A few summers ago, I lived Downtown in a warehouse, a football field’s throw in one direction to the Amtrak station and in the other to the Maumee River. On my way home late afternoons and on my way out in the mornings, I’d route myself to stop by the riverfront by the old Murphy’s. This stretch in front of Promenade Park is where you are likely to find some urban fishing.

There was one fisherman in particular I liked to visit. He was a veteran who lived Downtown and would fish almost every day, all day. He’d bring a thermos full of coffee, fishing gear and cigarettes. We became friends of sorts. He got a kick out of me riding my bike all over the place and I got a kick out of his Jeep factory stories and the way he pronounced fish, like “feesh.”

I was also intrigued, mostly confused, by watching him throw cigarette butt after cigarette butt into the water where he fished. It would not have surprised me if he had reeled in his line to find one of those butts on the hook. But instead he would pull in catfish and sell him to a shop owner who would then sell them or cook them. My friend didn’t sell them for much, but at least someone found value in Maumee catfish.

I’ve only fished in the Maumee four times. The first time I went fishing was at International Park, at night, in high school. It was probably illegal and I’m embarrassed to say what we used as bait. That time doesn’t count.

The second occasion was with the aforementioned “accomplished” fisherman friend. I caught a rubber glove, the yellow kind you clean with, and a plastic bag, like a mini zip bag.

The next urban fishing experience was on a really windy day with my friend Michelle. We were just down the way from where my friend would successfully fish, over by the docks that are always covered with white bird crap. Again, I caught a piece of garbage.

My latest attempt (but not final) was again with Michelle, but we thought we’d increase our chances at a catch by moving away from Downtown. It was sunset in Waterville, trying our chances with a variety of baits. Our intentions were strong, but alas, we went home with our heads-a-hangin’.

The part of the Maumee that passes through Downtown is actually a freshwater estuary, a transition zone where the mixing of lake and river water occurs, which “influence(s) important ecological processes,” according to Wisconsin’s Freshwater Estuary Initiative. Collectively, the Great Lakes form the largest surface freshwater system in the world and represent 84 percent of North America’s surface fresh water, according to the EPA.

The Maumee is the Great Lakes’ muddiest tributary, not a bad thing, as it is also the fishiest. Residents of the Maumee watershed,  many of whom consume or care about fish, we are faced with challenges.

The “Muddy Maumee” is faced with both physical pollution in the form of litter and garbage, and biological pollution in the form of industrial, agricultural and (sub)urban toxic runoff and probably hazardous waste pollution, too.

How can we protect the largest Great Lakes tributary (Maumee) and our freshwater lake? With our river and Lake Erie having more consumable fish than all the other Great Lakes combined, it makes sense to do our part in keeping a clean, safe and healthy ecosystem where fish populations can thrive.

There are many organizations with efforts under way to protect our watershed. They have volunteer opportunities year round and some offer memberships for a higher level of involvement. Consider actively participating with any of these groups: Lake Erie Waterkeeper, Western Lake Erie Sierra Club, Partners for Clean Streams, Rain Garden Initiative, Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, LEWAS, Lucas Soil and Water Conservation District.

In the midst of writing this article, I met a fellow water advocate who fishes the Maumee. Not here and there, but every day and with great success. I have a feeling that when he takes me out on his boat this week, I’ll have my first Maumee fish on the hook and perhaps my first Maumee blue gill dinner.

Email Toledo Free Press Star columnist Stacy Jurich at star@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Lake Erie, Maumee River, Stacy Jurich, Wandering Roots

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2012 at 11:27 am and is filed under Star, Wandering Roots.
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DUNDEE, Mich. — The federal government will provide $2 million in grants to Michigan, Ohio and Indiana farmers to limit phosphorus runoff in the hopes of reducing algae blooms in Lake Erie, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Friday in a visit to Dundee.

Vilsack spoke at the Cabela’s store in Dundee, joined by several lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo.

“Our beautiful natural resources are critical to our economy, to our jobs,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. She said Michigan has more than 1 million hunters and anglers supporting more than 46,000 jobs.

Kaptur talked about Lake Erie’s role in the tourism industry.

