Search Site   
Current News Stories
Solar eclipse, new moon coming April 8
Mystery illness affecting dairy cattle in Texas Panhandle
Teach others to live sustainably
Gun safety begins early
Hard-cooked eggs recipes great for Easter, anytime
Michigan carrot producers to vote on program continuation
Suggestions to celebrate 50th wedding anniversary
USDA finalizes new ‘Product of the USA’ labeling rule 
U.S. weather outlooks currently favoring early planting season
Weaver Popcorn Hybrids expanding and moving to new facility
Role of women in agriculture changing Hoosier dairy farmer says
   
News Articles
Search News  
   
Heavy rains raising Lake Erie phosphorous load for algae

 
By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

PUT-IN-BAY, Ohio — On a scale of 1 to 10, this year’s harmful algae bloom (HAB) on Lake Erie should be an 8.7. In 2011, it was at 10.
Ohio Sea Grant’s Stone Laboratory hosted an event in early July to explain the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) seasonal forecast of HABs. “Since then it has continued to rain,” pointed out Dr. Jeffery Reutter, special advisor to the lab. “The loads are continuing to go higher.
“Right now I would be expecting a bloom, say the second worst. I expect it to be worse than the last two years. “
The NOAA forecast is based on the March-July total phosphorous load from the Maumee River, said Dr. Justin Chaffin, research coordinator of Stone Lab. More phosphorous getting into the lake means a bigger bloom.
“This is based on probably 14 years of observation, and this pattern holds pretty close every year,” Chaffin said. “When you get more phosphorus loaded from the Maumee River it is always associated with more rainstorms. During these wet years like we had this year, and in 2011 where we had record-breaking rainstorms in May and June, a lot of phosphorus is carried off in runoff and gets into Lake Erie.”
One of the side effects of climate change is increased severe storms in spring and early summer, Chaffin said. Over the past 20-25 years, the number of larger storms has increased by about 50 percent.
The Lake Erie Phosphorous Task Force convened in 2007 to analyze the causes and sources of the algal blooms in Lake Erie. It determined the amount of phosphorous going into the lake needed to be reduced by 40 percent, said Gail Hesse, executive director of the task force. Because of climate variability, factors such as severe storms, they also recommended the need to take an adaptive management approach.
“These are new situations that we haven’t faced before,” Hesse said. “There are still some unanswered science questions, and we need to feel confident that we can reach that 40 percent, and if we do, are we achieving the ecological endpoint that we are hoping to achieve? And if not, then we need to do some course corrections.”
There needs to be a cumulative effect so that even when in years of high rainfall, levels of phosphorous will still be reduced, Hesse said.
“People need to be trying to reduce what comes off the land by 40 percent,” Reutter added. “Those numbers are probably not as good as they should be. For instance, we know that they can reduce the amount coming off their land by about 50 percent if they incorporate the phosphorous into the soil. That is a big recommendation.
“There are also a lot of people out there who put on too much. That is probably particularly true on corn. You need maybe 50 pounds per acre of phosphorous but the regulations allow the large-animal operations to put on 150 pounds per acre. The more you put on, the more is coming off.”
Many farmers are voluntarily doing what they can to prevent phosphorous runoff, Reutter said. But everybody needs to do it.
“I don’t believe you can get everybody to do it voluntarily,” he said. “In just about everything, you get people who are the good actors who are going to try to do the right things, and you have some people that just don’t care ... But that is just an opinion, and my opinion is no better than anybody else’s on that.”
7/29/2015