Farmer still killing Lake Erie

dvx216

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Feb 1, 2012
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Catawaba Island/Orrville,Oh.
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340 Sundancer 2001
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Since 2014 when drinking water from the lake was shut down because of the green tide the Ohio Farmers are still not on board to preventing fertilizer run off. As much as they are screaming they are over regulated by the state they are willing to do nothing on their own to prevent it. One thing for sure if the farming industry doesn't take part in coming up with solutions they will not be happy when the state of Ohio forces it on them. You can't deny the every ditch runs back to the lake eventually and if the farmer is not responsible for their run off then who is. Now I know what you will say that it's waste water plants and people fertilizing their yard is the cause but studies have proved that waste water plant regulations have reduce their involvement and landscaping fertilizer break down before contributing to the problem. There is 4 commercial dairies with in a 5 mile radius in my area alone and if the fields don't have crops on them they are brown with liquid manure. All these fields have plastic field drains and with the concentration of manure on these field they might as well be pumping it right into the surrounding creeks. I don't have a solution but Lake Erie is not going to fix itself and I for one I would love to see the lake clear again it's not supposed to be green. By no means is this a shot at any farm that have done there share of prevention but if any agricultural run off is causing a problem with Lake Erie then why wouldn't it be dealt with.
 
Chicken or egg? Is it the producer or the consumer? If people wouldn't buy the products of polluting farmers they'd not pollute. Buy organic and the problem largely disappears, IMO.

Similarly, is it the illicit drug producers & suppliers that are the problem, or the illicit drug consumers?
 
Chicken or egg? Is it the producer or the consumer? If people wouldn't buy the products of polluting farmers they'd not pollute. Buy organic and the problem largely disappears, IMO.

Similarly, is it the illicit drug producers & suppliers that are the problem, or the illicit drug consumers?
One difference, farmer not making money, dope dealer buying yachts.
 
I share your concern. But rather than complain about it, we need to come up with a viable solution.

What IS the solution?
 
Governor DeWine is still playing nice with the farming industry hoping that they will just get on board with their new H2Ohio plan. I hope the plan works. The farming industry is fighting in federal court over calling the Great Lakes a protected eco system. I'm 58 years old and I've only have heard stories of how Lake Erie use to be before the 70's when the lake was clear and not green. GypsmJim you call it complaining so be it but if people don't say anything then we will get more of the same. Jim I have voiced my concern to Mr. DeWine. It just bothers me that 32 million dollars of tax payers money is required to pay the farming industry to do something they should be doing in the first place.
 
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Governor DeWine is still playing nice with the farming industry hoping that they will just get on board with their new H2Ohio plan. I hope the plan works. The farming industry is fighting in federal court over calling the Great Lakes a protected eco system. I'm 58 years old and I've only have heard stories of how Lake Erie use to be before the 70's when the lake was clear and not green. GypsmJim you call it complaining so be it but if people don't say anything then we will get more of the same. Jim I have voiced my concern to Mr. DeWine. It just bothers me that 32 million dollars of tax payers money is required to pay the farming industry to do something they should be doing in the first place.
OK, maybe my use of the word "complain" wasn't very sensitive. Maybe I should have said "Lobby" the government, or "protest" or something else. Nevertheless. since I DO live on Lake Erie it is of utmost importance to me as well.

Your comments about the old days have me cornfused. Before the 1970's the lake was NOT clear. It was considered a dead lake. As I recall (and my memory ain't so good cause of my old age) it was the ban on phosphates in laundry detergents that was the impetus to cleaning up Erie. Also, a complete ban on certain fertilizers was enacted.

When I boated in the 1950's and 1960's we fished for bass relatively close to shore. As the lake got cleaner and cleaner the fish moved further out in the lake. Now, on the eastern end you can clearly see the bottom 30 feet down. As a kid, you couldn't see 5 feet down.

In the 1950's if you caught a carp on the Erie Canal it was a monumental event. Now the canal is a respected bass fishery. Interestingly enough our only algae problems ARE in the Erie Canal, or other relatively slow moving waters, and then even only late in the Summer when the water temperature is high.

