By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
In my slow perambulation through the biosphere, I’ve looked at mangrove swamps. coral reefs, and estuaries. Today, I’ll look at a lake. This lake:
That’s like Erie from the Canadian side. This and the next photo are a little too HDR for my taste, but Lake Erie is very beautiful. From the U.S. side, looking out over Toledo:
Unfortunately, here’s a close-up of Lake Erie water in Toledo:
What that green gunk is, and how Toledo citizens are trying to protect their Great Lake, is the subject of this post. I’ll look at lakes, Lake Erie, and Toledo’s efforts. (There will be a petitiion for you to sign, at the end. This post does meander a bit, so feel free to jump right to it.)
My Oxford English Dictionary defines lake as “A large body of water entirely surrounded by land,” which is obviously not right, since it leaves no room for rivers and streams flowing in or out. Here is what the USGS has to say:
A lake really is just another component of Earth’s surface water. A lake is where surface-water runoff (and maybe some groundwater seepage) have accumulated in a low spot, relative to the surrounding countryside. It’s not that the water that forms lakes get trapped, but that the water entering a lake comes in faster than it can escape, either via outflow in a river, seepage into the ground, or by evaporation.
Somewhat more formally, from D.K. Branstrator, “Encyclopedia of Inland Waters” (via Science Direct):
Three elements are common to the origin of every lake: (1) an environmental force, (2) a body of terrain reshaped by that force into a closed depression (basin), and (3) a water supply. These three elements have met on the landscape with immense frequency during the Earth’s history and have given rise to an estimated 304 million natural lakes in existence today.
304 million natural lakes! Lake Erie is one of the five Great lakes, and the eleventh largest lake in the world by surface area. Its inflow is the Detroit River, from the “upper lakes” — Superior, Michigan and Huron and precipitation. Its outflow is via the Niagara Rive. Lake Erie’s basin and terrain:
It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. At its deepest point Lake Erie is 210 feet (64 metres) deep.
Branstrator also gives us insight in the the classification and life cycle of lakes, in “Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences“:
Lake basins originate through a wide variety of natural and anthropogenic processes. Some of these processes are gradual and usually imperceptible (tectonic movement, fluvial erosion), while others (meteorite impact) are quick and extraordinary. To the human observer, most lakes are permanent features of the landscape. On a geologic time scale, by contrast, most lakes are fleeting and all are ultimately ephemeral.
I am not used to thinking of lakes, except maybe artificial lakes, as ephemeral. More:
The first element in a lake’s origin is an environmental force and is the facet of its natural history most commonly used by scientists to guide the general classification of lake basins. George Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991) provided one of the most extensive surveys available on the origins of lake basins in the first chapter of his four-volume series, A Treatise on Limnology (Hutchinson, 1957). There he describes the formation of numerous distinct types of lake basins resulting from 11 principal environmental forces, including glacial, tectonic, volcanic, fluvial, organism behavior, chemical, wind, landslide, shoreline, meteorite, and organic accumulation…. In today’s inventory of larger lakes (Kalff, 2002), those whose surface areas are greater than 0.01 km2 (1 ha), approximately 90% have basin origins that trace to glacial, tectonic, or fluvial forces…. Of these, glacial force far outweighs the importance of all others. This contemporary bias owes to recent and widespread glaciation during the Pleistocene when ice sheets covered nearly 25% of the Earth’s continents.
Lake Erie is a glacial lake. Live Science:
Like all of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is basically a divot formed from a moving glacier and is relatively young — less than 4,000 years old — in its current configuration.
(Lake Erie — “fleeting,” “ephemeral” — is only a little older than the Bible.) Because Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, it is also the warmest, and the most biologically active. From Lake Erie Waterkeepers:
Lake Erie is home to one of the world’s largest freshwater commercial fisheries. Lake Erie’s fish populations are the most abundant of the Great Lakes, partially because of the lake’s relatively mild temperatures and plentiful supply of plankton, which is the basic building block of the food chain. The lake’s fish population accounts for an estimated 50% of all fish inhabiting the Great Lakes. The lake is “loaded with superstars” such as steelhead, walleye (American usage) or pickerel (Canadian usage),smallmouth bass, perch, as well as bass, trout, salmon, whitefesh, smelt, and many others.
