In 2016, the two countries committed to reducing the amount of phosphorus in the lake’s western and central basins by 40 per cent by 2025 (using 2008 levels as a baseline). Ontario has established an interim target of a 20 per cent reduction by 2020. The U.S. has the next seven years, then, to reduce its annual phosphorus loads by 3,316 tonnes. As Canada is responsible for far less phosphorus runoff, its target is far lower, at 212 tonnes.
But this binational effort to save Lake Erie is progressing much more slowly than a previous rescue attempt, mounted after phosphorus levels ballooned in the 1960s and ’70s. Then, a $7.5 billion cleanup effort took only a decade to produce results. Today, scientists are expressing doubts that Canada and the U.S. will be able to meet their targets.
“I’m not saying yes or no; I’m saying I don’t think that the science is there to say definitely that we can,” says Nandita Basu, an engineering and environmental-sciences professor at the University of Waterloo and member of the Water Institute.
Read the full story on TVO.