Report: Lake Erie’s health declining

Lake Erie is not only in poor health, but it’s the worst of the five Great Lakes.

That’s according to the State of The Great Lakes 2017 Highlights Report recently released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Canada. The report shows that Lake Erie’s ecosystem is in poor condition and the trend is deteriorating.

Excessive nutrients in the lake resulting in harmful algae blooms are impacting drinking water treatment systems and the closure of beaches, loss of habitat and degradation along with beach fouling continue to be causes of major concerns.

Despite the concerns over poor quality, the report also lists some positive trends regarding Lake Erie’s ecosystem system, such as an increased amount of walleye.

“Lake Erie is the most biologically productive Great Lake, and it also has the biggest sport fishing industry of all the lakes,” according to the report.

In addition to the walleye, there has been increased aquatic habitat due to dam removal and declines in sea lamprey which wound the fish. In addition, more than 13,000 acres of phragmites, an invasive plant, have been treated resulting in a 70 percent decrease of them in Ohio.

There is also a resurgence of native plants.

The Canadian Government, the United States and other partners that work together to protect the Great Lakes have developed a set of nine indicators that they use to assess the health of the lakes individually and collectively. Those indicators are drinking water, beaches, fish consumption, toxic chemicals, habitats and species, invasive species groundwater quality and watershed impacts and climate trends.

Since the last report in 2011, the treated drinking water for the Great Lakes collectively is good and unchanging, the report stated.

Beaches for Lakes Superior, Huron Michigan and Ontario all show good condition and unchanging trends while Lake Erie is listed in poor condition and shows to have deteriorated since the previous reporting period from 2008 to 2010.

Fish consumption, which is used to indicate contaminants in the edible portions of fish, have declined for several of the lakes but for Erie polychlorinated biphenyls (industrial products or chemicals) and mercury are slightly increasing. Lake Erie has a listing of fair condition with deterioration for fish consumption.

The assessment also has Lake Erie listed at fair for toxic chemicals. Although toxic chemicals in sediments is improving, the concentrations are unchanging.

Habitats and species have an overall rating of poor with wetland amphibians unchanging the birds and plants deteriorating.

Nutrients and algae are a contributing factor the poor health of Lake Erie’s ecosystem which is classified as poor and deteriorating.

“Too much phosphorus can lead to too much algae in the water, which can be harmful to the environment, the economy and human health,” according to the report. “Excessive nutrient loadings to Lake Erie , some nearshore areas, and embayments of the Great Lake contribute to harmful and nuisance algal blooms.”

While the lake is improving when it comes to invasive species such as dreissenid mussels and sea lamprey, the impacts of aquatic invasive species and terrestrial invasive species is deteriorating, resulting in the lake being listed between fair and poor in this classification.

“Invasive species already in the Great Lakes such as sea lamprey, zebra mussels and purple loosestrife continue to cause more then $100 million annually in economic impacts in the U.S. alone.

Watershed and climate trends show forest cover is improving while land cover and watershed stressors are unchanging and human population increasing. Although conditions are improving these areas are still classified as poor.

Lake Erie, with only 31 percent, has the least amount of forest covering of all five lakes.

The Great Lakes and their health is important because they contain onefifth of the world’s fresh surface water supply and are one of the most ecologically diverse ecosystems on earth, according to the report.

“They provide drinking water to tens of millions of Canadians and Americans and are important to the economies of both Canada and The United States, supporting manufacturing, transportation, farming, tourism, recreation, clean energy production and other forms of economic growth,” the report stated.