Lake Erie's Toxic Algae Is Back. Toledo Is Watching the Water.
A decade after a bloom shut off a half-million people's tap water, nutrient pollution keeps fueling summer outbreaks across the Great Lakes.
By AGUACYCLE News Room
In 2014, a harmful algal bloom on Lake Erie forced Toledo to tell roughly half a million people not to drink their water. The blooms haven't stopped — and the nutrient pollution driving them has proven stubborn.
A farm-runoff problem
The blooms are fueled mainly by phosphorus and nitrogen washing off farmland into the western basin of the lake. Warm, slow water does the rest. Voluntary farm conservation has so far failed to bend the curve.
Utilities along the lake now invest heavily in monitoring and treatment to keep toxins out of finished water — a recurring, climate-amplified cost.
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