New federal law protects Lake Erie

SANDUSKY — A federal bill recently signed into law includes provisions to protect water quality and combat invasive species in Lake Erie. The measures, backed by Ohio-based U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman, were included in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. U.S. President Joe Biden signed the law last week, which earmarks almost $817 billion to the Defense Department. One of the provisions pertains to the dredged materials hauled up from the bottom of Lake Erie when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carries out dredging to improve shipping channels in Ohio's eight federally recognized harbors. Those eight harbors include Sandusky and Huron. The other six are Toledo, Lorain, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Fairport and Conneaut. The new federal provision directs the Army Corps to make it a priority to develop dredged material management plans for the eight harbors. The Army Corps used to simply dump dredged materials back into the lake, but Ohio lawmakers several years ago banned the practice, so the federal agency has had to find other places to put the lake bottom dirt. The federal agency has put much of the responsibility for that upon local communities. Dredging in some harbors, including Sandusky, has been delayed for some years because there wasn't an identified location for the dredged materials. For example, in explaining why the planned dredging of Conneaut's harbor wasn't carried out this year, an Army Corps document states, "The city's sediment placement facility was not available to accept dredged material." Dirt from dredging carried out in Sandusky's harbor this year was used for a city project to construct new wetlands on the shore of the Cedar Point Causeway. Dredging had been planned in Sandusky in 2021, but it was postponed until this year because work on the wetlands project hadn't started yet. A spokesman for Portman's office did not return a phone call earlier this week asking for comment. But the lawmakers apparently want the Army Corps to take more responsibility for dealing with the dredged materials. The other Lake Erie-related provision in the defense bill expands the Aquatic Plant Control Program to include the Lake Erie and the Ohio River basins and orders the Army Corps of Engineers to make it a priority to battle hydrilla. Hydrilla is an aquatic plant — native to Asia, Africa and Australia — that has been spreading through the U.S. as an invasive species. It is believed to have invaded the U.S. when, in the 1950s and 1960s, aquariums in Florida importing the plant released it into Florida waterways. According to an article posted on the website of the Buffalo District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — the regional Army Corps office that deals with Lake Erie — hydrilla has been called the "world's worst invasive aquatic plant." "Dense infestations of hydrilla can shade or crowd out all other native aquatic plants, alter water chemistry, cause dramatic swings in dissolved oxygen levels, increase water temperatures, and affect the diversity and abundance of fish populations," the article by Jess Levenson explains.