Algae- Whats the truth

[wakina]

Dead and decaying algae depletes the oxygen levels in the water and any living organism that cannot escape the low oxygen levels will perish. So don't be to surprised if the fishing goes south this summer.

[ErieEye]

Actually I'm going to completely disagree with you on that. Yes there are home owners who over fertilize there yards. For each homeowner who does that there are 20 homeowners who don't fertilize at all.

[ErieEye]

Is it ironic that the current algae problems really began to show itself at the same time that nw ohio lost 10s of thousands of acres of crp ground. And is it ironic that we over the last decade have seen thounds of additional acres of farm ground tiled. And is it ironic that over the same time period we have seen countless tree lines removed and wood lots cleared and converted over to farm ground. All this has been happening at the same time that the phosphorus load running into our water ways from municipal sources has been significantly reduced, as was mandated by the epa. I don't want to point fingers at anybody but writing is on the wall.

[wakina]

Is it ironic that the current algae problems really began to show itself at the same time that nw ohio lost 10s of thousands of acres of crp ground. And is it ironic that we over the last decade have seen thounds of additional acres of farm ground tiled. And is it ironic that over the same time period we have seen countless tree lines removed and wood lots cleared and converted over to farm ground. All this has been happening at the same time that the phosphorus load running into our water ways from municipal sources has been significantly reduced, as was mandated by the epa. I don't want to point fingers at anybody but writing is on the wall.

Interesting post! I do have a couple of questions about your information. 1. Could you provide a link to the information "that nw ohio lost 10s of thousands of acres of crp ground"? 2. What replaced the crop ground? Edit~~ I think that you meant soil erosion and that went over my head sorry for those 2 questions! 3. Could you also provide a link that shows "the phosphorus load running into our water ways from municipal sources has been significantly reduced, as was mandated by the epa." ? Toledo's sewage upgrades are only 68% finished so that leaves 32% uncontrolled.

Here is a link to a thread on this site that shows what the flow rate of the Maumee river was during the time frame of the thread. As You can see the Maumee River was running at very fast rate and the city of Toledo supplied the Maumee river with 377,000,000 gallons of raw sewage. There is also a colored graph in this thread that shows the amount of rainfall for the month of June. That Chart indicates that approximately 1/3 of the normal annual precipitation of 35 to 38 inches fell in the time frame shown on that chart. Since that time there has probably been an additional 6 to 7 inches of precipitation in the first 14 days of July, bringing the total precipitation for just that 45 day time span close to being 1/2 the normal annual precipitation. It is not the Farmers fault that mother nature produced more precipitation than would be normally anticipated over a 45 day period!

http://community.walleye.com/showthread.php?9328-Sewage

The top contributors to high phosphorous would be surface runoff from Farm's, lawns, golf courses ect and the untreated(raw) sewage contributed to the watershed from all of the villages, towns and cities as well as those foreign owned factory farms that allow manure to accumulate and get washed into the nearby steams to eventually end up in the lake.

The addition of tile to farmland has cut down the flow of phosphates considerably due to the water being filtered thru the soil covering the tile. The amount of water that can be diverted to the tile and out as drainage has not changed, but the amount of water that needed to get away was considerably more than what the tile could remove so the excess water that was not trapped in the soil became phosphorous rich surface runoff into the creeks and ditches and finally the rivers feeding the Maumee and then to Lake Erie.

[ErieEye]

As a fellow fostorian I'm sure you are aware of the sewer upgrades that were done within our own town as 1 example. We have a drainage ditch that runs out of town along our property. Back in '97 we had a heavy rain event that caused our own sewer system to overflow. Every limb and branch lining that ditch had toilet paper hanging from it. That no longer happens because of our own epa mandated upgrades. Every small town surrounding fostoria has had epa mandated sewer upgrades done over the last 10 years. As far as the field tile goes, the phosphorus load lake erie is getting has switched from that phosphorus that is directly attached to the soil particles i.e. surface runoff to dissolved phosphorus which is getting flushed out of the fields through field tile. The problem with that is that dissolved phosphorus is more redily available for the algae to use and grow on.

[wakina]

As a fellow fostorian I'm sure you are aware of the sewer upgrades that were done within our own town as 1 example. We have a drainage ditch that runs out of town along our property. Back in '97 we had a heavy rain event that caused our own sewer system to overflow. Every limb and branch lining that ditch had toilet paper hanging from it. That no longer happens because of our own epa mandated upgrades. Every small town surrounding fostoria has had epa mandated sewer upgrades done over the last 10 years. As far as the field tile goes, the phosphorus load lake erie is getting has switched from that phosphorus that is directly attached to the soil particles i.e. surface runoff to dissolved phosphorus which is getting flushed out of the fields through field tile. The problem with that is that dissolved phosphorus is more redily available for the algae to use and grow on.

I can say this and that is the fact that we both want the same thing! We want the excessive algae blooms to stop.

I can't argue about the dissolved phosphorus vs phosphorus that is in the run off that never sees a tile. I can state that the modern method and the environmentally recommended way of applying fertilizer is to inject it directly into the ground to avoid the runoff affect that happens with the surface application of fertilizer. Also the no till method of soil preperation is recommended.

Not sure if there is a way for raw sewage to access the the environment during heavy rains from the sewage treatment plant in Fostoria. I will find out for sure as I have a friend that is still working at the sewage treatment plant as well as a relative who just retired from there earlier this year. Wayne and Bradner both have the open lagoons for the treatment plants and as I understand it both have over flowed several times in heavy extended rains. None of the mentioned Cities or villages send sewage to the Maumee if the were to discharge raw sewage, Fostoria and Wayne would both endup in the Portage River while Bradners' may end up in the Sandusky River but I am not sure which it is for Bradner. In any event there should be no sewage getting into any of the watersheds.

Here is some more reading on the subject.

http://www.epa.gov/lakeerie/primer.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...rie-phosphorus