Industrial Animal Operations Health Water Risk
The Pew Commission report says that industrial scale farm animal operations cause "unacceptable" risk to public health and the environment. There are many confined animal feeding operationsCAFO's) in the Maumee/River Rasin/Lake Erie watershed and more proposed. recently Shefield Dairy has been cited.
Fermi 3 Coastal Wetlands
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality says this about Fermi 3's coastal wetland take will be one of the most significant coastal wetland take in the history of Michigan Coastal wetlands statutes. For the MDEQ statement to the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions click here
Fermi Three will draw 49 million gallons of water from the Western Basin of Lake Erie - just under the radar of 50 million gallons that would require an analysis of the increased fish kills and the thermal plumes. The Fermi application said that phosphorous is not a problem in the Western Lake Erie basin. The application also denied the existence of Maumee Bay. These are major problems in the application that need to be addressed as part of the EIS.
Ottawa River Toxic Cleanup
The Ottawa River's contaminated sediments are close to getting dredged. The cost - and estimated $48 million. Agreements by responsible parties have been reached and the project should by underway this summer. Thanks to US Fish & Wildlife and USEPA for keeping the public informed and making this project happen.
Great Lakes Compact
Most herald the passing of the Great Lakes Compact but there is skepticism on the part of some including Marcy Kaptur who worry that water will be treated as a commodity and will be sold in 5.7 gallon containers under NAFTA and other treaties and laws. Click here for the Compact.
Ohio still needs to pass, required by the Compact, implementing legislation on water conservation, protecting water quantities in streams and bottled water. This will be important in the 2009 legislative session.
Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association
CALENDAR
Going green With Your Lawn - Ohio Extension
Maumee Bay State Park Nature Amphitheatre
May 20 7 pm
Waterkeeper Meeting
Lake Erie Room
Bay Park Hospital
June 10 7 pm
For your daily dose of
Asian Carp Threaten the Great Lakes & the Maumee
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
The Great Lakes are getting $475 to help to restore them. Grant applications were do at the end of January 2010 and are now under review.
GREEN WATER
Most say that the most phosphorous in Western Lake Erie comes from agricultural runoff from the Maumee. Additional phosphorous comes from sedimetns that are open lake dumped, lawn fertilizer, wastewater plants, storm water, factory farms, and???
Studies on algae in the Maumee and Lake Erie continue. The power plants should make every effort to reduce the increased temperatures into the bay and lake of their 3 billion gallons of water used daily.
ALGAE & ROUNDUP ...OSU Research
Study finds major source of ecoli is factory farms
A study to determine the sources of ecoli - human or animal has concluded that factory farms are the dominant contributor of ecoli into Lake Huron. Click here for the article
Green Water Grows Lyngbya - Microcystis Algae
LYNGBYA THRIVES ON NORTHERN MAUMEE BAY AND NEARBY LAKE ERIE SHORES
Highpoint, North Carolina upgraded their wastewater plant and the lyngbya is nearly gone. Sewage in the River Raisin and other tributaries to the northern shores may, along with thermal plumes from power plants, be the underlyiing cause of the growth of lyngbya. Click here for a report on Lyngbya. For a picture of lyngbya taken August 17th, 2008.
What can people do to help? Use dishwasher detergent with no or low amounts of phosphorous - some have 8.5% - others have none. If you use lawn fertilizer, when your lawn is mature no phosphorous is needed. The middle number on the bad should be zero - if you hire your lawn to be fertilized - ask for no phosphorous. Get in touch with the Waterkeeper and get a group top check the levels of phosphorous in a ditch, creek, or river near where you live.
Sole Source Aquifer Comment Period end April 22nd
Protect the sole source aquifer around Bryan, Ohio that is drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Click here for suggested comments.
WESTERN LAKE ERIE WATERKEEPER PROGRAM
The Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association(WLEWA) is a member of Earthshares..
The WLEWA Mission: “To preserve, protect, and improve the waters and fish of the Western basin of Lake Erie, the warmest, shallowest, most biologically productive area in all of the Great Lakes through collaboration, education and advocacy.”
Serving the Western Lake Erie Watershed - in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Ontario
The Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association(WLEWA) serves the waters in the area from the Maumee River in Fort Wayne, Indiana east to Huron, Ohio and Point Pelee in Ontario, Canada. This western Lake Erie watershed includes the River Raisin, the Portage River, Maumee River and Bay and Sandusky River and Bay as well as all islands in the basin. WLEWA is a licensed Waterkeeper Alliance program.
WAYS TO HELP LAKE ERIE WATER...FISH
Buildings, streets, yards and parking lots take the place of bare ground, forests and wetlands. Lake Erie is 80% developed with farms, urban, etc. with the greatest loss of wetlands. As in the 50-s and 60's, the Western Lake Erie waters having growing quantities of algae because of too much phosphorous that dies and creates a dead zone -water without oxygen in the central basin of Lake Erie.
of Lake Erie, St. Clair & Detroit
Great Lakes - Canadian Video
Ohio Academy of Sciences
Presentations
April 10, 2010
West Erie Sept. 2009
Roger Kniight ODNR.