“Lake Erie tourism, right now, is an $11 billion business, employing more than $119,000 people, and that’s really an underestimate,” Kaptur said.

She said Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky is “the largest employer now in the center part of Lake Erie on the Ohio side.”

Phosphorus overload from farm runoff is believed to be a key cause of algae growth in western Lake Erie that has reduced oxygen levels, led to foul-smelling mats of rotting algae washing ashore, and made the water appear so green that it’s been described as looking like pea soup.

“We’re all very concerned about what’s happened to the western Lake Erie basin in terms of algal blooms,” Brown said.

Vilsack acknowledged the country’s fiscal problems but argued the U.S. should be careful about cutting funds for conservation.

“Conservation is one area where we have to be very careful that we don’t reduce funding to the point that we’re not as effective as we could be,” Vilsack said.

“Remember, a $730 billion industry is helped and assisted by conservation,” he said, referring to outdoor recreation.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said that “we have great, thoughtful, careful and decent farmers who want to do right” and that the planned federal grants for phosphorus reduction “will make their efforts to preserve and protect their share of our future into a valuable reality.”

Vilsack said applications for funding will be due by April 27.

According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, measures that can reduce phosphorus runoff include:

• Placing fertilizer and manure below the soil surface.
• Not applying phosphorus when levels in the soil are already high.
• Planting buffers and filter strips along ditches and streams.
• Planting diverse varieties of cover crops.

NRCS information can be found online at www.nrcs.usda.gov.

Tags: algae, Debbie Stabenow, environment, farm runoff, fertilizer, John Dingell, Lake Erie, Marcy Kaptur, Phosphorus, Sherrod Brown, Tom Vilsack, U.S. Department of Agriculture

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2012 at 11:10 am and is filed under Community, Environment.
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S&L Fertilizer, the company that handles all of the city’s sludge, must hire a consultant to determine the impact the company’s Maumee Bay site might have on the Maumee River and Lake Erie.

As first reported at www.toledofreepress.com on March 12, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has mandated “meaningful water and soil sampling data” through computerized models and sampling plans as a result of numerous complaints surrounding the facility. The company’s consultant would have to hand in results within two years of the contract’s start.

“It’s a legitimate concern; there are good questions being asked,” said Dina Pierce, spokesperson for the Ohio EPA. “Obviously the western basin is a very sensitive area from an ecological standpoint.”

Most complaints have flooded in from N-Viro, the company with which the city contracted prior to switching entirely to S&L.

Councilman D. Michael Collins, who has hammered the agency with records requests for months regarding S&L, shared similar concerns with N-Viro, Pierce said.

S&L has operated under the city’s permit for years but new regulations require that the company apply for its own. The permit is still in the draft stages, and the agency is amending pieces of it based on concerns that emerged during the public comment period, Pierce said. The particular sampling that the EPA will now require of S&L is not standard for all permits of this type, she said.

“The question keeps getting asked over and over and this is an attempt for us to say, ‘Let’s just do it,’” she said.

She pointed out that S&L’s facility takes up only a small portion of the entire island on which it sits. Sampling could also help determine to what extent environmental impact is attributed to the company compared to the entire area, which the Lucas County Port Authority operates. The island has been filled with dredging material for decades, so it is unlikely that any potential problems would be the sole responsibility of the sludge facility, Pierce said.

“We’ve done inspections out there and we see no evidence that there is any run-off getting into the lake from S&L operations,” she said. S&L Fertilizer has leased property on the island for decades, accepting a portion of the city’s waste, mixing it with other materials and sending some remains to the Hoffman Road Landfill. The result is called “Nu Soil.”

Until recently, N-Viro handled Toledo’s bio-waste. The company would take about 50 percent of the waste and mix it with high alkaline products, which raises the temperature and kills E. coli, worms and fecal coliform. The company sent its product to farmers across Northwest Ohio for its fertilizer-like qualities, said Robert Bohmer, vice president of N-Viro.

Terry Perry, the head of S&L, did not return phone calls for comment.

N-Viro produces what is considered a Class A biosolid, while S&L produces a Class B. This means that 98-99 percent of the pathogens have been removed and it is unlikely to spread disease. The city can use Class B material at landfills, but needs an EPA permit to spread it elsewhere.

