Ohio Bill Would Protect Lake Erie From Algal Blooms and Agriculture Pollution

A new bill has been introduced in the Ohio legislature to protect Lake Erie from harmful algal blooms, adding several new proposals to a measure that last year passed the House but failed to make it through the Senate.

The new bill is designated as “Senate Bill 1,” a numbering that apparently reflects the Ohio Senate leadership’s determination to make it a priority. The sponsor claims the bill represents the strongest effort yet by lawmakers to curtail harmful algal blooms that threaten municipal water supplies drawn from Lake Erie.

The bill includes the following provisions, all similar to those in the House measure, House Bill 490, that was defeated in 2014:

• Placing fertilizer or manure on frozen or rain-saturated ground would be banned.
• Open lake dumping of dredged materials would end in five years.
• Phosphorus levels would be monitored in wastewater treatment plants.
• The Agriculture Pollution Abatement Program, designed to encourage farmers to use techniques that reduce the runoff of nutrients that feed harmful algal blooms, would be transferred from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Agriculture.

At our Tillage Product Council meeting in Charlotte, Dr. Scott Shearer, the Chair of the Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering department at Ohio State University, will address runoff issues and offer his views on precision ag technology.