To repeat my question: "What IS the solution?" Do we require farmers to put moats around their properties, with collection into sewers or septics? Do we ban ALL fertilizers? Do we outlaw farming alltogether? I dunno - what should the farming industry be doing? If we already have the knowledge of the solution, then we need to get the environmental organizations on board.
 
OK, maybe my use of the word "complain" wasn't very sensitive. Maybe I should have said "Lobby" the government, or "protest" or something else. Nevertheless. since I DO live on Lake Erie it is of utmost importance to me as well.

Your comments about the old days have me cornfused. Before the 1970's the lake was NOT clear. It was considered a dead lake. As I recall (and my memory ain't so good cause of my old age) it was the ban on phosphates in laundry detergents that was the impetus to cleaning up Erie. Also, a complete ban on certain fertilizers was enacted.

When I boated in the 1950's and 1960's we fished for bass relatively close to shore. As the lake got cleaner and cleaner the fish moved further out in the lake. Now, on the eastern end you can clearly see the bottom 30 feet down. As a kid, you couldn't see 5 feet down.

In the 1950's if you caught a carp on the Erie Canal it was a monumental event. Now the canal is a respected bass fishery. Interestingly enough our only algae problems ARE in the Erie Canal, or other relatively slow moving waters, and then even only late in the Summer when the water temperature is high.

To repeat my question: "What IS the solution?" Do we require farmers to put moats around their properties, with collection into sewers or septics? Do we ban ALL fertilizers? Do we outlaw farming alltogether? I dunno - what should the farming industry be doing? If we already have the knowledge of the solution, then we need to get the environmental organizations on board.
The lake basin farming should be handled different to the rest that are not near major water ways it does seem that they are going to start doing something about by what I have read. Not sure why it took so long.
 
At it's most basic, the problem is more nutrients making their way into Lake Erie than the system can handle. The nutrients come from agriculture, inadequately treated sewage, fertilizer use by homeowners, municipalities, etc.

The majority of fertilizer in use in farming and by homeowners, golf courses, & municipalities is likely water soluble. Most fertilizers used in organic methods are not water soluble. That keeps rain and irrigation from washing them into the watershed. That would help Lake Erie stay cleaner.

Municipality waste water treatment efforts could follow the lead of Milwaukee. That city makes an organic fertilizer from their sewage treatment. This reduces the amount of nutrients in Lake Michigan.

Happily the extreme levels of pollution are not still occurring and the Cuyahoga river no longer catches on fire. So there has been progress.
 
Municipality waste water treatment efforts could follow the lead of Milwaukee. That city makes an organic fertilizer from their sewage treatment. This reduces the amount of nutrients in Lake Michigan.
A similar type plant was built in my home town. Part of the deal was that our town farms would receive the fertilizer for free. After the law was enacted and other non-farmers heard what the source of the fertilizer was, they raised wholly %$#& and basically got the plant shut down.

A company tried to build wind turbines offshore in lake Erie and so far it has been defeated because residents deem them unsightly. One local town has banned rooftop solar panels because they detract from the beauty of the neighborhood.

Many of us profess ecology and environment, but there are still too many that oppose it for illogical reasons.
 
One of the first thing that I've learned since starting this post was one of the biggest problem is manure on soil without any vegetation growing on it. Lawn fertilizer is usually dry time released product that is put on grass that tends to stay put. State of Ohio studies have shown agricultural run off is responsible for 88% of the algae blooms in the western basin. The other 12% comes from faulty septic systems and sewer lines. State of Ohio have a 32 million dollar grant money for the western basin farmers for grass buffer zones around fields , refurbish wet lands and planting vegetation on unused land that is used for dispersing manure on, plus field drain water monitoring. Ohio is going the spend a total 172 million dollars for the Lake Erie and clean drinking water for Ohio. I spoke out of turn and wasn't aware of the new measures that are going into effect this spring by the State of Ohio called H2Ohio. I'm not sure what effects Michigan,Pennsylvanian,New York and Canada has on the lake or if they are doing anything to help. As of now the State of Ohio is doing something to address the Western Basin.
 