Once approved, farmers can use it in fields, depending on the crop, as long as the area is restricted from human contact for a designated number of days. Cities can also use the product at places like public parks as long as they fence off the area for a year.

Collins has been researching the stipulations of this rule and trying to verify that all Class B biosolids have been accurately accounted for. A letter from the Department of Public Utilities raised alarm for Collins months ago. It stated that no Class B material from N-Viro or S&L had been delivered anywhere but the landfill. But according to city records, the company made deliveries to Ravine Park in 2007 and 2010.

Pierce said the city filed the appropriate paperwork for the reclamation project to be approved. Other nonlandfill places the mud has gone include the Retirees Golf Course, a private residence and a cemetery.

The city made the deal with S&L on the condition that the company produce at least $200,000 worth of topsoil annually. Collins and council members Lindsay Webb and Rob Ludeman voted against the contract. The city had completed its own testing of the surrounding environment and results came up clean.

Collins insisted that the city ought to employ an independent consultant to test the soil at the facility, but most Council members declined. Council president Joe McNamara, who has called Collins’ investigation into the sludge facility a “crusade,” said he thinks the EPA’s mandate is a relief.  Council had asked an EPA representative to attend council meetings during the decision-making process in the fall, but the agency declined, McNamara said.

McNamara solidly stood by the city’s positive test results and denounced the idea that “testing the mud” for bacteria and phosphorous, as Collins suggested, would prove anything.

“I think that it’s great the EPA has come up with a scientifically sound measure to test if there’s a problem,” McNamara said. “If it discovers something that we didn’t think was happening, we’ll stop. This puts the debate to bed.”

Not for Collins.

“It was in bed and this is now the awakening of the issue. We will now find out what we were afraid to find out if in fact the practice is not safe,” Collins said. “I feel this amplifies a response that council was not willing to do and that was to protect the environment by insisting that a study be done.”

Tags: Caitlin McGlade, D. Michael Collins, Department of Public Utilities, Dina Pierce, Joe McNamara, Lake Erie, Lindsay Webb, Lucas County Port Authority, Maumee River, N-Viro, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Ravine Park, Retirees Golf Course, Rob Ludeman, S&L Fertilizer, sludge

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 9:36 pm and is filed under City of Toledo, Community, Environment, Utilities.
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S&L Fertilizer, the company that handles all of the city’s sludge, will have to hire a consultant to determine the impact that the company’s Maumee Bay site might have on the river and Lake Erie.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has mandated “meaningful water and soil sampling data” through computerized models and sampling plans as a result of numerous complaints surrounding the facility.

“It’s a legitimate concern; there are good questions being asked,” said Dina Pierce, spokesperson for the Ohio EPA. “Obviously the western basin is a very sensitive area from an ecological standpoint.”

Most complaints have flooded in from N-VIRO, the company with which the city contracted prior to switching entirely to S&L. Councilman D. Michael Collins, who has hammered the agency with records requests for months regarding S&L, shared similar concerns with N-VIRO, Pierce said.

S&L has operated under the city’s permit for years but new regulations require that the company apply for its own. The permit is still in the draft stages, and the agency is amending pieces of it based on concerns that arrived during the public comment period, Pierce said.

The particular sampling that the EPA will now require of S&L is not protocol for all permits of this type, she said.

“The question keeps getting asked over and over and this is an attempt for us to say, ‘let’s just do it,” she said.

She pointed out that S&L’s facility takes up only a small portion of the entire island on which it sits. Sampling could also help answer the question as to what extent environmental impact is attributed to the company compared to the entire area, which the Lucas County Port Authority operates. The island has been filled with dredging material for decades so it is unlikely that any potential problems would be the sole responsibility of the sludge facility, Pierce said.

“We’ve done inspections out there and we see no evidence that there is any run off getting into the lake from S&L operations,” she said.

S&L Fertilizer has leased property on the island for decades, accepting a portion of the city’s waste, mixing it with other materials and sending some remains to the Hoffman Road Landfill. The result is called “Nu Soil.”

