increasing algae blooms are likely among them.

There are other major challenges to the health of the Great Lakes: habitat loss, pollution of groundwater that feeds the lakes, and climate change. Meanwhile, mistakes of the past continue to plague the lakes. After more than three decades of cleanup effort, 34 of an original 43 Areas of Concern (AOCs) remain (26 U.S., 12 Canadian and five shared). AOCs are bays, harbors, and rivers that are victims of chemical and conventional pollution requiring billions of taxpayer dollars to clean up. The toxic materials, such as PCBs, dioxins, and mercury are persistent and have contaminated millions of cubic yards of underwater sediments. An additional $1 billion for the Great Lakes appropriated by Congress this year will go to cleanup activities at several AOCs.

There is growing awareness that a binational U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement excludes governments that should have an equal seat at the table–tribes, First Nations, and Metis, whose sovereignty, wisdom, and scientific knowledge are essential to the health of the Great Lakes. Yet it was only in the 2012 version of the Agreement that indigenous membership was specified on the Great Lakes Water Quality Board, and only in 2019 that the first indigenous member of the IJC, Henry Lickers, was appointed by the Canadian government.

The biggest threat to the Great Lakes is undoubtedly climate change. It will alter the lakes in many ways, some of them not foreseeable. Warming groundwater, changes in the aquatic food web, and increasing algae blooms are likely among them. The 2012 version of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement contains an annex devoted to climate change, but focuses solely on assessment and planning.

In signing the Agreement in Ottawa in April 1972, President Nixon said, “This agreement represents an important beginning, one which has been made possible by the cooperation of our two national governments and of State and Provincial governments as well. And now we must all follow through on the beginning.”

Today, we are still closer to the beginning than the end of Great Lakes restoration, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement notwithstanding.