MONROE, Mich. • Competing in a bass fishing tournament two years ago, Todd Steele cast his rod from his 21-foot motorboat — unaware that he was being poisoned by thick, green scum on western Lake Erie.
Driving home to Port Huron, Michigan, the semipro angler felt lightheaded, nauseous. By the next morning, he was too dizzy to stand, his overheated body covered with painful hives.
Hospital tests blamed toxic algae — a rising threat to U.S. waters.
Pungent, sometimes toxic blobs are fouling waterways from the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay, from the Snake River in Idaho to New York’s Finger Lakes and reservoirs in California’s Central Valley.
Steele recovered, but Lake Erie hasn’t. Nor have other waterways choked with algae that’s sickening people, killing animals and hammering the economy. The scourge is escalating from occasional nuisance to severe, widespread hazard, overwhelming government efforts to curb a leading cause: fertilizer runoff from farms.
Such runoff is is just one of many factors that likely contribute to the ongoing algae trouble at Utah Lake, said Erica Gaddis, director of the state Division of Water Quality. Scientists are still struggling to understand why the lake has experienced unprecedented algal blooms in recent years, such as a massive 2016 bloom that sickened more than 100 swimmers, and a smaller but long-lived bloom that began in June this year.
However, many monster blooms are triggered by an overload of agricultural fertilizers in warm, calm waters, scientists say.
‘A pervasive threat’
Algae are essential to food chains, but these tiny plants and bacteria sometimes multiply out of control. Cyanobacteria, organisms sometimes called toxic algae, can produce toxins when their populations explode. Within the past decade, outbreaks have been reported in every state, a trend likely to accelerate with global warming.
“It’s a big, pervasive threat that we as a society are not doing nearly enough to solve,” said Don Scavia, a University of Michigan environmental scientist.
Government agencies have spent billions of dollars to reduce the flow of fertilizers into waterways. But an Associated Press investigation found little to show for their efforts:
• Levels of algae-feeding nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are climbing in many lakes and streams.
• A small minority of farms participate in federal programs that promote practices to reduce fertilizer runoff. When more farmers want to sign up, there often isn’t enough money.
• Despite years of research, it’s debatable how well these measures work.
Instead of ordering agriculture to stem the flood of nutrients, regulators usually seek voluntary cooperation, an approach not afforded other big polluters. Farmers are asked to take steps such as planting “cover crops” to reduce off-season erosion — often with taxpayer subsidies.
The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, says it has spent more than $29 billion on voluntary programs since 2009.
Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs, told AP the efforts had produced “tremendous” results but acknowledged only about 6 percent of the nation’s roughly 2 million farms are enrolled at any time.
Millions collected by Utah farmers aren’t tied to algae
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the agency provided data about its biggest spending initiative, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP.
It contracts with farmers to share costs for certain beneficial practices and pays up to 75 percent of their costs. The Associated Press tallied the subsidies pledged and paid for 45 selected practices that often — but not always — target fertilizer runoff.
The AP’s analysis shows the agency paid out more than $1.8 billion to subsidize the 45 practices between 2009 and 2016.
The AP ranked two Utah counties — Box Elder and Emery — in the nation’s top five counties receiving that funding. However, neither county is using the money to fight toxic algae or fertilizer runoff.
EQIP funds help farmers preserve a wide array of resources — water, soil and even wildlife, said Pedro Ramos, assistant state conservationist for Natural Resource Conservation Service programs.
In Box Elder County, he said, farmers receive EQIP funds to improve rangeland by, for example, removing invasive species. These projects are primarily intended to preserve sage grouse habitat.
In Emery County, most EQIP funds have helped farmers upgrade irrigation systems to prevent salts in the soil from entering the Colorado River, he said. The salts can cause problems for farmers who use that water for irrigation downstream.
The projects have additional benefits; they reduce farmer’s ongoing water expenses, help to conserve water — and can help prevent the nutrient pollution that can contribute to algal blooms.
Nationwide, a total of $2.5 billion was pledged in EQIP funds for the 45 practices between 2009 and 2016.
Of that, $51 million was for farmers in the watershed flowing into western Lake Erie, where fisherman Steele was sickened. Yet the lake’s largest bloom on record appeared in 2015, blanketing 300 square miles — the size of New York City.
The previous year, an algae toxin forced a two-day tap water shutdown for more than 400,000 customers in Toledo, Ohio.
The type of phosphorus fueling the algae outbreak has doubled in western Lake Erie tributaries since EQIP started in the mid-1990s, according to researcher Laura Johnson of Ohio’s Heidelberg University.
The challenges to reducing runoff
Many experts say limiting runoff is the only way to rein in rampaging algae.
“We’ve had decades of approaching this issue largely through a voluntary framework,” said Jon Devine, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Clearly the existing system isn’t working.”
Farmers say they can accomplish more on their own than by following government dictates.
“There’s enough rules already,” said John Weiser, a third-generation dairyman with 5,000 cows in Wisconsin.
The Environmental Protection Agency says indirect runoff from agriculture and other sources, such as urban lawns, is now the biggest source of U.S. water pollution.
But a loophole in the Clean Water Act of 1972 prevents the government from regulating runoff as it does sewage and industrial waste.
Without economic consequences for runoff, farmers have an incentive to use all the fertilizer needed to produce the highest yield, said Mark Clark, a University of Florida ecologist.
“There’s nothing that says, ‘For every excessive pound I put on, I’ll have to pay a fee,’” he said. “ There’s no stick.”
Some states have rules. But they mostly avoid challenging the powerful agriculture industry.
Do the measures subsidized by the government actually work?
Agriculture Department studies using farmer surveys and computer models found dramatic cutbacks in runoff. Critics contend such reports are based mostly on speculation, rather than on actually testing the water flowing off fields.
Experts say a lot more participation is needed. “The practices are completely overwhelmed,” said Stephen Carpenter, a University of Wisconsin ecologist.
Tribune reporter Emma Penrod contributed to this report. AP data journalist Angeliki Kastanis reported from Los Angeles.