agricultural runoff

Drainage systems carry away excess water, but they also take fertilizers that can fuel harmful algal blooms. Researchers, companies, and farmers are deploying systems that can control that flow.

Michigan and Ohio are both struggling to reduce the fertilizer runoff getting into Lake Erie which feeds cyanobacterial blooms, also called harmful algal blooms. Those toxic blooms can be hazardous to people and animals.

A bipartisan group of representatives proposed two statutes last June that would essentially exempt manure digester wastes from EGLE's new oversight.

Environmentalists say the Ohio plan will not work because it doesn't hold agriculture responsible for the runoff from fields using manure from factory farms as fertilizer.

The toxic cyanobacterial bloom that’s become a yearly problem in Lake Erie’s western basin was relatively small this year. But the bloom has lasted an unusually long time. It didn't start to break up until recently.

Fertilizer that runs off farm fields can fuel cyanobacterial blooms on lakes and rivers. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack estimated 28% of U.S. cropland is over-fertilized.

Public pressure is growing over toxic cyanobacteria blooms growing in the western basin of Lake Erie and other places in Michigan.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) are forecasting the…