Birds, as well, once again because of Lake Erie’s unique terrain:
The Lake Erie Marsh Region is recognized as globally important for migratory birds as millions of migratory songbirds, shorebirds, and waterfowl stop here to feed and rest every spring and fall during their long-distance migrations. Lake Erie shorelines and attendant inland natural areas are also home to a large number of permanent residents. Nearly 400 bird species have been documented in this region….
Why is Lake Erie such an attractive and important place for birds? Lake Erie represents a barrier to most migrating passerines (perching birds) and raptors. Many birds are reluctant to cross open water when the opposite shoreline cannot be seen, which results in major concentrations along the southwestern shore of Lake Erie in the spring, unparalleled in the Midwest. The opposite phenomenon occurs on the north shore of Lake Erie in autumn, making public areas like Long Point, Point Pelee, Holiday Beach and every private piece of habitat in between extremely valuable for resting and feeding areas for birds in migration.
With the exception of the Gulf coast, no other region of eastern North America can demonstrate concentrations of avian migrants like Lake Erie’s coastline. Important migratory pathways and habitat along Great Lakes shorelines have been identified at more than 60 sites; and 95% of the waterfowl counted on a recent Ohio Division of Wildlife aerial survey occurs in the Lake Erie marsh region.
The landscape along Lake Erie has been dramatically altered from pre-settlement conditions yet the region remains important for birds to rest and feed so they can continue their migration in good physiological condition.
Truly a great lake! But Lake Erie has problems of human origin, to which we now turn, most prominent among them algae blooms. We saw that green gunk in Toledor’s water supply above; here’s an aerial view of the green gunk (“algal bloom”) for the whole lake from last summer, a good year:
In fact, the algal bloom problem is so bad — and so normalized! — that NOAA puts out a regular report:
NOAA provides forecasts of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria blooms, in Lake Erie from July to October. Some cyanobacteria blooms can grow rapidly and produce toxins that cause harm to animal life and humans so scientists describe them as harmful algal blooms (HABs). Coastal communities can use NOAA’s forecasts as a decision making tool.
(“A decision making tool.” This is what neoliberals call “choice.”) More:
NOAA bulletins provide analysis of the location of cyanobacteria blooms, as well as 3-day forecasts of transport, mixing, scum formation, and bloom decline. During the Lake Erie HAB season, which typically begins in July, bulletins are emailed to subscribers twice weekly during a bloom.
(“Scum formation.”) The Cleveland Plain Dealer describes last year’s bloom:
This year’s harmful algal bloom plaguing Lake Erie grew in August to 620 square miles…
Scientists expected the bloom to be a 7.5 on a scale of 1-10, slightly smaller than 2017, which was an 8. The forecast graph showed the bloom could be the worst since 2015, according to the forecast graph..
The blue-green toxic algae is an annual problem in Lake Erie, from Toledo to Sandusky. The algae turns fresh water into pea soup, with thick mats of scum that can close beaches, wreck tourism, endanger pets and contaminate drinking water, as it did in Toledo in 2014.
(Not only do they have regular reports, they have a scale.) The EPA lists the effects:
Harmful algal blooms can:
- Produce extremely dangerous toxins that can sicken or kill people and animals
- Create dead zones in the water
- Raise treatment costs for drinking water
- Hurt industries that depend on clean water
The cause of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie is phosporus from agricultural runoff. The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
The causes are clear. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency recognizes the main driver is phosphorus pollution, of which about 90 percent comes from agricultural runoff — excess fertilizer from crops, and manure from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These CAFOs have thousands of hogs, chickens and cows producing tons of poop that is spread on fields and stored in lagoons, and then runs off into rivers that flow into Lake Erie. This agricultural runoff pollution causes toxic algal outbreaks in the summer heat.
