Lake Erie algae blooms rise again
Block News Alliance
TOLEDO — Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson reversed course late last month and announced she would support the effort to get Lake Erie's western basin declared impaired because of excessive algae.
The mayor made the announcement on the banks of the Maumee River, which was a blend of dark and near-fluorescent green due to an algae bloom.
Water quality off Toledo impacts anglers fishing off Pennsylvania’s Erie County shorelines. Fueled by agricultural runoff and urban waste, the blooms are blown eastward. Large blooms can foul the entire lake.
The walleye fishery in particular, as phenomenal as it was this season, is believed to be largely driven by western migration. The fish spawn in the western basin -- Sister Islands, Maumee River, Bass Islands — and follow favorablewater temperatures eastward. The blooms are believed to affect spawning and migration; larger blooms put down the fish as far east as NewYork waters.
The algae now coloring Toledo waters is expected to dissipate as the temperature cools. But the bloom is emblematic of a much larger problem. Mayor Hicks-Hudson had earlier refused to join a growing chorus of voices demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declare the western basin impaired. Now, she says she can no longer wait.
“It is about the Clean Water Act but it is also about climate change. It’s about us really looking at what has really happened today. ... I am going to do everything I really can to make a dent in this problem we are facing,” she said.
Now Hicks-Hudson is appealing to a higher authority. In her third letter to President Donald Trump regarding the state of Lake Erie, dated Sept. 26, she said, “something is very wrong with our country when our rivers and lakes turn green.”
“The root of this problem is the excessive phosphorus loads entering the water from nonpoint agricultural sources,” she wrote, in the letter that was made public. “Recently 15,000 fish were killed in Northwest Ohio because of unsustainable and illegal agricultural practices. … I can tell you one thing: the status quo is not working.”
Here’s to the S.O.N.S.
Pittsburgh-area anglers who travel north for steelhead owe a big “thank you” to volunteers from the S.O.N.S. of Lake Erie and Pennsylvania Steelheaders Association, who are active in supporting the fishery and convincing the citizenry of the economic and social value of steelhead.
An upcoming event gives steelheaders a way to support the groups that support the fish. PA Steelheaders will honor the S.O.N.S. at a banquet Nov. 4 at the Colony Banquet Hall, 3014 West 12th St., Erie. Open 3-8 p.m. The 6 p.m.dinner could be attended after a day of Saturday fishing. Tickets are $20 if purchased before Oct. 25, $25 after, and are available at Poor Richard’s, Folly’s End, Elk Creek Sport Shop and from PA Steelheaders members. For details, call 814-520-5017.