TOLEDO, Ohio – The federal government is sending millions of dollars to Ohio and two others states to prevent another contamination of drinking water like the one that left hundreds of thousands of people in Toledo without tap water for nearly three days earlier this summer.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says federal and state agencies in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana will be getting another $12 million to deal with harmful algae in Lake Erie.
Some of the funding will be for monitoring drinking water and tracking pollutants in waterways that go into Lake Erie. The EPA also says a part of the $12 million will go toward encouraging farmers to cut down on the fertilizer and manure runoff that contributes to the algae problem.
The announcement comes just a little over a month after the city of Toledo’s water supply was contaminated by toxins from algae on the lake.
“This new funding is one more tool to combat the threat posed to Lake Erie. The Federal government—specifically the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative—is committed to tackling this problem,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said.
Brown cosponsored legislation fully funding the initiative, intended to protect the lakes from a variety of ecological threats and invasive species.
According to the State of Ohio, Brown says, more than $10 billion of the state’s nearly $40 billion tourism industry is derived from counties along the Lake Erie shoreline.