(It’s almost as if Lake Erie’s biological activity is being turned against itself, rather like a cancer.)
Now let’s turn to the way that the citizens of Toledo mobilized to protext Lake Erie. From Vox, “Lake Erie now has legal rights, just like you“:
It started in a pub. A handful of people, hunched over beers in Toledo, Ohio, were talking about a water crisis that had plagued the city in 2014. The pollution of Lake Erie had gotten so bad that it had taken a serious toll on their lives. The government, they felt, wasn’t doing enough to protect the lake. And so they wondered: What if the lake could protect itself?
The idea they hatched that night ultimately resulted in a special election, which had the citizens of Toledo voting February 26 on a very unusual question: Should Lake Erie be granted the legal rights normally reserved for a person?
The measure passed easily, which means citizens will be able to sue on behalf of the lake whenever its right to flourish is being contravened — that is, whenever it’s in danger of major environmental harm.
“There’s a lot of nervous energy,” Tish O’Dell, who was at the pub that fateful night, told me while traveling between different polling places in Toledo on the morning of the vote. She was on tenterhooks as she waited for the election results. “It’s like torture.”
As a sidebar: It is so very, very, very important for to understand and internalize that citizens can mobilize. They can organize, become subject matter experts, work the politicians, get quoted in the press, go on the radio, and do whatever it takes to achieve goals. (NGOs, IMNSHO, can help, but they generally don’t know local conditions and are in the grant-writing business anyhow.) This is what I learned on our landfill efforts. I mean, personhood for Lake Erie is a big, big ask, is it not? Yet these citizens achieved it. Or at least won the first battle. End sidebar.
Here’s how they did it, from MacLeans (on the other side of the lake):
[E]nvironmental groups turned to a new frontier of U.S. law: “the rights of nature.” It’s an idea that has gained currency as local environmental crises mount, says Tish O’Dell, an organizer with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). But it had never been applied to a body of water in America. “I used to get comments like, ‘That’s crazy, do you want the tree to have rights? Is a squirrel going to sit on the witness stand?’ ” says O’Dell, whose group campaigned for the Erie bill. “Now, people’s attitudes have changed dramatically. In Toledo, they didn’t have water for three days. They don’t think it’s so crazy.”
The issue was put to the people in February in a special election ballot. Many of those opposed were area farmers who feared they could face lawsuits due to phosphorous runoff from fertilizer—a major contributor of Lake Erie pollution. And an investigation by the Toledo Blade newspaper found the anti-bill campaign was largely funded by British Petroleum, which owns a refinery on Toledo’s waterfront.
In the end, the proposal passed with 61 per cent in favour—though voter turnout was about nine per cent and the bill has no shortage of critics.
(I would bet that 9% is excellent turnout.) I won’t go into the details of the immediate opposition; farmers immediately filed a lawsuit (“Drewes Farm Partnership”, and the State legislature (while funding run-off mitigation money for farmers), prompted by “inflow” from the Chamber of Commerce, added a line item to a Budget Bill that would seem to pre-empt what the people of Toledo did:
It all started with an email from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
I like the way this story begins with “It all started,” exactly as Vox’s story above begins with with “It started.” Action, counter-reaction. But notice the speed of the elite reaction. Although surrounded and out-numbered, they have excellent interior lines of communication.)
The chamber’s director of energy and environmental policy, Zack Frymier, wrote to request a meeting with Hoops, the state House representative, on April 11, a few weeks before the vote. (Hoops is chair of the Ohio House Finance Subcommittee on Agriculture, Development, and Natural Resources.)
