The Great Lakes & Problems Concerning Water Quality and Ecosystems : Lake Erie And Phosphorus Part 1: How Phosphorus Helped Kill Lake Erie

Out of all five great lakes, Lake Erie, and perhaps Lake Huron, are the two which are the most recognized and relate-able to those living in Windsor-Essex County and the surrounding areas. Lake Erie along with the Detroit River provides water for around 11 million people on both sides of the lake and coupled with the many other things it provides, Lake Erie truly is a luxury for those utilize it. Although, everything is not as it seems when it comes to the lake's apparent health and vitality. The lake is in fact slowly headed back towards becoming a dead lake, as it was considered in the 1960's and 70's. This post will be focusing on the effect of phosphorus on the lake's poor "death" during the 1960's-70's and its miraculous resurrection. My next blog post will focus more on the current state of the issue, which has become a recurring problem and threat to the lake's health.

While there are many things to blame for the condition in which Lake Erie was during the 60's and 70's, as well as it's condition today; culprits which I will individually focus on in upcoming posts; the principal culprit to which I am referring in this post is algae, and more precisely, the excess of it found in the lake.
To understand how this came to be a problem, it must be understood,that Lake Erie was and still heavily developed with agriculture and rural areas, as you may well already know.

In the 1960's, phosphorus based fertilizer was a very common fertilizer used by most farmers to induce plant growth and ultimately benefit their business'. The problem that arose from this, was in regard to the phosphorus run-off, which made it's way into the lake by travelling through the soil and ditches with water. Normally, the use of phosphorus as it is is not a major concern, but due to the sheer amount of phosphorus being put into the ground at that time, there was an immense amount of phosphorus making its way into the lake, resulting in devastating effects. The phosphorus in the lake drastically increased the amount of algae present in the lake. In time, there was such an amount of algae growing, dying and decomposing that the waters of Lake Erie suffered from serious lack of oxygen. What little oxygen the algae left was not nearly enough to sustain the aquatic species living in the lake and the majority of fish, as well as other aquatic species, simply died. To make matters worse, the algae did more than just create a lack of oxygen in the lake's waters. So much of the lake's surface had been covered in algae, that was either alive and growing or dead and decomposing, that close to the entirety of the lake was covered in a gooey, slimy, moss-like residue that smelt so horrid, the majority of people had no interest in going near the lake. This remained so for many years.

The image on the left was taken in 2011, but gives an idea of the effect

that an over-abundance of algae can have a lake

It wasn't until 1972 that the Canadian and American governments came together on an agreement which would finally begin the process of the lake's rejuvenation. The agreement, named the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement emphasized, among other things, the reduction of phosphorus entering Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and in 1977, a precise agreement on the maximum level of phosphorus entering the lakes was added to the GLWQA. Thanks to this, Lake Erie was able to slowly return to its former life, and although it still hasn't quite returned to its originating state, the cooperative effort of both nations managed to save the lake.

It's amazing to see how we humans had made this lake come so near to its demise, only to save it in a desperate act to preserve what we knew to be such an important resource. Thanks to this, the lake can be enjoyed today and we know have the knowledge necessary to be able to avoid such a catastrophe from recurring, either in the Great Lakes, or in any other lake. Despite all of this, and all of the good that the agreement between the United-States and Canada has done for Lake Erie, the lake still remains on its path to recovery while still facing problems due to many things, such as fertilizers.

Thanks for reading!

Did you know?

In 1971, during the period when Lake Erie was nearing the worse point in its decline, the famed children's author Dr. Seuss published The Lorax. The book focused heavily on environmental issues and, at the time of its first publishing, the following could be read on one of its pages:

"You're glumping the pond where the Hummin-Fish hummed!

No more can they hum, for their gills are all gummed.

So I'm sending them off. Oh, their future is dreary.

They'll walk on their fins and get woefully weary

in search of some water that isn't so smeary.

I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie."

The line regarding Lake Erie remained in the book for more than fourteen years until Seuss was written to by two research associates from the Ohio Sea Grant Program who informed him of the clean-up of Lake Erie.