|
LAKE
ERIE DEAD ZONE
BY CAPT. TONY DENSLOW
MEGA BITES CHARTERS
I’ve been studying up on the “Dead Zone.” No,
not that sci-fi television series; the one in Lake Erie. The one
that has the news media’s collective shorts in a wedgie.
The one many recreational fishermen hear about but don’t
know much about. The one that many think will doom the lake and
turn it into a slimy cesspool. I don’t subscribe to the
cesspool notion, but there is genuine cause for concern.
 Actually,
I feel a little awkward in writing about the dead zone. This is
because I am partly to blame for it. In fact, everyone who lives
near Lake Erie shares some blame.
For years, we’ve been dumping our treated and untreated
sewage into the lake and its tributaries. To their credit, many
cities and towns have built bigger and better treatment facilities
but more needs to be done. God bless the farmers; we couldn’t
live without them, but when they fertilize their fields some of
some of that runs off after a rain and ends up in the waterway.
Ditto, farm animal waste.
Collectively, we’re all fertilizing Lake Erie with phosphorous
and nitrogen and this makes the algae grow more than it should.
Such has been the case these last few years. A few months ago
I wrote that algae blooms were greater than normal this summer.
Ohio Sea Grant backed up my observations and noted that both U.S.
and Canadian scientists are a little nervous about the algae situation.
Without getting too scientific here’s basically what happens
in the life of a dead zone. After a hot summer of growth, algae
dies and sinks to the bottom of the lake where bacteria starts
to work on it. This action depletes the bottom’s oxygen
supply to the point that marine life can’t thrive there.
The amount of algae and how wide spread it is determines, for
the most part, the size/effect of the dead zone.
Lake Erie’s central basin, from Huron, OH to Erie, PA, is
most affected due to its depth and top-to-bottom temperature variations.
The western basin is too shallow and the eastern basin too deep
for the harmful process to fully occur.
It’s difficult to draw a map to show the locations of these
deoxygenated areas. They are like a matrix, weaving in and out
well offshore toward the middle of the lake. Some fishing goes
on in these areas but not that much. With gas prices so high,
anglers are staying closer to home anyhow.
However, dead zones can affect the movement of fish such as walleye
and yellow perch. These animals need oxygen to survive and will
quickly move on to better areas. Maybe in the future, Lake Erie
scientists can tell us where not to fish. That would be helpful,
albeit in the face of a very large environmental problem.
Now that we’ve been slapped with some heavy guilt there
are things the public can do to help, according to the Ohio Division
of Wildlife.
1. Support funding for improved treatment facilities.
2. Utilize smart land use practices that protect or improve watersheds
and wetlands,
3. Minimize shoreline and streamside development, and reduce nutrient
inputs and runoff.
4. Protect vegetation along streams for a minimum 50-foot setback.
5. Reduce or improve the timing of fertilizer applications.
5. Maintain thick planted buffer strips and retention basins adjacent
to developed areas,.
7. Don’t clear-cut areas for development.
As an aside, a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has plagued Louisiana
fishermen for years. The zone is located off the state’s
southern-most tip, where the Mississippi delta meets the Gulf.
The main cause is agriculture run off and municipal pollution
into the Mississippi River, starting in Minnesota.
|
