Lake Erie is the Canary in the Coal Mine for all the Great Lakes
Coal miners used to bring canaries in the coal mines to detect carbon monoxide (a poisonous gas). If the canary died, it was a sign to get out in a hurry or else the miners would die.
Lake Erie is the incubator for the Great Lakes – the canary in the coal mine lake. As the health of Lake Eries goes and all of its organizms, so does the health of all the Great Lakes.
Should we care about the health of the Great Lakes and Lake Erie? YES! More than 30 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water. That is 10% of the U.S. population and 30% of the Canadian population. In terms of just Lake Erie, over 11 million people in the U.S. and Canada get their drinking water from the lake.
In retirement, I live roughly 25 miles east of Cleveland, Ohio. The Jordans of the Cleveland area get their drinking water from Lake Erie. We care about the quality of our great lake! According to the Ohio Lake Erie Commission‘s report there are 31 Lake Erie fed water treatment plants on Ohio’s North Coast. That’s just in northern Ohio! That is a lot!
Interesting Facts About Lake Erie
During the last ice age, the mile-thick Laurentide ice sheet covered most of Canada and the northern contiguous United States. The massive weight and movement of this glacier gouged out the earth to form the lake basins.
The Great Lakes were gouged out by glacial ice around 15,000 year ago, when the ice sheets from the Last Glacial Period retreated and exposed the basins they had carved into the land. As the ice melted, water filled the basins, forming the Great Lakes. Lake Erie was one of the first Great Lakes to be uncovered during the last retreat of the glacial ice.
The basins themselves have a much longer history, with some dating back over a billion years. Several precursors to the modern Lake Erie have been identified, some of which lasted long enough to leave behind well-developed beaches many miles from the lake’s current position.
The oldest rocks from which the Lake Erie basin was carved, are about 400 million years old and formed in a tropical ocean reef environment. Lake Erie and its shoreline are a major source of many minerals.
For example, the largest sandstone quarry in the world is located in Amherst, Lorain County, Ohio. Salt mines in Cuyahoga and Lake Counties extend out under Lake Erie and are an important source of revenue to the State. Sand, gypsum, and limestone used for construction purposes are found in abundance. Large reserves of natural gas—over 3 trillion cubic feet—are located under Lake Erie.
Lake Erie is the 12th largest lake in the world (in area) in its border includes four states (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan and two countries (the United States and Canada (Ontario).
Our lake is the southernmost, shallowest, warmest, and most biologically productive of the five Great Lakes. Because it is so shallow, Lake Erie is the only Great Lake that is entirely above sea level (the bottoms of the other Great Lakes extend below sea level).
The Lake has three basins: the western basin towards Toledo, OH includes the islands area; the central basin extends from the islands to about Erie, Pennsylvania, and Long Point, Canada; and the eastern basin extends from Erie, Pennsylvania to the east end of the lake in Buffalo, New York.
The maximum depth is 210 feet and occurs in the eastern basin. Average depths in the basins are as follows: western, 24 feet; central, 60 feet, and eastern, 80 feet.
Lake Erie has a retention/replacement time of 2.6 years, which is the shortest of the Great Lakes. Water flowing from the Detroit River makes up 80% to 90% of the flow into the lake. The outlet for Lake Erie is the Niagara River. Therefore, Lake Erie feeds water to Niagara Falls.
About 34 to 36 inches of water evaporate from the lake surface per year, more when the Lake does not freeze.
Lake Erie is about 241 miles long, about 57 miles wide at its widest, and has about 871 miles of shoreline. The length of Ohio’s shoreline is about 312 miles.
About 23,000 square miles of land drain directly into Lake Erie. However, if the drainage areas of the upper Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, and Huron) are included, the total drainage area of Lake Erie is 263,650 square miles.
Challenges Faced by Lake Erie
The greatest challenge faced by Lake Erie is manure. That’s right. Manure. Many animals being fed by one farm create LOTS of manure. These owners of mega farms do not even have to get a license in Northwest Ohio! With so many animals being fed under ‘one’ roof, what do the owners of these mega animal farms do? Well, they add water to the manure and create a liquid fertilizer that they can sell to local farms. What do local famers do? Buy the liquid manure and spray it on the crops. Sounds good, right? WRONG!
When it rains hard (increasing more frequently due to global warming) where does the liquid manure go? Simple. It flows into creeks and rivers that feed Lake Erie. These creeks, rivers, and the Lake end up with too much phosophorous. Thus, every summer Lake Erie has a toxic algae bloom. Yes, even this summer.
