See end of Press release for US EPA & Plaintiff documents
Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie
January 17, 2018
Contact: Mike Ferner 419-729-7273
Marj Mulcahy 419-344-8201
Kathy Mockensturm 419-841-2055
U.S. EPA ADMITS IT WAS WRONG TO ACCEPT OHIO EPA LAKE ERIE RULING
Last May, the U.S. EPA approved a decision by the Ohio EPA to designate only limited shoreline areas of western Lake Erie “impaired,” refusing to extend that status to the open waters of the western basin and letting Ohio continue with voluntary cleanup efforts despite massive toxic algae blooms every summer.
The U.S. EPA now admits it was wrong to accept Ohio’s decision and environmental groups that filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court want Judge James Carr to order the U.S. EPA to formally rule the western basin impaired and begin a cleanup with mandatory goals and deadlines.
The Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), based in Chicago and Toledo-based Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie are co-plaintiffs in that suit filed last July, seeking to overturn the U.S. EPA’s approval of Ohio’s limited decision.
Today, ACLE expressed hope that this latest development will lead to a mandatory cleanup, particularly of the 700,000,000 million gallons of raw animal waste spread annually on fields draining in to western Lake Erie. “The current USEPA administration may be opposed to implementing the Clean Water Act, but it is still the law of the land. With this suit and other actions ACLE intends to make the agency do its job to hold factory farms and other polluters accountable for what they’ve done to our lake.”
Listed below are documents outlining US EPA decision that the data submitted by State of Ohio authorities to support state’s decision to support voluntary measures to reduce the pollution that is feeding toxic algae blooms on the lake.was “incomplete and thus not fully consistent with the requirements of Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act and EPA’s regulations.”
1/12/2018 Letter from US EPA to Craig Butler, Ohio EPA Director (at link)
1/16/2018 ELPC PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGEMENT (at link)