“I’m hoping to find some time (like everyone else) to run something by Chairman Hoops regarding the Lake Erie Bill of Rights that passed in Toledo in February,” Frymier wrote. “We have some language that we’d request to be considered for the budget. Though obviously it would have to be submitted after tomorrow’s deadline we’d still like to have a conversation.”
A legislative aide replied promptly, arranging a meeting with Hoops for 4:00 p.m. that day. Despite the short notice — it was already nearly 3:00 p.m. — Frymier quickly and enthusiastically responded that he’d be there.
A few weeks later, the aide got back to Frymier with draft text of the amendment, asking if the wording made sense to him. Frymier then asked for the addition of text that would more directly refute the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.
“Language in this amendment stating that [nature and ecosystems] do not have standing is essential to what we’re trying to accomplish,” Frymier wrote on May 2.
The amendment’s final text includes the additional statement Frymier asked for: “Nature or any ecosystem does not have standing to participate in or bring an action in any court of common pleas.”
Well, I think giving ecosystems standing is an excellent idea, not least because the Chamber of Commerce hates it. If British Petroleum and Cargill have standing, why shouldn’t Lake Erie?
All of which brings me to this petition from Toledoans for Safe Water to which alert reader Carla drew our attention: “The Lake Erie Bill of Rights Deserves to Stand, Should be Enforced“:
On January 28, 2020, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) will be the subject of oral arguments between Drewes Farm Partnership LLC. and the City of Toledo. The State of Ohio has sided with corporate polluters. Please sign in support of LEBOR, the City of Toledo, Rights of Nature, and above all — a thriving, safe Lake Erie.
The Toledoans’ theory of the case:
On February 26, 2019, voters of Toledo, Ohio made history by passing the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR). The law was the first in the United States to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem, representing an exciting step forward for the global Rights of Nature movement.
“Lake Erie, and the Lake Erie watershed, possess the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve,” it reads. “The people of the City of Toledo possess the right to a clean and healthy environment, which shall include the right to a clean and healthy Lake Erie and Lake Erie ecosystem.”
Toledo residents moved beyond conventional modes of change when it became clear no government agency was protecting them or taking proactive steps toward safeguarding the drinking water of millions of people and the continued health of the Lake Erie ecosystem. In 2014, residents were told an algal bloom had made the municipal water, which comes from Lake Erie, poisonous to the touch.
The municipal charter amendment is not an empty declaration of values. Rather, it experiments with new forms of environmental protection and enforcement that transform municipal governments into venues of civic participation and the defenders of basic rights to water and life, for humans and the natural world.
Further, LEBOR takes on the power structure. “Corporations,” it reads, “that violate this law, or that seek to violate this law, shall not be deemed to be ‘persons.’” It envisions a structural power shift within the law.
Hoo boy. That last clause really puts the cat among the pigeons.
If you think declaring ecosystems persons, and giving them rights, will help save that lovely, fleeting, ephemeral thing, Lake Erie, then go sign the petition here (and leave a message of support). You might also pass along the link to your friends, either in real life or on social media. Thanks!
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“What that green gunk is, and how Toledo citizens are trying to protect it, is the subject of this post. I’ll look at lakes, Lake Erie, and Toledo’s efforts.”
Where you write “protect it” does ‘it’ refer to the green gunk or to Lake Erie? The green gunk — at least from a distance — looks predominantly like green algae, not the blue-green algae that poisons the lake.
I noticed the same thing, Jeremy. I’m hoping Lambert might edit it to read: “and how Toledo citizens are trying to protect their Great Lake”, which I think he meant. But it’s a minor editorial error in an otherwise wonderful piece — thank you so much, Lambert!
btw I did sign the petition the other day when Yves linked it.
Great Lakes gotta stick together!
Many thanks for signing, ChiGal.
Thanks, done.
This is probably a quixotic thought, but municipalities have had no difficulty enacting laws that compel builders to sequester rainfall runoff from impermeable surfaces in on-site percolation catchments to avoid overwhelming storm drainage systems.
