Some farms use subsurface tile drainage systems, which can discharge into streams and ditches. (Photo: Bruce Chambers/The Drone Store LLC)

CATAWBA ISLAND - Since the resurgence of Lake Erie’s biggest monster over the last decade, harmful algal blooms, scientists have been working vigorously to pinpoint the root of the problem and what is causing it.

Over time, a lot of progress has been made on that front.

Having dealt with it in the 1970s, scientists were able to determine back then that excess phosphorus runoff making its way to the lake was feeding the algae and leading to the harmful blooms.

As a result, significant conservation efforts were taken to reduce the amount of total phosphorus being drained and discharged along Lake Erie.

It was not until much more recently, as the algae kept blooming despite those efforts, that a specific culprit was eventually found: dissolved reactive phosphorus.

An entirely new model for the study of the lake’s harmful algal blooms is based on the finding, according to Jeff Reutter, former director of the Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island.

And researchers have made another disturbing discovery: That much of the action taken over the past several years to address the algae problems is not having the desired impact.

The 2015 bloom was the worst ever recorded for Lake Erie, and perhaps most concerning, the problem is getting worse, not better.

Questions remain about the where the leading sources of this more specific nutrient, dissolved reactive phosphorus, are coming from. Research has shown heavy rains exacerbate the problem by causing sudden significant influxes of nutrients into the lake.

Much of the discussion has been about chemical fertilizers used by farmers in Lake Erie's Western Basin, many of whom have been already taking those conservation efforts to reduce their phosphorus runoff.

An area not yet widely discussed is the dissolved phosphorus and other nutrients caused by manure runoff.

Pam Taylor, an environmental activist from Lenawee County, Michigan, and member of the Sierra Club’s “Less=More” coalition, spoke at a panel on harmful algal blooms hosted by the Lake Erie Improvement Association at the Catawba Island Club last week.

Taylor worked extensively on the Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan (ECCSCM) study titled, “Follow the Manure,” which examined the impact manure discharged by factory farms had on the Lake Erie algal crisis.

“We have less than 1 percent of the animals, but we send you about 18 percent of manure in the watershed,” Taylor said. “That’s because we have mostly dairy cows.”

She noted one dairy cow excretes the equivalent waste of between 20 to 23 humans every day. “So we’re sending you the equivalent waste of the City of Boston every day.”

The study monitored 46 different sites where 13 factory farms produce and apply manure in 20 different townships in Michigan.

When factory farms meet the threshold of total animals at a facility, they are classified as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), the “largest of the large” farms, and have to be granted a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for manure by the Environmental Protection Agency.

At the sites, edge-of-field water samples are taken and tested for E. coli, biological oxygen demand (BOD), dissolved oxygen, nitrates, phosphorus, ammonia and temperature.

Through October 2015, results of those tests from fields where manure was applied in Lenawee and eastern Hillsdale County areas of the Western Lake Erie Watershed showed 100 percent had phosphorus levels above 0.1 milligram per liter, a concern for aquatic life, and 89 percent met or exceeded 1.0 milligram per liter, Michigan’s water quality point discharge standard for total phosphorus.

“Those levels are increasing, not decreasing,” Taylor said. “Actually, every level increased this year. It was higher in everything.”

Thomas Van Wagner, a retired USDA employee now under contract with the conservation district in Lenawee County, said the “Follow the Manure” report is faulty.

He believes they are leveraging Lake Erie’s algae issues to point the finger at livestock, using a kernel of truth and twisting it around. He also said most of the very large operations referred to are already very highly regulated.

A total of 146 farms are in the Western Lake Erie Watershed — 57 in Ohio, 75 in Indiana and 14 in Michigan. In 2014, they held 11.6 million animals and produced 690.8 million gallons of manure.

ECCSM data includes permit violations since the year 2000, where the EPA or a state agency cited a farm for violating the Clean Water Act.

Van Wagner said many of those violations have not had anything to do with water quality.

