Tag: harmful algal 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.

Toledo’s 2014 Drinking Water Crisis: What Has Changed and What Hasn’t

Published on August 1st, 2024 by - Blog Posts

In the summer of 2014, residents of Toledo, Ohio awoke to the news that they should avoid drinking the water that came out of their tap. On August 2, 2014, government officials warned against drinking, cooking, or brushing teeth with the algae-trainted water supplies.

In total, the “do not drink” advisory was given to over 450,000 customers of the Toledo public drinking water supply, including some in Michigan. Flocking to stores to get bottled water, residents emptied shelves of the replacement water for dozens of miles in all directions.

What happened?

An algae bloom had generated toxins in the immediate vicinity of the city’s drinking water intake, a few miles offshore in Lake Erie.

After a little more than two days, officials lifted the advisory and declared the water safe to drink, and promised swift action to prevent such a crisis from happening again. Most of all, they promised to deal with the phosphorus pollution from agriculture and urban sources in the Lake Erie watershed that fed the algae blooms.

If action means spending, it followed – but not by a large enough margin.

If action means a reduction in phosphorus pollution, especially from agriculture, that mostly did not happen.

And algae blooms remain a serious threat in western Lake Erie. Ten years later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a moderate to above-moderate harmful algal bloom this summer.

“It’s disappointing and frustrating that we’ve seen so little progress in curbing phosphorus pollution in Lake Erie,” says Liz Kirkwood, executive director of FLOW. “Government promises have collided with politics and the public has been ill-served.”

As a Toledo advocate and Executive Director of the Junction Coalition, Alicia Smith observed, “Why is Toledo’s greatest asset—Lake Erie—still jeopardizing public health? Despite having a decade to address water safety, we continue to struggle with ensuring our drinking water is safe and affordable. How does the recurring issue of harmful algal blooms, which occur annually, not constitute a violation of the Clean Water Act? When will the waters of Lake Erie finally become drinkable, swimmable, and fishable for all?”

Michigan is second only to Ohio in the amount of phosphorus contributed to Lake Erie. Along with the Province of Ontario and Ohio, in 2015 Michigan signed a western Lake Erie Agreement that set a goal of work to achieve a recommended 40 percent total load reduction in the amount of total and dissolved reactive phosphorus entering Lake Erie’s Western Basin by the year 2025, with an aspirational interim goal of a 20 percent reduction by 2020. Government officials have admitted the three jurisdictions will fall far short of the 2025 goal.

The biggest challenge to meeting Michigan’s share of the goal is pollution by large factory farms, and Michigan’s director of agriculture readily admits that the agreement isn’t working here. Operators of these farms and the Michigan Farm Bureau have opposed controls on their discharges of phosphorus, while favoring taxpayer subsidies for voluntary experimental techniques to reduce phosphorus. Despite evidence these voluntary techniques will not be successful on the scale needed to clean up western Lake Erie, there is no apparent change in the position of the agriculture sector.

“The question is whether we value safe drinking water or status quo operation of large agricultural pollution sources,” says Liz Kirkwood. “That’s the stark choice.”

Great Lakes Manure Conference: Agriculture Runoff and Lake Erie

Published on May 10th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

On May 1-2, 2024, FLOW policy director Carolan Sonderegger and legal director Carrie La Seur attended the Great Lakes Manure Conference in Toledo, Ohio. The conference was an opportunity to tour the Maumee River, and learn from experts about legal, environmental, and public health issues posed by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Below, Carolan shares her learnings and reflections from the conference:

On the first day of the Great Lakes Manure Conference in Toledo, attendees joined a bus tour of local CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and a boat tour of the Maumee River, which provided ample room for networking and knowledge exchange. During the boat tour, we were able to see several grain silo facilities alongside the river.

One of the major highlights of the tour was the Glass City River Wall, which happens to be the largest mural in the United States (pictured above). The mural is not just a beautiful sight to behold; it is also an inspiration and a tribute to the local community’s resilience and determination to seek clean water and better nutrition for people worldwide. The mural depicts the historical significance of the indigenous peoples who lived and farmed along Ohio rivers for thousands of years, a testament to their enduring spirit in the face of environmental challenges.

The Maumee River is one of the United States’ largest Areas of Concern (AOC) – areas that have experienced environmental degradation. The river has been a hotspot of industrial and municipal development for almost 200 years. Due to agriculture runoff, unregulated waste disposal, industrial contamination, combined sewer overflows, and disposal of dredged materials, the Maumee River is the largest system emptying contaminants into Lake Erie.

In the Ottawa River, one of several embedded watersheds, high levels of PCBs and other contaminants led to a no-contact advisory for over 25 years, which was finally lifted in 2018. Human activities have resulted in the loss of more than 90% of Northwest Ohio’s wetlands, including the Toussaint Wildlife Area, a historic wetland. The contamination led to a restriction on fish and wildlife consumption until only recently, which was lifted in August of 2022. Many community members were observed fishing for sustenance along the banks, despite the fish consumption advisory recommending no more than one meal per week.

As seen in the picture above, the Maumee River appears to be vastly different from the waters and rivers of Northern Michigan. In contrast to our clear blue Niibii (water), the Maumee River resembled a dark and murky likeness to chocolate milk due to an abundance of suspended sediment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been collaborating with federal, state, and local partners to carry out remediation and restoration work in the region to tackle the existing beneficial use impairments (BUIs) – which identify significant environmental degradation. Although much work remains to be done, significant progress has been made on contaminated sediment remediation and habitat restoration efforts. Although turbidity is a water quality indicator, it is not an overarching testament to the river’s rehabilitation.

On the second day of the conference, we convened at the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center. We were privileged to hear from a diverse group of experts, including Kathy Martin, a civil engineer with over 25 years of experience in CAFOs; Fritz Byer, a Harvard Law graduate with over 35 years of practice; and others from Food and Water Watch, Waterkeeper Alliance, USDA/NRCS, and CAFO neighbors. The conference covered crucial topics, such as CAFO permitting (or lack thereof), manure digesters, CAFO history and economics, and the Nutrients Farm Bill. These discussions provided valuable insights into the current state of environmental conservation and the actions needed to address the issues.

Some speakers described the inconsistency in CAFO regulation from state to state in the Great Lakes basin, which aggravates cross-border cleanup challenges. Others addressed public health threats caused by CAFO waste, including multi-drug-resistant bacteria and avian flu, which can both spread to humans. University of Missouri Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics John Ikerd described the economics of CAFOs. It actually costs less to raise an animal on a traditional, diversified farm than in a CAFO, but CAFOs raise such large numbers of animals that smaller operations can’t compete on price.

Attorneys brought a legal perspective on current challenges to CAFOs, and how quickly the industry pivots to dodge regulation and enforcement. It is clear that we need a broad, national approach to reforming food systems, to restore healthy relationships among humans, animals, land, and water. This is FLOW’s vision.