Kasich Ohio EPA refuses to label Ohio's open Lake Erie waters impaired (Cleveland: tax)

[WRnative]

The above poll allows voters to select multiple responses.

Read the article, "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" on page 14 of Cleveland Magazine's February 2017 "Community Leaders" publication.

Community Leader Feb 2017

The article explains that if Ohio's and Michigan's Environmental Protection Agencies each would declare Lake Erie open waters "impaired," the federal EPA would be empowered under the federal Clean Water Act to intervene and to take steps to eliminate or greatly reduce the toxic algae problems facing Lake Erie.

Michigan's EPA, according to the article, already has declared Lake Erie's open waters impaired. Ohio's EPA has refused to do so, even though it has labeled shoreline areas and areas around water intake plants impaired.

Once the federal EPA is empowered to act, it could impose Total Maximum Daily Load limits on pollutants entering Lake Erie. This would limit the amount of phosphorous run-off from factory farms in the Maumee River Basin, including farms in Indiana as well as Ohio.

The Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Project implemented TMDL limits to reduce pollutants and toxic algal blooms in the Chesapeake Bay, the article notes.

https://www.epa.gov/chesapeake-bay-t...mdl-fact-sheet

[ohioaninsc]

They should allow 0 runoff into any river that feeds the Lake.

[WRnative]

In the last few years of his administration, Gov. John Kasich finally took action to clean up Lake Erie.

It appears that Gov.-elect Mike Dewine, according to the following editorial, is stalling on implementing Kasich's clean-up efforts.

https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/in..._on_whole.html

[jbcmh81]

Republicans don't care about the environment or how it affects the health, safety or economy of citizens or the state. They only care about making as much money for their corporate donors as possible, and if that means burning rivers again, so be it. That used to not be true, as both Democrats and Republicans worked on laws like the Clean Water Act back in the day, laws that are now getting gutted by the GOP. It's kind of ironic that they want to pass draconian laws about abortion, but they're okay with poisoning those kids once born for a few more bucks.

[beach43ofus]

I hope Lake Erie gets cleaned up and all the politicking stops.

Ohio's disregard for waterways is awful. Sure, Lake Erie's a huge concern, but I'm even more concerned about the Ohio River and storing Ethane, Butane, and other horrible unstable petro-chemicals underground in abandoned coal mines, and running pipelines beneath the river to transport them. What could possibly go wrong? Even a minor tremor could rupture the pipes, and release Ethane into the River. What happens when the Ethane leaches into aquafurs?

http://www.reviewonline.com/news/loc...ar-clarington/

Ohio residents need to take action to clean up Lake Erie now, and stop the Ethane producers from doing even worse harm to the Ohio River.

Ohio's turning into an environmental catastrophe! It's not worth the jobs or the tax revenues.