Great Lakes....Healthy Lakes Healthy Lives
For more information

OEPA Reviewing Bayshore Fish Kill Permit
Bayshore Fish Kill Economic Study
OEPA says decision in about 60 days from June 23rd.
Great Lakes Huge Fish Killing Power Plant
FIRST ENERGY BAYSHORE Information
March 3 , 2009 Ohio EPA Bayshore Fish Kill Public Meeting click here
Toledo City Paper, August 20, 2009 article on fish kills. Click here
Detroit Free Press - Bayshore Fish Killing Machine -
Toledo Blade March 4, 2009 on fish kill meeting on cost click here
Press Publications March 5, 2009 Bayshore Thermal Impact article
For the USEPA/OEPA consultant review of Kinetrics report from September 2008 click here. for the February 2009 Tetra Tech recommendations and review of the Bayshore plant click here
For the company Kinetrics summary report on fish kills click here
For the full company Kinetrics report on fish kills click here
To catch and eat fish requires a license and then there are rules. To kill the fish and do nothing - unlicensed - no rules. The Bayshore Power Plant is known as the Great Lakes largest fish killing power plant. The Bayshore plant, according to OEPA, kills more fish than all of the other Ohio power plants combined. ODNR says the power plant kills more fish than all the hatcheries produce annually,
For a petition asking Governor Strickland to stop the fish kills and pay for the fish impinged and entrained until the fish kills are reduced by the best available technology click here.. To send an electronic message - Sierra Club Take Action link to send a message to Governor Strickland and OEPA Director Chris Korleski to reduce the fish kills. For a power point presentation on the fish kills and Western Lake Erie email here.
The Maumee River is the most biologically productive river in the Great Lakes and the power plant in the fall, according to power plant studies, pulls the entire Maumee River waters through the plant in a day. The Bayshore power plant is also thought to be the largest fish killing plant in the Great Lakes with company studies showing over 46 million fish per year caught against the screens and over 2 billion larval fish that go through the screens. This averages to 126,000 fish per day on the screens and 6 million larval fish per day through the screens. Limits are set on sports fish for all that catch the fish and eat them but the power company that harms the fish with mercury, kills the fish from thermal water use and feeds the algae by warming the water has no limits, pays nothing, and degrades the ecosystem of Maumee Bay and western Lake Erie....
The power plant owners, Bayshore/Toledo Edison/First Energy comment on the fish kills in a September 28th, 2008 Press Publication article. Mark Durbin, Edison Communications, states that a fish diversion plan and cooling tower are both options First Energy is looking at. He calls the cooling tower possible but not probable - click here for the story.
Coke Plant: Appeals Filed
"The Sierra Club, in tandem with Harbor View - a village downwind of the proposed site - has appealed the permit modification on the grounds that too much time has elapsed." -- The Blade, April 1, 2008
On January 31, 2008, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency had issued a modified permit-to-install for FDS Coke LLC. To read the OEPA news release, click here.
The January 31, 2008, permit-to-install is available here, and the June 21, 2007, FDS application is available here.
The OEPA refuses to set any standards in this permit for the 1.1 million tons of CO2, the most conspicuous greenhouse gas, that will be released.
This new coke plant will have more emissions than the old Interlake Coke Plant on Front St. in Toledo, Ohio . . . about 3x more, according to OEPA records.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's response to public from December 2007 submissions is available here.
Additionally, the OEPA has also issued a permit-to-install for "a cooling tower to be used as part of an electric generation facility the company also plans to build." You can view this permit here.
Further information from the Ohio EPA about the proposed FDS Coke plant in Toledo and Oregon, Ohio, can be found here.
To learn more about this plant of heavy pollution and its unknown backers, please head over to our Coke Plant page.
Dr. 'Bob' Brundage Scholarship
The 2010 Brundage scholarship award went to Todd Crail.
The Dr. Brundage Scholarship is a fitting tribute to this great man. The $500 scholarship is awarded annually to a graduate student at the UT Lake Erie Center.

Detroit River Contrinutes to Nutrient Problems in Lake Erie
OHIO EPA PHOSPHORUS TASK FORCE REPORT
Hers is a link to the press release, a summary report and the full report. The report does not provide immediate steps needed to reduce phosphorous loads but rather recommends more studies and voluntary steps. With Lake Erie levels 9" lower than in 2009, heavy rainfalls and major wind events, Lake Erie could be in for a devastating 2010. Waterkeeper comments and suggested comment letters to come.
OPEN LAKE DUMPING ISSUE HEATS UP
An appeal has been filed to the permit issued by Ohio EPA to allow 800,000 cubic yards of dredged sedimetns to be dumped in the open lak The NAtional Wildlife Federation, Ohio Environmental Council, Izaac Walton League, Lake Erie Charterboat Association and the Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Association filed the appeal to the permit. The press release in the appeal
Comments on open lake dumping:
To learn more about open lake dumping -
Quantity chart of open lake dumping 1994-2009/2012
Put sediments in mines study
Open Lake agreement to stop open lake dumping
