LIA opposes plan, cites water-quality improvements

CELINA - Lake Improvement Association officials urge residents to oppose proposed rules changes that affect the Grand Lake Watershed and would lift the ban on surface applying manure between Dec. 15 and March 15 each year.

"The Lake Improvement Association vehemently opposes the proposed changes in the distressed watershed package for Grand Lake St. Marys," the organization stated in a Sunday email to its members.

The Ohio Department of Agriculture is proposing that the surface application ban in the Grand Lake Watershed be lifted and producers be allowed to spread manure at all times of the year. This would replace the current rule, implemented in 2011, that prohibits manure spreading from Dec. 15 to March 15, according to the LIA email.

Every year since 2009, the state has issued advisories for the 13,500-acre recreational lake due to unsafe algal toxin levels.

On Jan. 18, 2011, the state designated the local watershed distressed after humans and animals in 2010 were sickened by blue-green algae in the lake. This triggered new rules for watershed farmers. Nutrient runoff comes from many sources, but in the Grand Lake Watershed, studies show it's mostly from farmland in the 58,000-acre, livestock-heavy watershed.

The LIA news release stated the proposed standards are part of ODA's efforts to apply one set of regulations to the Western Lake Erie Basin and the Grand Lake Watershed.

The LIA statement asserted that any change in the manure-spreading rules in the Grand Lake watershed would be reckless and unfounded given the advances in decreasing nutrients from local fields into the lake. The improvements have been detailed by Stephen Jacquemin, Wright State University-Lake Campus associate professor of biology and a research coordinator monitoring the lake.

The LIA statement also accused the Ohio Department of Agriculture of trying to rush the changes through with little time for public comment.

"The proposed rule changes were drafted, voted on and listed for public comment without contacting any individuals who are dealing with the watershed on a daily basis at the local level. Additionally, this new package was quietly released on a Friday before a holiday weekend with only a seven-day window for public comment. We find this unbecoming as it seems like an attempt to skirt public reaction," the news release states.

In response to the proposed changes, the LIA posed questions to the ODA, among them the following:

• There is published data to prove that our current watershed rules are decreasing nutrients leaving fields in the GLSM watershed. Do you (ODA) have equivalent data to prove that these rule changes will be equally or more effective than the current rule set?

• Is it possible to keep the current manure ban and add the chemical fertilizer, weather provisions and application practices in the new proposal for the GLSM distressed watershed package?

• Does ODA feel that these new proposals are realistically enforceable?

• If yes, what has changed since the last distressed watershed package was issued? The manure ban was put into place, as it was the only viable plan that provided realistic enforcement opportunities.

The LIA asks people to send responses to the proposed rule changes via email to AGReComments@agri.ohio.gov and to individual state representatives and state senators by Friday.