In times past, you could see an upside in this - disaster would often motivate positive action. In fact, it typically would be the only thing to create action.

But now, that's not enough anymore. As long as it doesn't hit the very rich, don't expect a response (not too many rich people in Toledo, OH to my knowledge).

Taxpayers subsidize the production of commodity crops that are grown in massive surplus, driving the price down more, leading to demands for more subsidies. The excess commodities are turned into unhealthy food-like products (high-fructose corn syrup, cheapo hamburgers) that make people sick and increase the costs of health insurance due to the increased prevalence of lifestyle-driven diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Then taxpayers are whacked a third time when the pollution externalities are transferred to them in the form of cleanup costs. You could not design a more perfectly perverse system if you tried.

I'd alert the EPA, but I understand they no longer protect the environment.

No worries, I hear Flint has water pure as snow. The grand plan is for Chinese carp to eat the algae and to sell the carp back to Asia. Economic opportunity given to you by the party of greed.

I was born in Erie, PA. We have many friends and loved ones who have neurological disease or have died from brain cancer. Do not drink tap water. They say it is not a cluster, but it cannot simply be a coincidence.

My perspective as one who grew up in that area:

Step One would be to outlaw the use of lawn fertilizers in the rural/suburban areas that have appeared over the past several decades in that region.

Step Two would be to stop mowing acres and acres of lawns and promote native plant covers on on former lawns and field margins that would take up excess nutrients before it runs off into the nearest ditch or drains down into the nearest tile. Many miles of fence rows, acres of wooded sections and marginal lands have been cleared over the years to accommodate larger farms using much larger equipment with no animals to fence in anymore. Very few farms in that area raise meat animals in combination with grains and pasture to feed those animals as used to be common on family farms.

The Great Black Swamp area east and south of Toledo is an especially challenging area for water management. Flat as a pancake with heavy clay soils that will revert to swamp if not drained. It would become a mosquito infested wildlife preserve where few would want to live and none could farm. The original settlers of the swamp, generally the poorest of the poor who couldn't afford better land, suffered greatly from malaria.

This is how it used to be in the 1960s before there were massive clean-ups of the Great Lakes and proper maintenance procedures put in place under an agreement between Canada and the USA. Given Pruitt's general political attitudes about environmental management and regulation, one should expect more and more such toxicity in the Great Lakes.

The Toledo City Council backed off a resolution today declaring western Lake Erie impaired by algae fertilized by phosphorus pollution in the Maumee River entering the lake at Toledo. Cowardly council members don't want to go on record before their November election.

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2017/10/03/Toledo-City-Council-puts-off...

Look like Saginaw Bay and Lake Winnebago also have aggressive algae problems.

https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=h&page=1&am...
https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=m&page=1&am...

Farming practices are creating these unprecedented algae blooms. So far the educational/voluntary approaches that have been promoted by the mostly laissez faire government agencies have failed. It is a preventable disaster.

Canadian angle to the story: http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/science-and-solutions/ominous-fog

If you can't drink the water, thank Mom & Pop Mega Farm Inputs International?

Can't wait for Scott Pruitt to tell us that this is fantastic news and all part of god's plan. Why, I'll bet you could feed it to orphans!

Perhaps this might encourage the people of Ohio to vote for a political party that cares a bit more about the environment.

Farming kills Lake Erie...

Misuse of antibiotic kills us all... see Missing Microbes by Martin J. Blaser MD

It’s farmimg, stupid.

Cheap food.

What a useless article.

"In the 1980s, researchers started tracking algae blooms in Lake Erie. They were mostly small, but changes in farming practices caused them to spike."

WHAT changes? Are Amishmen spreading more manure in Geauga County? Has anyone proposed action to reverse these changes? To REDUCE nutrient run-off?

Come on, NEW YORK TIMES. Investigate, then report. You can do much better.

Toledo issued a do not drink advisory but never shut down or turned off the water supply.

The process is called eutrophication, and it affects all lakes that receive excessive input of nutrients. In a geochemically balanced system, the nutrients are taken up by algae that, in part, sink to the bottom, in part decompose, and the rest is removed by outflow. The renewal time of water in Lake Erie is about 2.5 years and the lake is shallow. These two factors may be contributing to the algal blooms.

