Cleaning an Erie Lake

Lake Erie has a phosphorous problem that is contaminating th water and creating dead zones.

Last summer we were all made aware of the algae blooms in the western part of the lake that rendered Toledo's water undrinkable. When it was cleaned up, city officials drank it to prove that it was OK to drink.

I will refrain from jokes about Cleveland's burning river. Look it up on YouTube.

These toxic blooms are cause by agricultural and urban runoff and waste water overflows from municipalities not being able to handle storm flooding.

And this problem extends to both Canada and the US. A toxic bloom was found as close a Presque Isle Bay in Pennsylvania.

The algae itself is highly toxic and when it dies it creates the infamous “oxygen dead zone” that we all know of (or should know of) from the Gulf of Mexico. These dead zones kill off all aquatic life and ruin fishing and any sort of recreational use of that area of water.

The goal is to reduce the phosphorous content by 40% to start and then increase it.

But this is going to create some problems – especially for farmers. Especially the factory farms that have those wretched smelling manure pools from the cooped up cattle. Chicken and hog farms can be included in this. In order for them to cut down on the amount of animal waste, which is a large cause of the phosphorous runoff, they would have to downsize their farms and that would threaten their profits.

For the municipalities it means improving their storm systems and sewage treatment plants. That's going to cost money. Money that they don't have because of tax cuts that Republicans (and fearful Democrats) have pushed through.

Now they are paying for those cuts with deadly consequences.

To solve this problem, we must insist on:

1. A reduction of factory farms and the excessive use of animal waste and chemical fertilizers. Runoff from these are direct and immediate causes of the algae blooms. This change can be made easily by converting from the large factory farms back to the smaller farms run by families. (Remember how Americans railed against Stalinist collectivization? Look at a factory farm and tell me it isn't the same thing. I guess it depends on who is collectivizing and making the money. Then again, collectivization was bad in the Soviet Union and bad here too.)

2. Improvements to be made to municipal waste treatment systems and storm drainage systems. This can be paid for with tax increases on the wealthy (either pay for the repairs or the over-priced bottled water) and by eliminating military aid to foreign nations. (Seriously – Saudi Arabia does not need us giving them money to buy US made weapons systems. Let them spend their oil money on it.)

If these changes are not made, and soon, Lake Erie's name will be well deserved.