algae bloom

[Muskieslayer]

I see your a republican. You obviously bought into the Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity insight a few years ago that there is no global warming. Currently, for your information, 98% of climatologists agred that global warming is here to stay. But no matter what I or any of the climatologists (as opposed to your local weather forecaster) say, your too ignorant to look at the facts.
Can't cure dumb.

Alright, who let Al Gore onto our forum ?

[wakina]

lol, that's crazy dude, you are referencing a pimple on an elephants azz.
There's no such thing as global warming or climate change, it's called "weather dude"! Been going on for ages and ages.
Climate scientists can get tomorrows weather right let alone next week, next year, next decade, next millenium.

I don't know if their is global warming or not! But what I do know is that weather and climate are, even though they are related, 2 different things. Climate is studied by Climatologist and is based upon weather conditions over the long term past, and weather is studied by Meteorologist who try to predict short term future weather conditions based upon current weather conditions and trends!

Climate Is an average of the past prevailing weather conditions of a region, such as high and low temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, averaged over a series of several years. It is a long term picture of the past weather conditions for a given region and arrived at by averaging those accumulated facts together. The key words in climate is Average Past Weather Conditions, with a lot of emphasis on Past. What climate does not include is future weather but it does include the forecast for future climate conditions based upon changes in the averages over the long term past. If the average keeps going up and has for several years then there is cause for concern since the long term averages have went up. Based upon that trend in the long term average it is reasonable to assume there is a change in progress and the future climate can be forecast with reasonable accuracy.

Weather is the current conditions of temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds. Weather forecasting is the not so accurate science of predicting what the current conditions are going to do in the future over the next several days as they travel and move from one region to another. It is a prediction based upon current events and what is currently taking place to try and determine what is going to take place tomorrow. With a lot of emphasis on short term future

[wakina]

This site showed up in my email box today form a user name and Email account that I do not know! So if that person is reading this post thank you for the contribution for our discussion! Here is the link to the site.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...hange-science/

Found this site today also!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5647824.html




.

[airshot]

Well thought I would jump in here and add a couple of things which are public knowledge but kept under wraps as well as possible. The city of Toledo is the number one contributor to the problem in lake erie. They are now and have been for the last 50 years. The sewer system in Toledo has not functioned properly for the past thirty years. Toledo pays EPA fines each year because they "can't afford" to update and replace the sewer system. Studies over the past 15 years show that Maumee and Ottawa rivers contribute to more than 80% of the pollution in Lake Erie. In fact the last open EPA research from around 10 years back, claimed if those two rivers could be closed off, the big lake could clean itself within 5 years from the water flow
from the Detroit river. Toledo was one of the first cities to violate EPA regulations and tie their sanitary and storm sewers together to handle excess rain water and the city has been paying yearly fines for that for quite sometime. When heavy rains occur the entire sewer system including sanitary run directly into the river without going thru any treatment.
Now if you have paid any attention to the latest indirect comments the city has now gotten control of the chemical balance to make the water Ok to drink. Why was the balance allowed to get out of control? I know somebody screwed up. Have a friend that used to work in the area of water and sewer for the city and has said many times....todays water standards would not meet those set in 1960 as they have been lowered every few years to allow the water to pass. All I can say is I am certainly glad I got out of there many, many years back, and I have my own well and have for 40 years..No regrets!

[West Basin]

After reading most of the posts, and visiting most of the links provided in some posts, I had to make a comment.

There is some misinformation in almost all the posts and most of the links. This does not surprise me, as I've been dealing with it for 40 years, 30 years as both a professional in the ecology field and as a concerned and informed outdoors person. When I was doing environmental education I often spent a third of my time correcting people and kids on what they thought was fact.

First, as to any danger of eating fish during a Lake Erie algae bloom, the EPA states "The consumption of fish flesh (muscle) is usually considered safe but there are fish species and fish organs, especially the liver, and stomach/intestinal contents which may contain considerable amounts of cyanotoxins." - http://www2.epa.gov/nutrient-policy-...ogical-effects .

The Toledo drinking water event was primarily caused by a "perfect storm" of events, which included the time of year, past week weather conditions (rainfall, wind and current direction, amount of sunlight, etc.), and the growing amount of algae blooms. To put it simply a relatively small bloom of toxin producing algae sat right on top on the intake for almost two days. This was always a possiblility and it finally happened.

Please do all of us a favor. When you post information that is science based please include the source of that information (some of you did). If you make a comment, make sure you have the facts correct.

I'm not saying that the posts were entirely incorrect, just that there was enough incorrect information on this thread to leave people either confused or taking away incorrect information. Most of the info in the posts was correct and helpful.

West Basin

[eriecaster]

Below are a couple links about Grand Lake St Marys they have been battling this for years and no results. If you look at it from google earth the lake is bright green. I hope this isn't in the future for Erie.

http://www.nbc4i.com/story/25590532/...-lake-st-marys

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...ing-again.html

[wakina]

Here is a quote from the following link to a web page. The canal system they are talking about is the Miami & Erie Canal. This page has a brief but direct history about Grand Lake St. Marys as well as the city of St. Marys. I bring this up because Grand Lake St. Marys currently is nothing less than a cesspool,(please Google it.) one which empties part of its overflow into the Maumee River Water Shed and eventually into Lake Erie. To the best of my knowledge both spillways are still functional.

"Grand Lake St. Marys is a part of the divide between the north and south waterways of the canal. Water flowing out of the canal to the east went eventually to Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes, while water flowing south and west found its way into streams and rivers (the Ohio River, for one) that are a part of the Mississippi River system."

http://www.stmarysdevelops.com/life-in-st-marys/history

[wakina]

Here is some info on the Maumee River Water Shed for those who would like to learn more. As you will be able to see by the maps there is a very complex and integrated set of problems involved in cleaning up the water shed.

http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/aoc/maumee/index.html

http://uppermaumeewatershed.com/about-us.html

http://www.mrbplg.org/maps.html