Photo Above: Protestors in Cleveland speak out against the pollution of Lake Erie in 1968
A Brief History of Toxic Algae in Lake Erie
Lake Erie has played an important role in the development of many of its port cities, including Erie, PA, Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, MI. All of these aforementioned cities were heavily developed on various industries, which in turn became heavy polluters.
Lake Erie has a long-standing problem with toxic algae. In the 1960s and 70s point and non-point sources produced nuisance algal blooms, poor water quality, and extensive hypoxic areas or "dead zones" where fish and wildlife suffocate and die due to a lack of oxygen in the water (EPA).
In 1972 the first round of the Lake Erie Water Quality Agreement was signed by the US and Canada, which set the goal of reducing the lakes total phosphorus load from 29,000 to 14,600 metric tons by cleaning up industrial waste (GLWQA).
This agreement saw some success in the lowering of phosphorus levels, until the mid-1990s when phosphorus levels again began to rise and algal biomass in the lake grew, particularly in the lake's western basin, which receives 61% of phosphorus runoff (EPA).
In the summer of 2011, toxic algal levels in the lake grew to over 50 times higher than the World Health Organization's limit for safe body contact, and 1,200 times higher than the limit for safe drinking water (EPA).
In the summer of 2012, a hypoxic (dead zone) event covered 8,800 square kilometers of the lake, causing 10,000 dead fish to wash up on a 40 km stretch of shoreline between Erieau and Port Stanley, Ontario (EPA).
In the summer of 2014, the city of Toledo, Ohio issues a multiple day ban on tap water due to a high concentration of toxic algae in the lake.