It Began 20 Years Ago...
...well, actually, 3.5 billion,
but who’s counting?
Crisis?
What Crisis?
“A Crisis of Confidence.”- Former Toledo
Mayor D. Michael Collins, Aug. 21, 2014.
More lethal than arsenic, but less than
dioxin
The toxicity of microcystis algae wasn’t widely known until
recently. Many fear the blooms will get worse in this era of
climate change or, as some say, climate instability.
Western Lake Erie’s Toxic Algae
Not so fast...
You, uh, forgot to mention that
neglected water plant
“It doesn’t matter if
you have a 2-year-old
plant or a 200-yearold plant. You need
to address the
problem at the
source.” - Ed Moore,
Toledo public utilities
director, Aug. 4, 2014
Once again...
...the problem at the source.
Water crisis grips hundreds of thousands in Toledo area, state of
emergency declared
BY TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER
A once-unthinkable crisis in the world’s greatest freshwater region — one that sent more than 500,000 metro
Toledo residents scrambling for bottled water Saturday — enters its second day today, with officials inside the city’s Collins Park Water
Treatment Plant wondering how much longer it will take before clean, safe, and reliable tap water will flow again from faucets of area homes and
businesses.
“We’ve been getting mixed results,” Jeff Martin, a senior chemist at the plant, confessed during an exclusive interview with The Blade on
Saturday while performing tests for microcystin — a toxin produced by the harmful blue-green algae known as microcystis — inside the plant’s
laboratory on samples drawn from 39 metro Toledo sites.
The cause of the microcystis algae bloom is primarily phosphorus from farm fertilizer runoff, and the amount of phosphorus determines the
bloom’s size. Scientists are also learning that another farm fertilizer, nitrogen, affects the size and composition of the annual bloom.
Toledo sits on the shoreline of the Great Lakes, which holds 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water.
Tom Henry
Email: thenry@theblade.com
Great Lakes Environmental-Energy Blog, Ripple Effect:
http://toledoblade.typepad.com/ripple-effect/