By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio — Gov. Ted Strickland joined by several state agency directors to announce both long- and short-term action plans to help restore Grand Lake St. Marys (GLSM), which has been shut down by toxic algae blooms.

The Ohio Department of Health is investigating several reports of illnesses in people that might be linked to algae exposure at the lake, according to the Columbus Dispatch. The state’s action plan focuses on the two main issues negatively impacting the water quality of the lake – internal and external loading of phosphorous.

The internal loading is caused by an excessive amount of reactive phosphorous, which is continually recycled. External loading is the continual addition of phosphorous to the lake from external sources in the watershed.

“We are, along with (Ohio Environmental Protection Agency) EPA, trying to find materials that would cause the phosphate in the lake to become encapsulated so the toxic algae could not have access to it and therefore, it would begin to decline,” said Robert Boggs, Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) director, speaking of his agency’s role in the action plan.

“The EPA is taking a look at an alum solution. We are funding a solution using silica that will cause the increased growth of a benign type of algae that would deny the phosphate to the more toxic part.”

The ODA will also be doing some limited dredging, he said. A concern with dredging, though, is that disturbing the soils will release more toxins.

“The external loading – we are concerned with all runoff, all nonpoint source pollution – and a lot of that is agriculture, especially among our smaller farms in the GLSM’s watershed,” Boggs said.

Most people want to blame large livestock farms, he said. Yet, they are really not contributing very much to the problem because of the tough rules and regulations they must follow.

“The small farms in GLSM, we are told, are very heavily polluted by constantly, year in and year out, applying too much manure and fertilizer to the soil,” Boggs said. “They do very little soil testing. The small farms are the big problem.

“Under state law, the ODA does not have jurisdiction over those farms. That is the jurisdiction of the Soil and Water Conservation Service. The Soil and Water Conservation Service does not have the enforcement power that we do at the Department.”

Ohio has 75,000 farms and only 170 are the large farms regulated by the ODA, Boggs said.

Smaller farms in the watershed will be asked to adopt the same kinds of procedures and structures as the large livestock farms, which would greatly reduce the amount of runoff coming into the lake. That includes increased on-site storage; not being allowed to apply manure to the land during certain months of the year when the land is frozen; the planting of additional filter strips; and other techniques to eliminate the runoff going into the lake.

The state’s external loading action plan also includes limiting phosphorous discharges from wastewater treatment plants within the watershed and educating local homeowners on septic systems and lawn management practices.

Ohio has not encountered problems this severe before, so the situation is a learning process, Boggs said. Lakes in other areas in Ohio are also having trouble with algae, especially in the Maumee River and in Lake Erie.

Visitors to Blue Rock State Park in Muskingum County and Burr Oak State Park in Morgan and Athens counties have been warned to stay away from those lakes.