It was no surprise that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency met a court-ordered June 30 deadline for submitting to the U.S. EPA a future management plan to deal with decades of algae problems in Lake Erie, but it’s likely going to be determined that it falls short of need and will be rejected.
So says Michelle Burke, executive director of the Boating Associations of Ohio, an industry/boat owner membership group and one of several concerned organizations calling for action to protect Lake Erie.
“This plan fails to effectively set total maximum daily limits of phosphorus- and nitrogen-laden runoff that pours into western Lake Erie, the primary trigger for the annual toxic blooms in our beautiful lake,” Burke says. “Its root cause has been known for more than two decades, violates the Clean Water Act, and must be effectively addressed without further delay.”
A court-ordered consent decree was issued by U.S. District Judge James Carr following a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Law & Policy Center and the Lucas County Commissioners against the U.S. EPA. The decree required the Ohio EPA to submit a maximum daily limit plan for the lake to the U.S. EPA by June 30. Essentially, the plan must set limits for pollutants the lake can tolerate and meet requirements in the Clean Water Act.
Maximum daily limits exist in many parts of the country for smaller bodies of water, including in Ohio. But none exist for one as big as western Lake Erie. This maximum daily limit would be for the Maumee River Watershed, the major source of algae-forming runoff that flows into western Lake Erie. It literally pours millions of gallons of untreated manure from massive confined animal feeding operations that is spread on farm fields as fertilizer but drains into the lake.
Lake advocates point out that there are countess regulations controlling the discharge of pollutants, but none that addresses this type of discharge. Moreover, there’s no way Lake Erie can be cleaned up without telling the farm operations that their animal waste must be handled and treated differently. No small challenge, but the law requires a solution.
The clock is running again. The consent decree now requires the U.S. EPA to approve or reject the Ohio EPA’s draft maximum daily limit plan within 90 days. If it’s found unacceptable, the U.S. EPA must prepare its own plan within the following five months. And under the consent decree, the Environmental Law & Policy Center and the Lucas County Commissioners also retain the right to challenge the EPA’s approval or any subsequent proposed plan.
What’s expected? Numerous activists had already labeled the Ohio EPA’s plan, issued earlier for public comment, as a total failure to make real progress. Among other things, they amplify the lack of ideas for any critical controls of the manure-based runoff beyond some voluntary incentives that have already proven worthless.
If the U.S. EPA finds the Ohio EPA proposal unacceptable, something advocates expect to happen, terms of Carr’s consent order could grant the state agency up to five more months to refine and strengthen its plan. Observers say more time seems likely. So Lake Erie will end this summer of slime time without a good plan, and the battle will drag on into next winter with no timely solution on the horizon.
Moreover, if the Ohio EPA revised plan is then rejected, the U.S. EPA is mandated to prepare its own maximum daily limit plan within five more months. And to add to the quandary, it’s reported that Ohio officials are reviewing applications for licensing even more big feeding operations. (Strangely, only very large ones require licensing; the overwhelming majority fall under the size requirement.)
Says one observer: “We’re hopeful something good will come, but the actions so obviously needed to protect Lake Erie are being written by the firm of Dilly, Dally and Delay.”
