Lake Erie report outlines recommendations to reduce phosphorus loading

by SUSAN MANN

The International Joint Commission’s report on improving Lake Erie’s water quality released Thursday contains more carrots than sticks in its recommendations, says an Ontario Federation of Agriculture spokesman.

“There’s a suggestion of programs, which is good to hear because we’ve been pushing for that,” says Mark Wales, federation president. But “we’re going to be very vigilant in watching where they go with these.”

The commission was established by Canada and the United States to regulate the two countries’ shared water uses, investigate trans-boundary matters and recommend solutions.

The commission’s report, A Balanced Diet for Lake Erie: Reducing Phosphorus Loadings and Harmful Algal Blooms, provides scientific and policy advice to governments so they can implement plans to address deteriorating Lake Erie water quality. There are 16 recommendations for governments to set phosphorus reduction targets, reduce phosphorus loads from both agricultural and urban sources, and strengthen monitoring and research.

The report has been forwarded to both the Canadian and American governments, the commission says.

Danny Kingsberry, Environment Canada spokesman, says by email the Canadian government will consider the recommendations “as we work to meet our Great Lakes water quality agreement commitments.”

The federal government will work with American and provincial governments to improve Lake Erie’s water and has already “taken action on this front.” The government signed the amended Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to help restore and protect “this critical resource.” It’s also spending $16 million over four years on a Great Lakes nutrient initiative to address the problem of recurrent toxic and nuisance algae in the lakes, with a particular focus on Lake Erie.

In Ontario, officials from the provincial agriculture and environment ministries are reviewing all of the recommendations and “they all will be considered,” says Mark Cripps, agriculture ministry spokesman.

Ontario is working with many partners, including local and federal governments, farmers and conservation groups, on joint projects to help reduce phosphorus discharges to the Great Lakes, Cripps says. “Ontario farmers have shown themselves to be strong stewards of our land and water, with many having implemented voluntary environmental improvement projects on their farms. ” With support from various provincial and federal government programs, provincial farmers have completed more than 2,500 on-farm improvement projects since 2005.

The commission says in a Feb. 27 press release it focused attention on Lake Erie in response to an algal bloom in 2011 that was the largest ever recorded.

Lana Pollack, the commission’s U.S. chair, says in the release the public has told them and research has confirmed Lake Erie is being impaired by an excess of nutrients, which feed harmful algae. Gordon Walker, the Canadian chair, says government action saved the lake in the 1970s and the commission is confident the two countries can do it again.

Some of commission’s suggestions in its Lake Erie report are already being done in Ontario. For example, the commission recommended Ontario, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana ban applications of manure, biosolids and fertilizer containing phosphorus on frozen and snow-covered ground.

Manure spreading on frozen land is already banned in Ontario through the Nutrient Management Act, which was passed in 2002, but it’s not prohibited in the other jurisdictions the commission mentioned, Wales says, noting the largest catch basin feeding into Lake Erie and located west of the lake’s western end, the Maumee River basin, is a big agricultural area that’s all in the United States.

“The United States is way behind us in regulating manure spreading on frozen ground,” he notes. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a farmer (in Ontario) spreading fertilizer on frozen ground.”

Wales says he doesn’t know what practices the U.S. farmers on the western side of Lake Erie use. That area typically has a lot less snow than Ontario and spring comes sooner for them than it does for Ontario.

Major phosphorus loadings into Lake Erie are from non-point sources, especially agricultural operations, the commission says. It recommends governments throughout the watershed refocus agri-environmental programs to explicitly address dissolved reactive phosphorus. Governments should emphasize best management practices most likely to reduce dissolved reactive phosphorus, such as improving the rate, timing, location and form of phosphorus applied to fields along with reducing runoff from fields.

The commission recommends government programs should particularly focus on reducing the load delivered during the spring. Along with increasing the scale and intensity of best management practices programs shown to reduce nutrient runoff, governments should also strengthen and increase their use of regulations, including linking crop insurance with conservation performance.

Wales says “that’s something we need to take a look at. That’s the first I’ve heard of that suggestion. I haven’t seen anything on it in the past to know exactly how you would make that link.”

Wales says in the past farmers applied phosphorus fertilizer, which adhered to soil particles and got into water by erosion. To reduce erosion, farmers switched to no-till and planted buffer strips but now “it’s dissolved phosphorus that’s tending to be the problem so we’ll have to look at environmental measures to slow that down,” such as through managed wetlands used in conjunction with drainage tiles.

The commission notes Lake Erie has lost more than 80 per cent of its pre-settlement coastal wetlands and that significantly affects water quality and wildlife habitat. It recommends governments and non-government agencies commit to and fund increasing coastal wetland areas in the lake’s western basin by 10 per cent (or 1,000 hectares, 2,600 acres) compared to current levels by 2030.

About the commission pointing to agricultural operations as the major source of phosphorus loadings in the lake, Wales says “it’s always frustrating when they do that.”

Wales says when it comes to implementing practices that benefit the environment Ontario farmers are way ahead of their American counterparts. For example, the voluntary Environmental Farm Plan program has been in place in Ontario for more than 20 years but this program doesn’t exist in the United States.

“We’ve take the lead here in Ontario for decades on environmental practices so we’re way ahead of them,” he says. In addition, the bulk of southwestern Ontario feeds into Georgian Bay or Lake Huron, whereas there is a lot more land from the American side “contributing to the problem” in Lake Erie.

The report also talks about septic systems and municipal point sources contributing to the problem too, Wales says. BF