I wonder if it would be possible in some way to compel farmers to treat their runoff on-site. I imagine that it would be so burdensome that it would compel a re-think of the over-use of fertilizers, and perhaps even the entire current way of monoculture ag.
Probably not feasible at present.
Grass or wooded buffer strips can filter the runoff before it hits the creek. It takes land out of production but is a simple and effective solution. Seems like an agreement could be worked out to incentivize farmers to build effective buffers.
At least where I am, farm run off is mostly subterranean. It’s a soil/mineral/water interaction problem, and very hard to pin down to specific origins once it makes its way through and poisons the water many km away.
You can identify from a farm what your loss rates are and hence calculate from that to likely runoff given a proposed fert regime, but once it shows up somewhere else you can’t reliably backtrack it to work out who dun it.
Direct effluent or fert discharge into waterways are much easier to crack down on, which is why they mostly have been (here in NZ anyway).
Huge issue in the mid-Atlantic/ Chesapeake Bay. Lots of research being done, perhaps some headway. Awareness/pulling the curtain back, and collective concern are two of the first stepsto remedial action and ongoing improvement.
My great Aunt had a home in Fort Erie that fronted on Lake Erie. It is a beautiful, natural wonder that exits at a spectacular cataract- fond memories. Nice start to today!
Petition signed.
Thank you!
Clean Water Act permitting requirements apply to “point sources,” such as discharges from sewage treatment plants and factories. Municipal storm water also must be permitted.
Farm runoff is a nonpoint discharge. There are voluntary programs for nonpoint pollution, but no authority to compel pollution reductions.
I am reliably informed by a group of mostly Ivy League education ladies and gentlemen, that declaring the Lake a corporation is about the same as declaring it a person.
And it would be bipartisan. Can’t beat that.
Well, I can beat it with HJR-48: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only.
If the rights of natural persons were not overwhelmed with the rights of vastly more powerful corporate persons, millions of natural persons like you and me, timbers, would be able to work together to protect Lake Erie — and the rest of the planet.
In addition to signing the letter supporting LEBOR, please also support and agitate for HJR-48:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-joint-resolution/48/text
The group supporting Toledoans in their quest to enforce the Lake Erie Bill of Rights is the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF): http://www.celdf.org
The group that wrote and is working to pass HJR-48 is Move to Amend: http://www.movetoamend.org
The two groups are congenial and have many grassroots supporters in common ;-)
You may want to read a book titled Should Trees Have Standing?
Originally published in 1972, it was a rallying point for the then burgeoning environmental movement, launching a worldwide debate on the basic nature of legal rights that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Supremes said the trees didn’t have “standing”, so someone couldn’t sue on behalf of the trees.
One doubts the current Supreme Court would grant rights to Lake Erie…
Great idea!
Gerry Spence, notorious Wyoming trial lawyer, lays out several arguments at the end of a book on Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge. Needless to say, it is a very interesting read!?!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/178706.From_Freedom_To_Slavery
This video of a math professor describing our current state of affairs is an interesting accompaniment to this post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEcxVDRYZqk
If a corporation, nothing more than a mail drop address, a fictitious name and a randomly selected board of directors has the same rights as a flesh and blood U.S. citizen, then by god, a body of water that harbors trillions of living things, outweighs the collective weight of all the humans on earth and is millions of years old should have the same, or perhaps, even more rights than a corporation.
I would posit to you that so far, only human beings (natural persons) can actually speak in a court of law on behalf of that body of water.
The real problem is with corporations having attained never-intended constitutional rights as legal “persons.” Using those “rights,” corporate entities (including non-profits, unions and various types of professional associations) have managed to undermine and subvert every public purpose yet devised by people to protect our communities, our environment, and ourselves.
This is systemic problem and requires a systemic solution. In the U.S. of A., so far as we tenuously and hopefully cling to some sort of “rule of law”, systemic solutions are constitutional ones. Hence, we need a constitutional amendment stating clearly that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights — and money is not “speech.”