For three days in 2014, toxic algae cut off about 500,000 Toledo area residents from their tap water and made at least 110 people ill. You could not even shower, wash your face, or brush your teeth with this tap water.
The Solution: Control the Manure
Hazardous algae is everywhere. Scientists suspect that poisonus algae is causing clusters of deadly liver disease across the country. In rare cases, poisonous algae has killed people shortly after contact.
Nearly 150 public water systems in 33 states have reported spotting algae blooms near their intakes in reservoirs or other water sources since 2017, in many cases multiple times, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, Grist and The World.
The algae are natural. This human crisis, however, is largely manmade. Neither the federal government nor the states are effectively cracking down on the major contributor – manure and mega farms.
Loopholes in the Clean Water Act shield agricultural operations from federal enforcement. These mega animal farms portray themselves as agricultural operations.
States have broader leeway to act. But they have largely opted to make optional recommendations about farming practices and promote voluntary measures that do not draw opposition from influential agricultural trade groups. You know, it is always about money, correct?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Should Do Its Job
The mission of the U.S. EPA is is to protect human health and the environment, including air, water, and land. They do not fulfill their mission!
In May of 2024, the Board of Lucas County Commissioners, the City of Toledo, and the Environmental Law & Policy Center filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to compel the agency to comply with its obligations under the Clean Water Act and prevent harmful algal blooms in western Lake Erie. Put simply, they have not done their job!
Every party that filed this lawsuit agreed that the Total Maximum Daily Load of pollution (or TMDL) will not remediate Lake Erie. They all agree that such a proposed solution from the EPA fails to limit pollution caused by dissolved reactive phosphorus and does not meaningfully address the concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, that are responsible for polluting the watershed.
The Mayor of the city of Toledo, Wade Kapszukiewicz was quoted as saying: “The pollution in our watershed is a surprisingly easy problem to solve. The EPA simply needs to do its job and regulate the factory farms we know are the root of the issue. It’s a shame we need to take legal action to protect our natural resources, and, by extension, our residents, but I am proud to sign on to this lawsuit today.”
Cambell’s Soup in Napoleon Ohio in a Polluter
This past March, Campbell Soup of northwestern Ohio (Napoleon, Ohio) was fined for violating its pollution permit up to 5,000 times since 2018. From my research, I found that permits obtained via the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System define what a company can put in the environment. Campell Soup in Napolean has many time released bacteria, phosphorus, and other contaminants into the Maumee River – a tributary of the lake and the main river that runs through Toledo, Ohio. The Maumee River flows directly into Lake Erie.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and two environmental groups filed their own lawsuit in the same court making similar claims. Specifically, the lawsuit said that wastewater containing E. coli, phosphorous and other contaminants was being discharged directly from outfalls at the plant into the Maumee River or its tributaries and contributes to dangerous algae blooms downstream in Lake Erie.
I think the “brass” of this plant should be put in prison for endangering the heath of Americans. You cannot persuade me that they did not know what they were doing for six years. They knew!
Do me a favor. . . Join me in no longer buying Cambell’s Soup. Why would we financially support a polluter that does not care about people? Let’s buy a competitors’ brand. I told my wife about this. We will now longer by buying Campbells.
The 1795 Group Can Help
We believe in being part of solutions. Let’s work together at the grass roots level to solve this problem! I agree with the Iroquois native Americans – “We should consider the results of our decisions on seven generations of those that follow us.”
We have an obligation to those that follow in our footsteps to be better stewards of our environmental resources.
Perhaps you would like a guest speaker or a presentation on this topic. Perhaps you would like to have your students, learners, or employees enjoy an in-person or virtual professional development workshop in this topical area. Perhaps you need a course to be written for your learners. Whatever your need, the 1795 Group can help. Call us and let’s brainstorm ways to work together.
Resources:
1) Podcast: The Challenges Faced by Lake Erie. An Interview with Sandy Bihn.
2) Podcast: The Oceans are Hotter Than They Have Been Since the 1970’s. Should I care? An Interview with Annalisa Bracco, Ph.D.
3) Podcast: What’s in Our Water May Be Killing Us. An Interview with Jamie DeWitt, Ph.D.
Contact me today:
Phone: (440) 296-9709 (text first)
Email: tjordan@1795group.com
Website: www.1795group.com
Blogs: https://1795group.com/blog/Podcasts: https://1795group.com/podcast/