“This could be something simple like a paperwork problem, didn’t submit the right paperwork on time,” Taylor acknowledged. “But it can also include something serious like a discharge where they were pumping manure basically right into the waterway, and we’ve seen that.”

Of the 230 permit violations from CAFOs in the watershed, 112 were discharges of pollutants directly into the waters of the respective state.

“Those are the ones we want to minimize,” Van Wagner said. “We can’t always eliminate all discharges, but we can try to minimize the risk as best we can. Sometimes we have some rain storms that will cause some issues that are above and beyond people’s control.”

Wyandot, Hardin and Defiance counties in Ohio have the highest concentrations of animals housed.

Despite the animal concentration numbers, Paulding County on the western border in Ohio and Lenawee County on the southern border of Michigan produce the most manure.

Farms in Lenawee also have had by far the most permit violations and illegal discharges since 2008.

“It’s important to note, the algae don’t care where the phosphorus comes from,” Reutter said. He said he does not draw a distinction between commercial chemical fertilizers and manure.

It isn't just the application of manure, but also whether the drainage systems are sufficient, Reutter said.

“Manure isn’t inherently bad, and sewage sludge isn’t inherently bad, but if you put on too much, that’s a big, big problem.”

“What happens," Taylor said, "is they apply the manure and it doesn’t even bother to run off, it just goes straight down and then out through the tiles.”

That means it also bypasses any erosion-control measures, which research has shown to be the case.

“Theses conservation practices were developed to reduce erosion and to control nitrates, which have a much larger particle size than dissolved phosphorus,” she said.

Taylor pointed to 15 years of subsidized erosion-control measures, such as no till, conservation tillage, buffers, grass strips, constructed and two-stage ditches, tile plugs and cover crops, especially in the winter.

“In spite of all these things, we’ve seen our phosphorus levels continue to go up.”

Application at the wrong time is a problem they’ve observed as well. Manure and waste applied to snow or frozen ground simply runs off.

“It just makes sense, right. It can’t go anywhere,” Taylor said.

One persistent message during the Lake Erie Improvement Association’s hosted panel last week was whether to declare the Western Lake Erie Basin officially “impaired.” It’s a distinction outlined in the Clean Water Act that would immediately trigger an assessment by the EPA, which would formulate and implement a recovery plan.

The plan would include much more rigorous restrictions for the amount of pollutants that can be drained into the lake, called total maximum daily load (TMDL), enforcing a standard for the basin that would cross state lines.

This is the first recommendation the “Follow the Manure” report offers toward addressing the algae problem.

State Rep. Steve Arndt (R, Port Clinton), who joined the panel, was asked if Ohio legislators will seek stricter sewage and septic requirements for factory farms, and while he said he believes it will be part of the discussions going forward, it is too premature to say for sure.

Another point discussed at length by the panel was an agreement by Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada, to reduce phosphorus runoff by 40 percent.

Taylor said they found out a few weeks ago there is no baseline data available for Michigan’s portion of the Maumee sub-watershed, questioning how a 40 percent reduction can be measured without that baseline.

Another recommendation, and one of the primary objectives of the “Less=More” coalition, is cutting subsidies to factory farms with violations and give the money to smaller farms that are genuine in their efforts to help solve this problem.

This effort, handing out less to the violators means more clean water, inspired its name.

“Maybe it’s time to look at where that money is going and maybe shift it to people who are doing the right things, instead of feeding the bad actors,” Taylor said. “Helping the people who are sincerely interested in doing things right.

“Especially the smaller farmers. They’re the ones getting crunched. The small livestock farmers are getting just crushed by this. And we’d like to see the money go to them so that they can buy the equipment, they can set up storage facilities they need.”

The best solution, according to “Follow the Manure,” is stopping the problem at the source.

“Don’t ever let it get into the water to begin with,” Taylor said.

jstinchcom@gannett.com

419-680-4897

Twitter: @JonDBN

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