Lucas County in Ohio, the city of Toledo, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over harmful algal blooms in western Lake Erie.
The lawsuit alleges that the EPA's consent order with the state of Ohio does not measure the actual amount of phosphorus from sources like manure that's getting into the Maumee River and the western basin of Lake Erie, primarily from unregulated largescale animal feeding operations called CAFOs.
Phosphorus is a mineral that encourages the growth of cyanobacteria, commonly called harmful algal blooms.
Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken said Ohio, unlike many other states, does not require CAFOs to have permits to limit the amount of manure they produce, and how they dispose of it. He said that encourages more and more CAFOs to set up operations in the state.
"We know that the majority of the pollution from the Maumee River, Lake Erie now is coming from concentrated feeding operations. There's large concentrations of cattle upstream that are taking their effluent, taking their waste putting it on farm fields and it's running directly in," he said.
Gerkin added that the city of Toledo had to take steps to control its municipal sewage from flowing into Lake Erie.
"We found a way with technologies to control our waste being discharged into the river," he said. "There are technologies they [CAFOs] can use other than just spreading it on a field. Citizens have paid to treat their waste — corporations don't want to."
The EPA said it's reviewing the lawsuit. The agency added that addressing the problem of algal blooms in the western basin of Lake Erie will take time and "unflagging commitment and resolve" from everyone.
