Feds Get Heat For Putting Lake Erie At Risk

By Sara Jerome
@sarmje

Ohio officials are pushing back against a federal plan that critics say would contribute to pollution and algae growth in Lake Erie.

The editorial board at Cleveland's Plain Dealer recently called for an intervention by state authorities.

"The Buffalo office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to be brought to heel by federal and state authorities for continuing to press ahead with its inane plans to dump toxic Cleveland harbor and Cuyahoga River dredge directly into Lake Erie," the editorial said.

According to a public notice published by the Corps last month, the operation is expected to begin April 1 and finish by the end of the year, under the supervision of a government contractor.

The Corps responded to concerns about the project in its notice. It said its research showed that the project is not a threat to drinking water, and that concerns about increasing the algae on Erie are not valid.

"While dredged material does contain phosphorus, only a very small fraction of that phosphorus is actually available for algal growth when it is released from the material to the water column during open-lake placement. The small amounts that are released rapidly dilute to concentrations that cannot measurably stimulate or increase algal growth," the notice said.

The Corps also said the project will not harm the ecosystem.

"The origin of this dredged material is from within the aquatic ecosystem and therefore the material is from an internal source both prior to dredging and after being placed in the open-lake. In other words, the sediment is not new to the aquatic ecosystem," the notice continued.

But Ohio policymakers see the plan as problematic.

"The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly said it won't let the federal agency charged with harbor maintenance dump dredged material in Lake Erie because the muck contains toxic PCBs that endanger fish," the Plain Dealer reported in a news article.

For more on policy and politics, check out Water Online's Regulations & Legislation Solution Center.

Image credit: "Lake Erie Frozen," Teknorat © 2009, used under an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

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