Tag: water quality

This year, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's assessment of the State of the Bay remained at a D+, but declined by one point from 2018.

Near the end of the legislative session, Dec. 17, House Bill 7 passed its final vote. As the state approaches the end of the H2Ohio program’s first year, supporters say the bill will create more infrastructure for monitoring and managing those efforts. The bill establishes a State Watershed Planning and Management Program.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources's new Water Quality Incentive Program, part of the H2Ohio initiative, will encourage farmers to take cropland out of production and establish conservation practices.

Small rural towns have less money or expertise to protect their groundwater, says the National Ground Water Association and Groundwater Protection Council.

COVID-19 certainly hasn’t helped water quality work this year, but it hasn’t stopped it, either. Despite budget cuts and social distancing challenges, researchers have still been collecting and testing water samples in and around the lake. But despite a smaller bloom this year, more work is needed to achieve water quality targets.

The H2Ohio program is continuing to face budget challenges due to the pandemic. In the mean time, researchers say solving Lake Erie’s water quality problems will require long-term investments and work to reduce nutrient runoff. And some are suggesting that phosphorus built up in soil, rather than phosphorus from new fertilizer applications, might play a bigger role in those problems than previously thought.

Western Lake Erie got its first-ever report card Aug. 14. It needs to bring its grades up, scientists and politicians say.

Thanks to mild rainfall this spring, researchers are predicting a moderate harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie this summer, after a more severe bloom in 2019.

A federal judge invalidated the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, but that doesn't meant that conversations on water quality in Lake Erie are over.

Despite major budget cuts across state agencies, the Ohio Department of Agriculture will have $50 million available for Ohio farmers to improve conservation practices this year, through the H2Ohio initiative.