EAST LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – After a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to analyze the adverse economic and ecological effects of algae blooms in the Great Lakes Region, Michigan State University and several other Michigan government agencies have partnered to address the issue.
According to the study, algae blooms cost the region roughly $82 million annually. Part of the finding from the study identified that the blooms grow and develop largely as a result of nutrient runoff from farms, and therefore the solution to the problem must address how to reduce the nutrient runoff from wastewater treatment plants into different bodies of water such as ponds and lakes.
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“There is good understanding and best management practices around addressing the movement of surface runoff from farmland, but this is not so true for water moving through tile lines,” Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Environmental Stewardship Division (ESD) Director James Johnson said.
MDARD alongside the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), and some MSU researchers such as AgBioResearch scientist Ehsan Ghane are partnering to try and reduce excess drainage of nutrients which fuel the algae.
Ghane and a team of researchers have recently received a $1.2 million grant from MDARD to further a project called “Edge-of-Field” which has the primary goal of understanding and investigating the “effectiveness and conservation drainage practices.”
“We want to show how effective these practices are and show farmers how beneficial they are, so we can encourage people to implement them. We eventually want farmers to adopt these practices voluntarily to improve water quality and their crop yield,” Ghane said.
A large part of the study relies on partnerships with private farmers who allow access to their farms and who work to study the effects of alternative drainage systems.
“I have concern about the phosphorus load Michigan’s farms are contributing to Lake Erie, and because of that, I was a happy participant in this project,” John Tuckerman, a fifth generation corn farmer from Lenawee County, said to MSU as part of the study. “I’d like to learn how to do things better to help figure out how to mitigate the situation. I think by doing this research and proving that it won’t hurt yields and that we save phosphorus, we will be able to get more buy-in from other farmers.”
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Five previous years of data collected from farms that feature a method of drainage that have additional buffers which reroute water and treat it “through soils and vegetation before exiting into an adjacent waterway,” have shown as much as a 25% phosphorus loss reduction according to MSU. Researchers hope that additional study and help from the public will lead to even fewer losses into water sources.
EGLE and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services hosted two webinars earlier this summer to highlight the dangers to the public, and encourage citizens to also help keep its Michigan Harmful Algal Bloom Reports map up to date.
“Suspicious-looking algae can be reported to EGLE by calling the Environmental Assistance Center at 1-800-662-9278 or sending an e-mail to AlgaeBloom@Michigan.gov.,” according to MDHHS and EGLE.
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