I grew up in Cleveland in the 60s, before the EPA existed. In August, even the cold tap water reeked of dead algae. Of course what the Cuyahoga carried was not primarily agricultural runoff, but the summer algae bloom on the lake is much older than this article indicates.

Concern expressed that tourist and vacation spending will decline and could become a 'problem'. I see no concern for the potential harm to people's health.
Mr. Pruitt is studiously ignore the problem and direct local officials to ignore and bury the scientific data. Either someone in power will have to loose a lot of money and complain or the people who are drinking the water will have to vote in their health interests.

For years the feds have been ignoring the needs of the public, refusing to deal seriously with the asian carp problem, expecting to harm the sport fishing industry and the algae problem threatening to harm sport fishing and even make the drinking water unsafe.

It's clear that the feds have caved to economic constituencies at the cost of seriously harming natural resources and the general public. This isn't working because the people in Washington care more about the groups pressuring them than for the general public. They need a wake up call.

Herein lies one of many reasons why this country needs leadership in the EPA that understands science and that cares about the environment. Pruitt spent his career doing all he could to block environmental protections -- and now look. This is NOT making American great. Perhaps Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump should go for a swim in Lake Erie.

Our nation has become lazy and complacent. People ask governments to protect the people's interests, when we all know that governments are controlled by industry, business interests, and big agriculture. There really is nobody looking after "the people". Americans need to start looking after themselves through protest and local actions like those taking place against new oil pipelines. Americans need to wake up and pick a cause. The Congress, the President, and the Courts are no longer working for us. State governments are sold out and paid off; the same for local governments. We, the people, must stand to save the nation.

Lots of corn grown there to feed to cows pigs chickens. Soybeans too for animal feed. Another reason to not eat meat.

Bound to get much worse with the present bunch of despots who are in control. They loved the Cuyahoga River fire so much that they are experimenting with other forms of pollution to bring attention to the benefits that industry brings to society.

No mention of global warming's impact on hazardous algae blooms? It's a thing...and it's coming to body of water near you.

Do not eat industrially grown meat, cheese, veggies and stick with organic and this problem goes away next week. I know that isn't going to happen, but isn't it pretty to think so.

{“An awful lot of money may go someplace else other than Ohio if we continue having these issues in the lake,” Mr. Spangler said.}

There's more than just lost $$$ to be considered, Mr. Spangler. Much, much more.

We see the problem, we know the causes and have a good understanding of the solution - and yet, nothing happens, and probably won't until Lake Erie water becomes completely toxic and starts killing people. I have a hard time understanding why we can't acknowledge the problem, then start working with the fertilizer companies, farmers, and lawn care companies to develop better practices and to cushion the financial hit that now makes them so resistant to any change.

Trump's Environmental Pollution Agency will solve this issue by declaring dissolved phosphorus the national vegetable and giving the agri-business-and-fertilizer-industrial complex some targeted tax welfare.

Scott Pruitt needs to be impeached.

Agriculture, particularly commodity farming that relies heavily on chemical fertilizers, is the next frontier in addressing water pollution. Particularly where fields are drain-tiled there is a direct conduit for chemical runoff to enter public waters. Water in the drain tile goes to a ditch, the ditch feeds a stream, the stream feeds a river or lake.

Many farmers are loath to admit they are part of the problem because it conflicts with their self-image as 'stewards of the land'. Doing something about it will also cost them money. As long as they want to continue using chemical fertilizers, land will have to be taken out of production to provide a place to capture and infiltrate contaminated runoff.

As the saying goes, the right to swing your fist ends at the start of someone else's nose. Farmers have a right to earn a living but when their effluent is hurting the tourist economy or threatening municipal water supplies they are infringing on the rights of others.

Somehow, anti-government types never consider that one of the purposes of government is to balance interests. Interestingly, many of these anti-government types are quite willing to use the government courts to protect themselves against those who might reduce their profits.

The clean air and water act of 1972, designed "to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters" was supposed to remedy all of this. What happened?