2/6/2024
WT Staff
HAPPENING NOW
Bellefontaine BWA
Lake Erie HAB 2024 feature
Water news for Tuesday, February 6, 2024 - updated 1233 pm EST
Drinking Water Matters Lake Erie HAB 2024 feature
Lake Erie is the source of raw water for public drinking water facilities supplying 11 million customers in the USA and Canada. The City of Toledo Water, Oregon, Ottawa County Regional Water, Sandusky are some of the larger facilities drawing off the HAB impacted west Lake Erie basin. As we approach the ten year anniversary of the Toledo water crisis of 2014, we will take a deep dive into the issue of HABs and cyanotoxins, risk and impact on drinking water and recreational water. Over the coming weeks leading up to spring thaw and spring rains, we will look into the background on this subject, what happened in 2014 and what is so particularly dangerous about HAB toxins in the drinking water supply. We will look at the Lucas County v EPA, OEPA Consent Decree issued by the court mandating action for the protection of Lake Erie, and what that means for agricultural producers in the Maumee River watershed. We will open up the new Total Maximum Daily Limit (TMDL) Plan established by Ohio EPA under the Consent Decree, approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency last fall. We will be diving into the TMDL plan, with input from OEPA as to how this plan will be implemented, some notable exclusions, point sources and non-point sources, what can be enforced and what cannot be enforced under this plan.
We will delve into H2Ohio, the trifecta of Ohio state departments organized to manage and support Lake Erie water quality. Ohio Department of Agriculture, OEPA and Ohio Department of Natural Resources working with County Soil and Water Conservation offices in the northwest supporting voluntary adoption of accepted Best Management Practises for agriculture. Stay tuned for research papers, interviews and dialogue on the efforts to subdue the Lake Erie HAB. More to follow.
Streamflow Situation from USGS Waterwatch based on real-time flow monitors across Ohio
No active flooding is recorded in the network Tuesday, streamflows are predominantly normal on both sides of the drainage divide. A handful of monitors scattered across the state are rated below normal.
As of this update there are no high or extreme low flows registering anywhere in the state network today.
Drought map from USGS Waterwatch 7-day average streamflow compared with historic flow for today's date
No part of Ohio is rated on the drought map Tuesday.
The height-of-land divide in Ohio runs from Mercer County in the west angling northeast up to Ashtabula County on the east state border. Streamflows north of the divide feed Lake Erie, flows south of the divide run to the Ohio River, part of the Mississippi River basin that drains the majority of interior North America to the Gulf of Mexico.
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