“Ohio EPA and U.S. EPA have totally failed.”

So says Ohio’s Lucas County Board of Commissioners, along with leaders in its primary city, Toledo, in announcing they will join in suing the U.S. Enivronmental Protection Agency over what they say is a “facially inadequate plan” to reduce phosphorus runoff into the Western Lake Erie Basin that results in a dangerous algae blooms.

Dealers, boat-owner associations, conservation organizations and environmental groups have been declaring this for years and are enthusiastically supporting this latest action. It comes nearly a decade after a toxic Lake Erie algae bloom left 500,000 people in Lucas, Wood and Fulton counties in Ohio and south Monroe County in Michigan without access to clean drinking water, which comes from the lake.

Toledo and Lucas County now join the Environmental Law & Policy Center and tHE nonprofits Lake Erie Waterkeeper and Environment America that earlier filed suits against the U.S. EPA in federal court under the Clean Water Act. These suits contend the Campbell Soup Co. has been discharging high levels of phosphorous, E. coli bacteria, oil and grease into Ohio’s Maumee River, which feeds into Western Lake Erie.

The United States and Canada created the International Joint Commission, dba the Great Lakes Commission, years ago to recognize that each nation is affected by the other’s actions in lake and river systems along the shared border. The countries cooperate to manage and protect the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Commission pinpoints the problem as fertilizer runoff from farm fields and, in particular, manure.

The International Joint Commission says what the Ohio and U.S. EPA won’t: that the top problem is concentrated animal feeding operations and that the waste must be regulated like cities and factories if there’s any hope of restoring the Western Lake Erie Basin. Hundreds of feeding operations in western Ohio are bsaically unregulated and more are being added.

The U.S. EPA finally approved an Ohio EPA rule on the total daily maximum load allowed, but it is far too weak to restore Western Lake Erie. Ohio also has a voluntary program called H2Ohio offering financial incentives for farmers to keep fertilizer runoff from entering streams and, ultimately, Lake Erie. But it’s been around for a half-dozen years, and it has proven ineffective. The state says it will add more funding for the program.

Ohio recently hosted a meeting of directors from the agricultural departments of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan to discuss water-quality issues in the Western Lake Erie Basin. The basin is shared among the three states and covers nearly 7 million acres of land. But when dealing with the menace of agriculture runoff and water quality, there are no state lines. To date, no proposed initiatives have resulted from this meeting, which clean-water proponents point to as another example of more talk, less action.

The Clean Water Act is more than 50 years old, and it has resulted in many great environmental victories, including the cleanup of myriad lakes and rivers, and that deserves recognition.

However, when it comes to Lake Erie, observers must agree that the U.S. EPA has a clear record of failure in its duty to adequately address hazardous algae blooms. Moreover, it’s not a happy day when, after years of clearly identifying the roots of the problem and pleading for remedies, those directly impacted are finally fed up with the green slime of summer and are forced to the courts to get relief.