Until recently, N-VIRO handled Toledo’s bio-waste. The company would take about 50 percent of the waste and mix it with high alkaline products, which raises the temperature and kills E. coli, worms and fecal coliform. The company sent its product to farmers across Northwest Ohio for its fertilizer-like qualities, said Robert Bohmer, vice president of N-VIRO.

N-VIRO produces what is considered a Class A biosolids. S&L produces a Class B. This means that 98-99 percent of the pathogens have been removed and it is unlikely to spread disease. The city can use Class B material at landfills, but needs an EPA permit to spread the muck elsewhere. Once approved, farmers can use it in fields, depending on the crop, as long as the area is restricted from human contact for a designated numbers of days.

Cities can also use the product at places like public parks as long as they fence off the area for a year.

The city made the deal with S&L on the condition that the company produce at least $200,000 worth of top soil annually. Collins, Council members Lindsay Webb and Rob Ludeman voted against the contract.

The city had completed its own testing of the surrounding environment and results came up clean. Collins insisted that the city ought to employ an independent consultant to test the soil at the facility, but most council members declined.

Check toledofreepress.com for more information as the story develops.

Tags: City of Toledo, D. Michael Collins, Environmental Protection Agency, Lake Erie, Lindsay Webb, Maumee River, N-Viro, Rob Ludeman, S&L Fertilizer

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 4:29 pm and is filed under City of Toledo, Community.
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Governor John Kasich is scheduled to take part in a meeting with commercial fisherman and members of the the Ohio Lake Erie Commission at University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center on March 23.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols confirmed to Toledo Free Press that Gov. Kasich was coming to the Toledo area for the meeting. Nichols said other local events would be scheduled around the governor’s appearance that would be announced soon.

The March 23 meeting at Lake Erie Center is scheduled to take place beginning at 5 p.m. The center is located at 6200 Bayshore Road in Oregon.

Lake Erie Center is a research and education center created to look for solutions and to research environmental problems at the land-water interface and bay-lake exchanges in the Great Lakes.

The Ohio Lake Erie Commission was established to preserve Lake Erie’s natural resources. Their mission is to protect the quality of its waters and ecosystem, and to promote economic development in the region.

Tags: Government, Governor John Kasich, Lake Erie, Ohio

This entry was posted on Friday, March 18th, 2011 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Breaking News, Community, Government.
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Plan reviewed to reduce bacteria found on Lake Erie beaches

About 50 people attended a public meeting Nov. 4 at Maumee Bay State Park to review the Wolf Creek-Beaver Ditch Restoration Plan to eliminate or reduce bacteria found on the beaches there last summer.

The plan is a proposed system of ponds, floodplains and wetlands that would naturally remove and treat bacteria and excess nutrients that are causing high levels of fecal bacteria recorded along Lake Erie beaches at the state park. The plan would preserve the habitat and provide attractive natural areas.

The public meeting, held by the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments (TAMCOG), reviewed the results of research studies tracking bacteria, wetland designs and watershed information regarding the proposed project.

The Wolf Creek Committee was appointed in 2009 to replace the Maumee Bay Bacteria Task Force that operated from 1995 to 2008, according to Kurt Erichsen, vice president of environmental planning for TMACOG.

The task force identified the bacteria problem in the watershed of Wolf Creek and Berger Ditch that includes areas in the Cities of Northwood, Oregon and Jerusalem Township. The watershed covers 16 square miles of farmlands, commercial and residential areas.

Wolf Creek empties into the Berger Ditch which empties into Lake Erie near the beaches in Maumee Bay State Park.

The highest level of bacteria and toxic algae levels related to the bacteria were found at the mouth of Berger Ditch, according to research conducted by the Department of Environmental Sciences at the UT Lake Erie Center. The study identified Berger Ditch as the primary pathway for the ecoli bacteria.

The study looked at three broad solutions for the problem that included eliminating sources of the bacteria, rerouting the stream to avoid it flowing into the lake close to the beaches, or treat the stream water.

Rerouting Berger Ditch was not a feasible solution due to the infrastructure and golf course at the state park. Eliminating the sources of the bacteria would be a huge undertaking, according to the report.

