The natural value of the Lake Erie region is $443 billion, according to a year-long consultant’s report prepared for the cities of Toledo and Oregon, as well as for Lucas County commissioners.
The 136-page report, which cost about $75,000, was released Wednesday at the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center.
Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and Tina Skeldon Wozniak, Lucas County commissioner, said they believe it can be used to usher in a new era of accountability.
“We felt it was important to get these numbers so we can keep working as a region,” Ms. Skeldon Wozniak said.
The report attempts to quantify the region’s current value and cost benefits. Officials said it will be a tool for seeking more targeted cleanup money and tighter rules for large agricultural sites, rather than money for voluntary farm incentives in general.
Of the $443 billion in overall value, $325 billion is for water-related benefits. The breakdown also includes $101.5 billion from cropland benefits and $14.6 billion in other benefits, the report’s lead author, Sonia Wang, said.
The report also states the following uses would reap benefits by reductions in phosphorus discharges by 2025:
● Some $25 million to $45 million more could be added to the region’s value if beach advisories and water quality advisories are reduced 20 percent to 30 percent.
● Some $44 million in value to the region’s recreational fishing industry could be added if phosphorus levels are reduced 20 percent, or $437 million if phosphorus levels are reduced 40 percent.
● Declines of $686 million to $1 billion could be avoided in waterfront property values with less algae-forming phosphorus.
Operating and capital costs of water-treatment plants also could be reduced with more effective ways of controlling that nutrient, the report said.
Phosphorus is commonly found in commercial farm fertilizers, as well as manure, and raw human waste.
Reducing the amount that usually flows into Lake Erie tributaries 40 percent by 2025 is a goal that Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario established a few years ago. But, according to scientists, it is unlikely to be reached without more aggressive action.
The report, which can be viewed at keylogeconomics.com/lakeerievalue, was prepared by Key-Log Economics, of Virginia, which over the years has attempted to quantify ecosystem values and impacts of pollution at places such as the Chesapeake Bay, the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, the Roanoke River, the Marcellus Shale region, the Boundary Waters, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In addition to the United States, it has studied parts of Vietnam.
For this report, data was based on all of Lake Erie - not just the western basin, the most chronically plagued by algae, Ms. Wang said.
Mr. Kapszukiewicz was one of several public officials who wasted no time using the results as a clarion call for more action.
“I don’t think it helps any of us when we engage in this annual hysteria,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said of blooms in general that have appeared almost annually in western Lake Erie since 1995 and especially grabbed the public’s attention with the 2014 Toledo water crisis.
He said he is confident Toledo’s Collins Park Water Treatment Plant, nearing the end of a $500 million upgrade next year, can handle virtually anything thrown at it now.
“The problem is not at that plant. The problem is at the lake,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said.
He and others, including Oregon City Administrator Mike Beazley, hope the Ohio General Assembly considers the report.
Gov. Mike DeWine sought $900 million for his targeted H2Ohio water cleanup program, but only $180 million was authorized.
“Money drives decision-making,” Sandy Bihn, Lake Erie Waterkeeper, agreed.
Mr. Kapszukiewicz said it’s important to target efforts more precisely than the Kasich administration did, claiming it spent $3 billion in state and federal funding for farm incentives that the mayor believes have yielded relatively few results.
“I am not anti-farmer. I am anti-pollution and there’s a difference,” he said. “At some point, facts and research have to matter.”
In April, Lucas County filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking more aggressive and targeted efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That suit is similar to one filed earlier by the Midwestern-based Environmental Law & Policy Center, with support from Toledo-based Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie.
The strength of the data could become a source of debate, though.
Some researchers, such as those at Ohio State University, have attempted to quantify the value of certain Lake Erie uses in the past, such as recreational fishing.
But Tim Haab, professor and chair of OSU’s agricultural, environmental, and development economics department, said he believes Key-Log Economics tried to aggregate past studies to some degree, which likely skewed its results.
“The biggest take-away message I have is to urge caution,” Mr. Haab said, explaining there appear to be “a lot of assumptions” in the report. “They're definitely pulling numbers from our studies.”
While many past studies that looked at particular uses are defensible, compiling them into one big set is a complicated task
He said he views the Key-Log Economics report as a “less-expensive first attempt.”
“In taking this approach, one has to be careful to interpret the results in context and with all of the appropriate caveats that come with trying the put together the results of studies that were conducted independently and in isolation,” Mr. Haab said.
One of his colleagues, Brent Sohngen, an OSU environmental economics professor who has presented at several Great Lakes conferences, responded by writing an eight-page paper titled “Water Cooler Economics.” In it, Mr. Sohngen claims Key-Log Economics appears to have overestimated potential benefits of phosphorus reduction by several million dollars, including beach visits and recreational fishing.
Ty Higgins, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation spokesman, said little money issued since the Toledo water crisis has been used for agricultural research, and that manure generated by concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are not the problem.
“It seems the mayor sees them as a problem simply because they exist,” Mr. Higgins said. “Of course, agriculture has a role in this issue. But with so many fewer nutrients applied last fall and this spring and that not equating to a smaller bloom, the solutions are not as simplistic as some thought. Throwing quick blame on Ohio agriculture instead of acknowledging the efforts being made by producers in the western Lake Erie basin is not helpful.”
Ms. Wang said Key-Log Economics fully expected a debate.
“What is not up for debate is the fact that the region will economically benefit from reductions in the severity and frequency of harmful algal blooms,” she said.
The Key-Log Economics report is titled “Lake Erie Ecosystem Services Assessment: Economic Benefits from Phosphorus Reductions.”
The group said in its report that its methodology, in addition to an extensive literature review and data on Lake Erie’s 160 watersheds, includes information from an online survey and two online webinars.
First Published August 14, 2019, 5:38 p.m.