Chicken or egg? Is it the producer or the consumer? If people wouldn't buy the products of polluting farmers they'd not pollute. Buy organic and the problem largely disappears, IMO.

Similarly, is it the illicit drug producers & suppliers that are the problem, or the illicit drug consumers?

Where do organic food items come from? They come from farmers, who follow an organic (in theory) program.

How do organic farmers provide nutrients for production? Primarily that brown stuff that you referred to being spread on fields.

I am in general very pro agriculture, but will admit Farmers have not followed good practices,

Area around Chesapeake has gone through the struggle of farms and run off into the bay.

City of Des Moines has gone to court over the topic. Central Florida is in intense debate of farm run off and the Okeechobee waterway.
 
I did at first think the same thing of organic dairy manure but the studies show because of the non chemical feed that is fed to the cows the manure breaks down and absorbs into the soil quicker . So the studies say.
 
I did at first think the same thing of organic dairy manure but the studies show because of the non chemical feed that is fed to the cows the manure breaks down and absorbs into the soil quicker . So the studies say.

I think the issue that seems to be prevalent are the nitrates ( and phosphates) that make it into the water. Not a chemist here, but a concern that farmers have from a fertilization perspective is the conversion of a form of nitrogen to a usable (by a plant) form of nitrogen. For example the conversion of NH3 to NH4.

In FL the issue is the blue/green algae blooms. Someone told me they were so thick at one point there was an iguana walking on top. Lot of pictures of it.

From what @GypsmJim was saying - water quality in Lake Erie is better now than in the past. I have no comment either way, no first hand knowledge.

Minnesota is the midst of substantial public debate around a practice called tiling. French drains same as what you might have in your backyard, just on a more substantial scope.

I say that because you find supporting material on the internet for which ever position you have on the discussion (pro or con).

So much misinformation has been published that the blurring of the line of accurate facts is very hard to sort through. For those that may have the detailed knowledge to sort through the information, there is a tendency to introduce natural human bias.
 
It's quite simple. If the nutrients put on the land (farming, people's yards, golf courses, etc.) are water soluble they get into the streams and lakes more quickly than nutrients are are less water soluble.
 
This reply addresses several comments above....

As a kid I grew up on the Erie Canal. My grandparents lived on the shore and I spent my summers there. Lots of memories. One that comes to mind is that Grandma would never let me swim off the dock. One that sticks in my mind was a day that Gramma pulled me off the dock and back to the house when she saw human excrement floating by. (sorry to be so graphic, but its true).

Our family lived within city limits, and as such were required to have a septic system. Long gone now, as sewers were installed back in the 1980's. But back in that day the houses that were upstream out of city limits merely had a pipe from the toilet directly into the canal.

As a young engineer my first overseas business trip was to ***** (I won't denigrate a foreign country online). From afar you could visualize the beauty of their waterways, but alongside the smell was too much to bear. Their sewage systems were a sight to behold.

Another observation is my own experience with algae formation on my own farm pond. It was terrible at first, but then the establishment of a fish population helped considerably. Next, the establishment of plant life was another improvement. But finally, the addition of a food coloring to deter water clarity was the change that solved the problem Ten years with no algae.

If you can detect some rising blood pressure in my responses, you might be right. My University Engineering education was completed just about the time the EPA and OSHA were formed. I spent the last 47 years working on environmental control, and energy savings.

God Bless lake Erie...

We still have a long way to go, but we also must be proud of how far we have come.
 
We have a lot of environmental concerns to solve. Everytime Baltimore gets a heavy rain, the sewers overflow into the bay.
 
I have never been to Lake Erie to see how bad it gets in summer. In Wisconsin we have a fairly large lake called Lake Winnebago. It is surround by farmland and lots of residential areas. A combination of farm fertilizer and fertilizer from lawns causes the lake to get really nasty. Now it does not help that this 215 sq mile lake only has a average depth of 15'. If it was 50' I am sure the lake would stay much cooler and you would not see the algae blooms in summer.

High-Cliff-Beach-09-02-09-B_web.jpg
 

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