Chicago environmental group presses for action on Lake Erie

SANDUSKY — A Chicago environmental lawyer hopes his latest legal victory will result in a healthier Lake Erie with smaller harmful algal blooms. Specifically, Robert Michaels, senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, hopes his ongoing legal tussle with the Ohio EPA and the U.S. EPA will force closer regulation of the industrial-sized livestock farms that produce large amounts of manure in Lake Erie's watershed. The Environmental Law and Policy Center, which bills itself as "the Midwest's leading environmental legal advocacy organization," deals with a wide range of environmental issues, including litigation involving clean energy, habitat protection and air pollution. Since 2017, it's been pressing its case in federal court in Toledo, attempting to force the state and federal EPAs to come up with a total maximum daily load, often shortened to "TMDL", for Lake Erie. This is essentially a "pollution diet," regulating the amount of nutrients such as phosphorus that can go into Lake Erie. Reducing nutrients is seen as a key to reducing the size of the annual blue-green harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie. Michaels and his colleagues at the policy center won a consent order in early May from U.S. District Judge James Carr. The judge, based in Toledo, approved a consent decree ordering the Ohio EPA to complete the final draft of its total maximum daily load by the end of this month, sending it to the U.S. EPA. The U.S. EPA has a deadline by the end of this year to accept that plan or come up with one of its own. Michaels says whether the litigation will finally end soon depends on whether the resulting plan is strong enough to deal with Lake Erie's problems. If his environmental organization finds the plan isn't good enough, it likely would be forced to file yet another lawsuit, he said. Ultimately, his organization would like to require regulation of concentrated animal feeding operations locations that have hundreds or even thousands of farm animals. Such operations are more akin to an industrial plant than a normal family farm, Michaels said. A strong total maximum daily load would likely tighten regulations for point source pollution that can be attributed to specific locations, such as industrial plants, and to non-point source pollution, such as agriculture. A strong total maximum daily load would likely leave smaller family farms alone but would probably impose regulations on concentrated animal feeding operations, Michaels said. The DeWine administration has a program with several components aimed at reducing harmful algal blooms, including persuading farmers to voluntarily adopt practices to reduce runoff, building wetlands to serve as natural filters for water entering Lake Erie and fixing leaky septic tank systems. Critics of DeWine's policies have focused on concentrated animal feeding operations. Lucas County commissioner Pete Gerken, reacting to Carr's consent decree, brought the issue up. "The most serious threat to Lake Erie comes from concentrated animal feeding operations, which are not currently regulated as polluters and continue to discharge millions of tons of animal waste directly into the watershed and ultimately into Lake Erie," Gerken said. The total maximum daily load "plan must serve to regulate these operations. Mandatory measurements of pollution discharges from these operations must be part of the plan. Compliance can't be voluntary," he said.