A Watershed Approach to Lake Erie Water Quality Issues
Posted: 22-Feb-2007; Updated: 27-Jul-2007
Using a soil probe, a landowner and other participants in the Lake Erie project examine improved soil structure resulting from beneficial agricultural practices. (Photo: Steve Davis/USDA NRCS)
Lake Erie, the most biologically productive of the five Great Lakes, also presents some of the biggest conservation challenges, particularly from runoff and erosion. The lake area’s largest source of non-point pollution is the Maumee River Basin. Once largely forested swamp, the Maumee watershed is now 85% farmland and includes the Toledo area as well. Overall, the watershed loses about 5 million tons of soil a year to the lake.
The ecological and economic costs are high. Farmers spend about $3 per acre per year (or an average of $431 per mile) to maintain surface and subsurface drainage. The Army Corps of Engineers spends $4-5 million to dredge approximately 850,000 cubic yards of sediment from Toledo Harbor. Since non-point pollution by definition comes from diffuse sources—rather than an industrial or sewage plant—tackling it requires a comprehensive approach.
With its new Western Lake Erie Basin Project, Environmental Defense’s Center for Conservation Incentives aims to improve Lake Erie water quality by significantly reducing Maumee watershed runoff. The project employs new, creative approaches and enlists farmers, state and federal agencies, for-profit entities and non-profit groups as partners. The geographic range is also wide: extending through the Western Lake Erie Basin across northwestern Ohio, eastern Indiana and southern Michigan.
By filtering runoff from cropland along a drainage system, a grass filter strip benefits Lake Erie water quality. (Photo: Steve Davis/USDA NRCS)
A goal of the Lake Erie Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program is to extend CREP benefits over the multi-state region. Farmers volunteering to help improve water quality by taking ecologically sensitive land along rivers and streams out of production can get financial and technical help from the CREP. Instead of growing corn or other crops on these high-risk lands, CREP farmers can plant grass or forested buffers, create or restore wetlands or implement other practices that capture or reduce the flow of sediments and nutrients into the Maumee and other rivers.
Another project innovation is combining the Lake Erie CREP with the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which gives financial and technical assistance to farmers for implementing a variety of important conservation practices. In partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which runs the EQIP program, Environmental Defense is leveraging EQIP to help farmers willing to go beyond the basic management practices EQIP routinely implements. Environmental Defense is already working with NRCS in Ohio in a high priority section of the Maumee River Watershed to give farmers a higher-than-standard incentive payment for exceeding the basic requirements for nutrient and sediment management. Paired with the recently improved CREP in Ohio, the two programs will significantly reduce losses of nutrients and sediments to Maumee River tributaries that flow into Lake Erie.
By creating a conservation program with interlocking pieces specifically designed to meet the region’s needs, the Western Lake Erie Basin project is engaging farmers in advanced levels of conservation planning and implementation. Special emphasis is given to practices such as advanced residue management and precision nutrient management—practices that researchers have identified as crucial for reducing agricultural impacts on the lake. For maximum participation and ecological benefits, the project team will focus much of its effort on the Tiffin and the Blanchard watersheds in Ohio. Outreach and education are major project components.
The Western Lake Erie Basin project’s benefits may reach beyond the Lake Erie watershed. The creative approach could serve as a template for other conservation incentive projects that combine multiple programs over a wide geographic range for maximum environmental and landowner benefits.
-Suzy Friedman
Staff Scientist
Center for Conservation Incentives
Environmental Defense
