Task Which Lies Ahead in the
Lake Erie Basin
GEORGE L. HARLOW, Director
Cleveland Program Office
Federal Water Pollution Control Administration
Cleveland, Ohio
INTRODUCTION
The problems in the Lake Erie basin have been documented time and again
in periodicals, technical journals, federal enforcement conferences, and in innumerable eloquent political speeches. The documentation has served to provide
a public awareness, resulting in certain actions being taken to eventually abate
pollution to some extent. Unfortunately for Lake Erie the actions are overdue and
they are and have been slow and awkward.
Lake Erie has been variously described as virtually a dead lake and the impression in many times given that it has been completely destroyed by pollution.
Other lakes are often described as potentially suffering the "fate of Lake Erie, "
implying that, once they reach this stage, there is little hope for repair.
Lake Erie is without doubt seriously polluted, but it is certainly not beyond
repair. The prospect for improving Lake Erie is very promising if pollution controls ofthe right kinds are instituted rapidly and when the waste inputs are greatly
reduced.
This paper restates briefly the problems which exist in Lake Erie and the necessary steps to correct the situation. Justification for control is given by providing
an insight to a dim future if waste inputs continue at or above their present rates.
LAKE PROBLEMS
Nutritional overenrichment is the single greatest problem in Lake Erie today
and presents by far the greatest threat to its future usefulness. It is the problem
which, if not corrected quickly, will cause the abandonment of many water uses,
including recreation and fishing. In the more distant future it can eliminate Lake
Erie as a domestic water supply, as an industrial water supply, and even interfere
seriously with commercial navigation.
Overenrichment is now causing undesirable interference with water supplies,
recreation, and fishing. The nutrients are not particularly harmful in themselves,
but they have the synergistic effect of resulting in the tremendous overproduction
of aquatic plants, especially in the primary microscopic forms. Phosphorus concentrations in the western basin and along the entire south shore are often 20 or
more times the amount needed, along with nitrogen, to trigger offensive algal
blooms.
Two nutrients required by algae are nitrogen and phosphorus. If one of these
essential nutrients is not available to algae in the necessary quantity, the algae
will not grow in abundance. Phosphorus is often singled out because it is the one
nutrient most amenable to treatment and removal.
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