News

Ohio Farms Test Effects of Algae in Lake Erie

By:
Posted on:

< < Back to

FINDLAY, Ohio (AP) — Three farms in northwestern Ohio will serve as demonstration sites to show farmers how to reduce fertilizer runoff that feeds the harmful algae in Lake Erie.

The Blanchard River Demonstration Farms Network involves farms in McComb, Dunkirk and Forest that will showcase conservation practices aimed at reducing and preventing nutrient run-off and improve water quality in Lake Erie.

Project manager Aaron Heilers says one of the project’s goals is to determine which practices have the most positive environmental benefits with the least amount of economic impact on the farmers, and then share those technologies with other farmers.

Lake Erie continues to be plagued by algae blooms that produce the kind of toxins that contaminated Toledo’s water supply in 2014. Last summer’s bloom across the lake was the largest on record.