The City of Oregon already spent $8 million to expand sanitary sewers along Coy, Pickle, Stadium and Wynn Roads to reduce the amount of bacteria that ends up in Wolf Creek and Berger Ditch.

The Wolf Creek Committee recommended treatment of the wetlands to remove or reduce bacteria, pathogens and sediments in the streams with a number of natural measures. The treatment project would involve a total 44 acres, 33 acres in the park, at a cost of about $5 million.

Bob Morrison of Millbury asked why they didn’t look at issues at the front end of the system to determine and eliminate the source of bacteria rather than putting $5 million into treating the back end of it in the creek and ditch. He voiced a concern about the use of class B sewage on farmlands that is contributing to the problem.

Paul Roman, director of public service for the City of Oregon, reported that the City is doing what it can to reduce bacteria from sewage collection and treatment. He did admit that the City supplies a sludge byproduct of the city’s sewer treatment operation to local farmers for use in fertilizing their fields.

Officials from TMACOG and UT believe that the use of the sludge is a likely contributor of ecoli bacteria found in Wolf Creek and Berger Ditch. The research found seasonal trends for bacteria and phosphorous in both waterways.

The proposed plan would treat the wetlands with a surface and subsurface flow that could remove from 23 to 93 percent of the bacteria, according to Daryl Dwyer of UT Environmental Sciences. They also tested for suspended solids and sediment and found the Berger Ditch as the primary contributor of both.

The proposal would treat both low and high-flow loadings and remove suspended solids to reduce ecoli bacteria and phosphorous levels. The development of a predictable model would be used for evaluation of rapid methods to rate ecoli densities, said Dwyer.

Hull & Associates of Toledo is working with the Wolf Creek Committee to develop a design of proposed natural systems for treating the bacteria problem in the wetlands and steams. The plan would treat low and high flows and avoid the existing infrastructure of the state park.

The estimated design and construction cost of the proposed plan totals $5.35 million with $1.8 million for Wolf Creek floodplain wetlands and sediment basins with $3.5 million for terraced wetlands and vernal pools along Berger Ditch, according to Hugh Crowell of Hull & Associates.

The committee plans to pursue funding from multiple sources available for this type of project.

The full Wolf Creek – Berger Ditch Restoration Plan is available at www.tmacog.org.

Tags: Berger Ditch, Lake Erie, TMACOG, Wolf Creek

This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 10:59 am and is filed under Community, Environment.
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Researchers are hoping that a surveillance balloon about the size of a two-story house will help decrease western Lake Erie dead zones where decaying algae plants suck up oxygen needed by fish and other wildlife.

The $125,000 unmanned SkySentry Aerostat blimp, initially designed for military surveillance and communications, is testing its cameras and other equipment about 1,000 feet above a barge off Maumee Bay.

Several times a week, the device snaps spectral images of the light emitted by algae and matches them to algae found from boats and aircraft in the warm and shallow waters. Researchers seek to track algae blooms before they fully develop and predict where they will drift.

Another goal is to find a less expensive way to capture images than satellites, which are not as clear and are recorded only every eight days.

Officials from Colorado-based SkySentry and the Army’s Space & Missile Defense Battle Lab recently demonstrated the blimp for government officials, scientists and environmentalists during a conference at the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center.

“This is mostly a demonstration … but we also hope to become another teammate permanently gathering data out on Lake Erie,” said Jeffrey Faunce, deputy for experiments at the Army lab.

For the military, the blimp was used for communications and surveillance at levels above 60,000 feet, Faunce said.

“But this also has a dual-use technology that we think is very exciting — being able to work on environmental studies to hopefully help mitigate the algal problem in western Lake Erie,” he said.

Once algae plants die, they decay at the lake’s bottom, creating oxygen-deprived areas that either kill fish or force them to other areas of the lake. Researchers say some algae can become toxic, endangering wildlife, pets and possibly human drinking water.

“There’s a lot of algae out there this year, too — a real big bloom,” said George Leshkevich of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Michigan.”

Tags: ecology, Lake Erie

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 8:10 am and is filed under Community.
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