Carla, thank you for standing up for sanity – getting layer upon layer of nonsense built up isn’t progress.
Though water quality is the most immediate problem it shouldn’t be forgotten that eutrophization also increases methane and nitric oxide emissions from Lake Eire.
Thanks Carla the ongoing threat to this fresh water resource are criticle to address once again. Good on the citizens of The N Shore–Shame on the CoC and Ohio Dept of Ag. Where is ODNR standing on this–with all their Fishing License revenue at stake?
Although my home place in E Portage county drains to the ORB, of course the rest of the county drains into LEB, and Water Quality of both surface and sub surface are big concerns of everyone on wells.
I think everyone should be aware the way current farmland maximization has changed so much of the Homestead practices that stood for centuries. Driving E 224 to Indianapolis was so pleasant for the Architecture and visible conservative farm practice of the 19th and 20 th centuries–the 40 acre Conserved Woodlots and Windrows. Same way south following the Maumee and Sandusky drainages away from the Lake.
In 2013/2014 and 2016 I swung through there going to Chicago and was stunned to see most all of that had disappeared–even the Homestead Homes–converted to tillable production.
I thought: “all the Filters have dissapppeared–this is not good for the Lake.”
Then 2015 and 2017 blooms happened.
Transiting the Grainbelt extensively throughout these last 20 years, I first noticed the trend in Kansas and Iowa, then Nebraska and Missouri, then just everywhere.
Most of those Conservation Measures were directly, or indirectly, taxpayer subsidized, and should be treated ( whatever is remaining or would be restored through WQ Remediation Practices) as, imo, public infrastructure and preserved for our posterity. Removal should be considered a Crime against The Public.
Those who forget history will be forced to relive history. Not Good.
I love all of Lambert’s Lake Erie post — I learned a lot! But maybe my favorite part was this:
“It is so very, very, very important for us to understand and internalize that citizens can mobilize. They can organize, become subject matter experts, work the politicians, get quoted in the press, go on the radio, and do whatever it takes to achieve goals. (NGOs, IMNSHO, can help, but they generally don’t know local conditions and are in the grant-writing business anyhow.) This is what I learned on our landfill efforts. I mean, personhood for Lake Erie is a big, big ask, is it not? Yet these citizens achieved it. Or at least won the first battle.”
Of course the LEBOR champions will lose in the courts, again and again, UNTIL THEY WIN.
The Lake Erie Bill of Rights is getting attention and support from around the world. I’m so proud of Lambert and Naked Capitalism for stepping up to help in that effort!
Lake Erie is life; not only for millions of humans, but for a vast ecosystem spanning a thousand miles all around. I can’t believe this even needs discussion.
My own sad experience with environmental regulation in the USA is that it is largely ineffectual, notwithstanding the great gains that have been made since Nixon’s time. I have seen first-hand the kind of games people play, in order to bypass regulations at the expense of everyone.
Since my drinking water (and everything else) comes from the Lake, I’ll be doing everything I know about to make sure it is properly cared for.
Declare the lake to be a person? How 19th century! That’s silly.
No, they need to declare the lake to be a corporation.
Or better still, a bank.
Highly recommend Dan Egan’s 2017 book, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes.
Lambert Strether Thank you very much for this great post on the Lake Erie Bill of Rights. We humans need to do more than just change laws to protect nature, we need to change our whole relationship with nature. Our laws should represent the values of our society. Indigenous cultures around the world never needed written laws to protect nature and their water because culturally they had a respect for nature and a much different relationship than our western culture has with nature. We unfortunately view nature as something to exploit for profits. Indigenous people view nature as a necessity for their continued people’s existence. I realize we have a long way to go to get to this place, but the Lake Erie Bill of Rights is a good start…especially when we see all the support of people signing the support letter. We need nature, but nature doesn’t need us!