COLUMBUS, Ohio – Everybody wants to clean up Lake Erie. No question. The problems start when it comes to how. That has brought forth a lawsuit and an alphabet soup of legalese.

On May 1, the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), based in Chicago, along with the Board of Lucas County Commissioners and the City of Toledo, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. EPA alleging that the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of nutrients such as phosphorus set by the EPA is insufficient to meet both Ohio and federal water quality standards.

Ohio Farmers Union (OFU) also has concerns about the TMDL. In their view, the phosphorous and algal problems in Lake Erie don’t seem to be improving.

On Sept. 20, a coalition of 11 agriculture groups, which opposes the lawsuit, filed a Motion to Intervene which would enable them to have a say in the ELPC’s lawsuit. Ohio Farm Bureau put out a press release stating the facts of the case.

“A Motion to Intervene means that we will be participating as a party in the lawsuit,” said Leah Curtis, Ohio Farm Bureau policy counsel. “We can make arguments for and against all of the allegations that have been made in the lawsuit.”

The environmental group’s lawsuit claims that agriculture is not being regulated enough through the TMDL. However, the TMDL was developed through public comment, with the Ohio EPA, and with the approval of the U.S. EPA, Curtis said.

“It is here now and we are all operating under that TMDL,” Curtis said. “It was developed using science, all of the laws of the Clean Water Act (CWA), and all of the requirements for a TMDL.”

Katie Garvey, one of the attorneys for the group filing the lawsuit (this is the fourth one) against U.S. EPA, said that they are not doing their job under the Clean Water Act and the State of Ohio is not doing what it needs to do to clean up Lake Erie.

“In our view the TMDL that they came up with is not sufficient and it is not going to clean up Lake Erie,” Garvey said. “The point of the lawsuit is to point out those legal defects in the TMDL so that Ohio can correct them and ultimately come up with a plan which will actually clean up Lake Erie, which I think is the goal that almost everybody would agree with.”

The environmental group also believes that Ohio EPA is not requiring the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to do what they are required to do under the Clean Water Act.

“They need to live up to those standards,” Garvey said. “We’re saying the U.S. EPA is not requiring the Ohio EPA to require CAFOs to do what they are supposed to be doing.”

Joe Logan, president of the OFU, which is not in the coalition of ag groups, said his group also has concerns about the TMDL. The EPA, they think, needs to go back to the table and start again.

“From my experience, having been a farmer all of my life, I know that nobody likes to be told what to do, to be regulated, and farmers are especially independent-minded,” he said. “I get that the conventional agriculture community would be happy with a TMDL that didn’t ask them to do anything other than what they are already doing.”

Unfortunately, the data seems to indicate that that is not going to fix the phosphorous and algae problem in Lake Erie, he said.

“I use as a primary indicator of what is happening in the watershed, the stream gauge at Waterville, Ohio,” Logan said. “That’s the one right before the mouth of the Maumee discharges out into Lake Erie.

“Even though agricultural producers have adopted a lot of best management practices, they have not moved the needle in terms of the number of tons of phosphorous that are passing that water gauge at Waterville,” Logan said.

The 11 agriculture groups represented in the lawsuit are The Ohio Cattlemen’s Association, Ohio Corn & Wheat Growers Association, Ohio Dairy Producers Association, Ohio Farm Bureau, Ohio Pork Council, Ohio Poultry Association, Ohio Soybean Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Producers Council and United Egg Producers.

Tadd Nicholson, executive director of Ohio Corn & Wheat, summed up his group’s thoughts this way: “Clean lakes and streams throughout Ohio are important to everyone, especially farmers. It’s essential to our collective survival and success, and our growers take precautions to protect water quality around the state, including the Western Lake Erie Water Basin.”