WC145 NovDec 2025 - Magazine - Page 26
FRESHWATER
Lake Erie’s Next Chapter
in Water Protection
Is recovery and reuse the solution to Lake Erie’s phosphorus problem?
AKE ERIE IS DEAD.” So proclaimed national magazines in Canada and the United States in the late
1960s. Time Magazine explained,
“Each day, Detroit, Cleveland and
120 other municipalities fill Erie with 1.5 billion
gallons of inadequately treated wastes, including
nitrates and phosphates. These chemicals act as fertilizer for growths of algae that suck oxygen from
the lower depths and rise to the surface as odoriferous green scum.”
To control the algae, Canada and the U.S.
committed to reduce phosphorus pollution to Lake
Erie as a cornerstone of the Great Lakes Water
Quality Agreement signed in 1972, passed legislation limiting phosphorus in laundry detergents, and
invested $7 billion to enhance sewage treatment
and promote improved farm management practices.
By 1981, Lake Erie phosphorus loadings had been
reduced from 29,000 to 11,000 tonnes per year and
algae blooms were significantly diminished.
However, despite maintaining reduced phosphorus loads, by the mid-1990s large scale algae blooms
had returned. The 2011 bloom in Lake Erie covered
5,000 square kilometres, fouling beaches, reducing
water quality and degrading fish and wildlife habitat
and populations. Each year dead and decomposing
algae consumes oxygen at the bottom of the lake,
creating a depleted oxygen zone covering up to
10,000 square kilometers, known as the “Lake Erie
Dead Zone.” Making matters worse, Microcystis
blooms have increased. This blue-green form of
algae produces toxins including the potent liver
toxin, microcystin. In 2009, microcystin contamination caused Pelle Island beaches to be closed and
“L
Michael Goffin is the Bruce Water Policy
Fellow in Toronto Metropolitan University’s
School of Public Policy.
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WATER C AN ADA • NOV EMBER/ DECEMBER 2025
a “do not drink the water” alert to be issued. Five
years later a similar incident left 500,000 people in
Toledo, Ohio without drinking water for three days.
Microcystin concentrations in Lake Erie are frequently found at concentrations above World Health
Organization standards for drinking water and body
contact. Total cost to the Canadian economy of algae
in Lake Erie is estimated at $272 million annually.
Canada and the U.S. set new phosphorus targets
for Lake Erie in 2016. They require 40 per cent
reductions to each of: U.S. loads from the Maumee
River; Canadian and U.S. loads to the lake’s central
basin; and loads to two Canadian and six U.S. rivers
responsible for localized algae blooms. Combined,
these targets require Canada to reduce phosphorus
loads to Lake Erie by 212 tonnes, while the U.S.
must achieve a 3,316 tonne reduction, reflecting the
much greater amount of phosphorus entering Lake
Erie from U.S. sources.
In 2018, Canadian federal departments, Ontario
ministries, municipalities, conservation authorities,
non-government organizations and agricultural
associations collaborated to produce the Canada-Ontario Lake Erie Action Plan, identifying 128 actions
to reduce phosphorus loads with a focus on nonpoint sources which are responsible for 78 per cent
of Canada’s total phosphorus load to Lake Erie. The
plan proposes an array of best management practices
to reduce phosphorus by improving use of manure
and commercial fertilizers, and better management
of agricultural soils and water. Implementation of the
plan received a significant boost in 2023 when the
Government of Canada announced $420 million to
accelerate restoration of Great Lakes water quality
and committed to achieving Lake Erie phosphorus
targets by 2038.
Despite considerable activity since setting the
new targets almost a decade ago, results have been
mixed. In 2022, the U.S. reported phosphorus
source reductions of 1,361 tonnes since 2015, while
Canada reported a 20-tonne reduction since 2020.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Aerial Associates Photography, Inc. by Zachary Haslick
BY MICHAEL GOFFIN
