WASHINGTON D.C. — To improve Lake Erie water quality and reduce public health risks, the United States and Canada have announced phosphorous reduction targets of 40 percent.

Back in 1972, when scientists were declaring Lake Erie biologically “dead,” the two nations signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) and began working together on phosphorous management, said Cameron Davis, senior advisor to the U.S. EPA administrator for the Great Lakes. Lake Erie surged back to health after that.

“In the early 2000s, researchers found increases of phosphorous again causing problems for Lake Erie,” Davis wrote in an email. “So the 2012 agreement recognized that the problem had come back, and the two countries needed to address it.”

The scientific community found the 40 percent target would eliminate hypoxia, “dead zones” where oxygen is missing from pockets in Lake Erie, Davis said. It would also help minimize toxic algae and stabilize the lake at healthy levels of algae.

The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF) provided some input on this 40 percent plan during a public consultation process, said Larry Antosch, OFBF’s senior director of environmental policy.

“That 40 percent number has been discussed quite a bit over the past several years,” he said. “It appears that the number is based on good science; there is a lot of good modeling behind it.”

Last June the governors from Ohio and Michigan and the premier of Ontario came up with a collaborative agreement, setting an interim goal of 20 percent reduction by the year 2020 and 40 percent by 2025, Antosch said. The states will develop strategies to advance that agreement.

“Ohio EPA should be releasing their strategy for Ohio sometime in March,” he said. “We’re assuming it will be comprehensive; it will be addressing all sources of phosphorous not just agriculture, and that there is discussion on how to implement those strategies. We’re hoping that we are engaged in those discussions.”

Ohio EPA had already adopted that 40 percent phosphorous reduction target in its 2013 Phosphorous Task Force II report, and the plan closely follows the path Ohio has already taken by working to establish the Western Lake Erie Basin Collaborative Agreement, said Heidi Griesmer, spokesperson for Ohio EPA. It will soon be releasing its implementation plan for the collaborative, which puts it about two years ahead of the timetable for the U.S. EPA.

“Ohio has spent more than $2 billion since 2011 to improve Lake Erie water quality,” she said. “We have also been an active participant in Annex 4 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the work group for which U.S. EPA just announced the nutrient reduction.”

Ohio is also working with the state of Michigan and Ontario to implement an international agreement reached last summer to reduce phosphorous by 40 percent for the Lake Erie basin.

Besides the work they have put in place with farmers, Ohio EPA requires major wastewater treatment plants to monitor their discharge for phosphorous, and smaller wastewater treatment plants to do a study determining the feasibility of limiting phosphorous. They have also banned the open placement of dredge material by 2020.

Griesmer agreed the science is not yet perfected. “We’ve been upfront that this is a situation where we’re building the airplane as it is going down the runway. Science is still developing on this, but we can’t wait for it to be perfected before we implement things. We’re trying to adapt as we move forward.”