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Groups ask EPA for impaired watershed designation

May 5, 2015, Millbury, OH – Saying the Lake Erie water crisis last August is a wake-up call, a coalition of environmental, agricultural and other organizations in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare the lake’s western basin an impaired watershed.

Despite the passage last month of Ohio Senate Bill 1 – a bipartisan measure prohibiting the application of fertilizer and manure on frozen and saturated ground within the basin – the organizations contend in a letter to Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator, “no meaningful measures have yet been taken to reduce the levels of algae-feeding phosphorus” in Lake Erie. Consequently, there will “almost certainly” be another crisis this year. READ MORE