Ohio Executive Order Seeks Changes to Farm Practices to Slow Algae Blooms

Ohio Governor John Kasich signed an executive order signaling a more aggressive approach to stopping algae blooms in the Great Lakes. The blooms can taint drinking water, kill fish and prompt beach closures. Most notably, algae blooms contaminated tap water in 2014 for two days, affecting more than 400,000 people in Toledo, Ohio. The executive order calls for issuing “distressed watershed" designations for eight creeks and rivers in northwestern Ohio that the order says are the source for large amounts of phosphorus-rich fertilizer and manure. The designations, according to the Associated Press, would require farmers to evaluate their land and change farming practices. If approved by the Ohio Soil and Water Commission, the proposed designations would affect nearly two million acres and an estimated 7,000 farms.