USDA Announces Additional Lake Erie Funding

Source: The Hannah Report

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday that its Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will invest an additional $5 million to help Ohio, Michigan and Indiana address water quality in the Western Basin of Lake Erie.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release that these investments will enable the region's farmers to reduce the amount of nutrients entering the watershed, one of the sources of harmful algal blooms that threaten the region’s water supply, especially Toledo.

"USDA is committed to helping farmers do their part to protect and improve water quality in Lake Erie, and this targeted funding will allow for solutions to be expanded and delivered more quickly," Vilsack said in a statement. "A problem as complex as this one will demand wide attention, from agriculture to municipalities, and we will continue to work with the Western Lake Erie Basin Partnership and other partners across the region to find common ground to address water quality issues in the basin."

The funding is being made available through the 2014 Farm Bill's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and will allow NRCS to help farmers apply selected conservation practices shown to help water quality, such as planting cover crops, adding gypsum to soil, implementing conservation tillage or no-till systems on crop fields, installing agricultural drainage water management systems, and implementing nutrient management plans. On average, farmers and ranchers contribute half the cost of implementing conservation practices.

Between 2009 and 2014, NRCS has invested approximately $57 million through farm bill programs in the Lake Erie Basin, according to USDA. Studies have shown that between 2009 and 2014, the new steps farmers are taking with NRCS assistance have reduced annual nutrient and sediment losses by approximately 7 million pounds of nitrogen, 1.2 million pounds of phosphorus, and 488,000 tons of sediment in the Lake Erie Basin, according to the department. This year, NRCS has devoted approximately $7.6 million in financial assistance for producers in the Western Lake Erie Basin across a range of conservation practices like cover crops and nutrient management.

The cause of algae blooms is complex; water temperature, lack of agitation, rainfall and runoff from farms and lawns, zebra mussels, and the effects of climate change can all contribute to the problem, USDA said. However, scientists at Ohio State University’s Sea Grant program say more than 60 percent of the nutrient loading comes from agricultural runoff.

In addition to this targeted funding, NRCS is also leveraging partner investments through the new nation-wide Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) through a project benefiting water quality by reducing the runoff of phosphorous into the waterways in the western Lake Erie basin. NRCS is investing $17.5 million into this project -- the largest investment in the first round of RCPP -- which is joined by state governments and other partners.

U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green) and U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rob Portman (R-OH) all praised the USDA’s decision in a conference call with reporters Friday. The call focused on President Barack Obama’s recent signing of water quality legislation supported in Congress by the lawmakers. (See The Hannah Report, 8/6/15.)

In a letter sent last month to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, Brown urged Vilsack to release additional EQIP funding to aid farmers wanting to plant cover crops. (See The Hannah Report, 7/31/15.)

"Protecting Lake Erie will require a long-term investment in the region, as well as strategic treatment and prevention efforts," Brown said. "We need to stop runoff before it starts. EQIP ensures that farmers can take actions to preserve water quality and prevent runoff that can cause harmful algal blooms."

Story originally published in The Hannah Report on August 14, 2015.  Copyright 2015 Hannah News Service, Inc.