Water Quality Enforcement in the Scott Pruitt Era

The appointment of Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was an abomination. His hostility toward environmental protection has been clear, as has his intent to dismantle protections long ago enacted into law.

Negotiation with Pruitt and his subordinates is a waste of time. As concerns water quality, U.S. subsidies to agriculture that push expansion of cultivation into marginal lands, requiring heavy fertilization, has resulted in massive amounts of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to run off into lakes and streams, generating algal blooms, oxygen depletion and dead zones. This is particularly evident in the Maumee River watershed and the western basin of Lake Erie.

In order to compel Pruitt’s EPA to restrict nutrient runoff, we need to study the elements and procedures, get organized and head to court.

The fastest, most concise way for the serious student to become acquainted with the struggle for water quality in the U.S., including related politics, government and law, is to read the appellate decision in the Chesapeake Bay case, American Farm Bureau, et al. vs. EPA, et al. (which the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review). http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/16/09/151234P.pdf

The agriculture/environment conflict appears again in a pending federal case concerning impairment by ag pollution in the western basin of Lake Erie.  http://elpc.org/newsroom/howards-blog/elpc-litigation-driving-results-ohio-epa-recognizes-reality-lake-erie-impaired-pollution-key-next-steps  

Accommodating nutrient runoff - Shutterstock

Algal bloom in western Lake Erie - NASA

Improve Lake St. Clair by Removing Floodplain Sediments

Michigan and Ontario residents alarmed about pollution in Lake St. Clair shouldn’t limit their concern to combined sewer overflows. More could be done to improve water quality upstream in the small ditches and creeks that contribute algae-fueling nutrients to rivers like the Clinton and Thames leading to the lake.

Big Spring Run - lancasteronline.com

Good results are being realized in the Chesapeake Bay watershed from the restoration of floodplains and wetlands far upstream by removing legacy sediment deposits loaded with nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen.

One example is a project in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania which was completed five years ago. Sediment deposits from careless land use practices in the past were removed from 12 acres of bottom land. Four and a half acres of aquatic habitat were restored and reconnected to the watershed, as well.

Sediment removed is said to have been 22,000 tons, including 25 tons of phosphorus and 30 tons of nitrogen.

“Chief among the latest findings is research showing dramatic reductions in surface water temperatures and nitrogen, the re-establishment of threatened species of plants, colonization by the green frog and a 50 percent reduction in sediment leaving the restored ecosystem.”

http://www.lancasterfarming.com/news/main_edition/chesapeake-bay-commission-tours-legacy-sediment-experiment/article_2f7d4768-cb08-5562-a70c-01548db8e8e5.html

Big Ag's Big Lie About Lake Erie Impairment

Spraying Manure

I support cleaning up the nutrient overload in western Lake Erie. The cleanup requires restrictions on manure and chemical fertilizers running off farm fields in the Maumee River watershed, the largest part of which is in Ohio.

The governor of Ohio, his administrators in Ohio’s environmental, agriculture and natural resources departments and their colleagues in the Farm Bureau oppose such restrictions. Tougher pollution controls will cut into the profits of big corporate farm interests which are Farm Bureau’s benefactors and major political campaign contributors.

A long time lobbyist for the Farm Bureau, now Gov. Kasich’s spokesman on the Lake Erie impairment issue, has been telling people in Toledo and elsewhere that the Clean Water Act does not apply to agriculture, so the financial burden of any USEPA enforcement would fall on municipal sewage treatment plants. Both elements of that statement are blatant falsehoods. The Farm Bureau lost that argument in the Chesapeake Bay federal lawsuit, as the governor and his spokesman know very well.

Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are unregulated or under-regulated manure factories. The operators spray millions upon millions of gallons of animal waste on farm fields in the Maumee watershed. The manure spread on fields far exceeds what is necessary as fertilizer for plant growth. The excess runs off into the Maumee and its tributaries, then into Lake Erie, fueling algal blooms.

In my view, we should determine whether Farm Bureau lobbying has morphed into ‘regulatory capture’ (see Wikipedia definition), and regulatory capture into RICO fraud. Examine it yourself. If the elements are there, the U.S. Department of Justice should act.

*****

Anticipating 'Impaired' Lake Erie

Just trying to get my head around some generalities about an EPA ‘impaired’ designation for Lake Erie.

Ambassador Bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario

The entire lake is surrounded by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and the Province of Ontario; thus, U.S.- Canadian treaties come into play, and the International Joint Commission (IJC) has a role. (By contrast, EPA’s plan to clean up Chesapeake Bay involves six states, but there is no international connection.)

If the ‘impaired’ label is applied only to the western basin of Lake Erie, then the states directly involved are Michigan and Ohio, plus Ontario, so treaties and the IJC remain pertinent.

Because a critical feature of an impaired western basin is the Maumee River watershed, Michigan, INDIANA and Ohio have to be taken into consideration for certain aspects of an EPA determination, but perhaps not Ontario (unless an indirect association is compelled by the Pakootas and Detroit Edison cases, U.S. and Canadian, respectively), nor treaties, nor IJC.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if somebody has sorted all of this out already?