LANSING, Mich. — Environmental groups in Michigan last week criticized the state’s draft Domestic Action Plan (DAP), a guiding document designed to provide goals to help Michigan meet its obligations under a multi-state water quality agreement along with Ontario, Canada.

 

The DAP, jointly developed by several state departments, was released June 22 and set a goal of a 40 percent reduction in phosphorus loading into Lake Erie by 2025. The departments of Agriculture Natural Resources and Environmental Quality crafted the plan, which focuses on the need to reduce intense algal blooms in the Western Lake Erie Basin and seeks to address low dissolved oxygen in the central basin of the lake, called aquatic hypoxia.

“From our perspective, we’re really looking for action plans that are specific and measurable,” said Jill Ryan, executive director of Freshwater Future, an environmental group based in Petoskey, Mich. “The things that are outlined in the action plan don’t give us any specifics about how they’re going to give us a 40 percent reduction in phosphorus loading into Lake Erie by 2025.

“I’m sure from a farmer’s perspective, they’d like to know what specific things need to be done to get to that goal.”

Ryan said there are good maps that show where the phosphorus is coming from and that the Maumee River watershed is a big part of the problem and is an Ohio issue; however, she added the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant is certainly a big part of the problem as well. “This is a long-term process,” Ryan added.

“We need to be in this together; we look at solutions that will really help in the long term, but we’re not looking to put anyone out of business.”

Each of the five states doing domestic action plans are providing input based on the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality agreement.

A federal level action plan will be devised using the state plans and will be managed by the U.S. EPA.

Ontario has already submitted an action plan, as has Pennsylvania, in addition to Michigan. Ohio is expected to complete its plan by October. Indiana and New York have yet to publish their action plans.

“While critics have been very vocal about their opposition to the state’s recently released draft Domestic Action Plan for the Western Lake Erie Basin due to its reliance on voluntary guidelines and practices in agriculture, the numbers tell a different story,” said Laura Campbell, the Michigan Farm Bureau’s (MFB) ag ecology manager. 

 

“Michigan has already seen a significant phosphorus reduction, reaching the scheduled goal six years ahead of schedule. Michigan Farm Bureau supports protecting water quality through voluntary practices because it works.”

Campbell touted the state’s Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP), a voluntary effort that provides various certifications of best management practices, depending on the type of farm. Although voluntary, she said the MAEAP certifications, known as “verifications,” are not handed out without checks by state officials. Farmers who participate are required to do the best management practices laid out in the guidelines in order to be MAEAP-verified and are checked by staff at the agriculture department.

According to the MFB, 155 such verifications in the Western Lake Erie Basin were completed in the last two years, with an additional 24 so far this year. Gail Hesse, water program director at the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office, described Michigan’s DAP as  a “great start,” but said it falls short in that it “doesn’t provide an explanation of how it will meet the goal of a 40 percent reduction” of phosphorus running into the lake. 

 

“What we know is most of the phosphorus runoff comes from farms,” she said. “We know most of it comes from farms and most of it comes from the Maumee River basin. But we’re concerned about the River Raisin, too, even though it isn’t a big contributor to the really big algal blooms; however, it does contribute to near-shore algal blooms. It also contributes to hypoxia in the central basin.”

 

She said the problem with the state’s action plan is a “lack of analytics about what they’re proposing, and purely voluntary measures,” asking, “Can they really meet the goals comprehensively and broadly enough with what they’ve laid out so far?”