GLIN==> New Report Combines Ohio Phosphorus Research and Offers Management Implications

New Report Combines Ohio Phosphorus Research and Offers Management
Implications

 

June 29, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

COLUMBUS, OH-A new report released last week that combines the research of
multiple Lake Erie scientists and management agencies recommends that
farmers not apply phosphorus to frozen ground and keep fertilizer
applications within Ohio State University recommendations. The report's goal
is to reduce the amount of phosphorus that is entering Lake Erie and Ohio's
streams and lakes. 

 

The nutrient, an important ingredient in agricultural fertilizer, animal
feedlot runoff, and human sewage, is also a key factor causing blooms of
toxin-producing algae. Toxins produced by harmful algal blooms (HABs) can
make animals and humans sick and the concentration of algae-produced toxins
in Lake Erie has reached 60 times the amount considered safe for drinking
water.

 

After a year of research and combining project results, the bi-national team
of 15 scientists from 11 institutions, agencies, and companies, has created
a report that synthesizes findings from seven research projects supported by
grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Lake Erie
Commission. The report, produced with support from Ohio Sea Grant, uses
layman language to explain findings from the research and their management
implications to head off the algae and restore Lake Erie. 

 

The report, available at  <http://go.osu.edu/phosphorus>
go.osu.edu/phosphorus, recommends that managers and individual farmers work
to:

.         Increase the incorporation of phosphorus into soil

.         Prevent applications that exceed agronomic needs

.         Reduce fall phosphorus application

.         Eliminate application of phosphorus on frozen or snow-covered
ground

.         Consider getting soil tests for all fields

 

"The hope for this report is that we would implement these recommendations
and eliminate harmful algal blooms," says Jeff Reutter, Ohio Sea Grant
Director. "While we believe that a two-thirds reduction in the current
loading of dissolved phosphorus to Lake Erie will be required to solve the
HABs problem, we predict this can be accomplished primarily by altering
current fertilizer application strategies used by farmers without harming
crop production."

 

If nothing is done and phosphorus and other nutrients continue to enter the
lake, the HABs problem will grow. Researchers are convinced that reducing
phosphorus runoff into waterways will reduce HABs. Scientists reduced large
blooms in Lake Erie in the 1960s and '70s by reducing phosphorus loading by
two-thirds.

 

Forests, which filter out pollution, dominate watersheds of the other four
Great Lakes. But Lake Erie receives the highest levels of nutrient runoff
because its watershed consists mainly of agricultural fields and urban
areas. And because there is so much cropland, even small phosphorus losses
from each field add up to large loads into the lake.

 

###

 

Contact:



Jeff Reutter, Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory, Director, 614.292.8949,
<mailto:reutter.1 at osu.edu> reutter.1 at osu.edu.

 

Jan J.H. Ciborowski, University of Windsor, Dept. of Biological Sciences,
519.253.3000,  <mailto:cibor at uwindsor.ca> cibor at uwindsor.ca.

 

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