A spike in the number of large-scale animal farms and resulting manure production in the Maumee watershed is contributing to algae blooms in Lake Erie, a new report finds. The authors write that over half of the manure contributing to water pollution comes from farms that don’t require permits.
The Environmental Working Group and Environmental Law & Policy Center used aerial imaging and satellite mapping to calculate that between 2005 and 2018, the number of large-scale animal farms in the affected watershed, which spans parts of Ohio, Indiana, and a slice of Michigan, rose 40 percent. “The amount of manure from these farms increased from 3.9 million tons in 2005 to 5.5 million tons in 2018,” the report reads. Phosphorus in the manure has contributed to the spiking algae blooms in Lake Erie. In 2014, the algae bloom caused a tap water ban in Toledo that affected 500,000 people.
Despite the risk to drinking water, EWG and ELPC report that Ohio has done little to stem the tide of manure by more strictly regulating the state’s agriculture industry. “In Ohio, animal feeding operations don’t need a permit unless they confine more than 2,500 hogs weighing more than 55 pounds, or 10,000 hogs weighing less than 55 pounds,” the report says. “Operators who want to avoid regulation can simply keep the number of animals on each farm just below the threshold.”
Last year, the mayor of Toledo said that the state’s “legislature is a wholly owned subsidiary of the farm bureau” at a algae conference.
A map linked to the EWG and EPLC report shows the rise of large-scale animal feeding operations in the Maumee watershed since 2005.