TOLEDO, Ohio – Ohio’s governor and several prominent lawmakers promise there will be a lot more attention to Lake Erie after the state’s fourth-largest city was forced to tell 400,000 people to stop drinking its water.
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The drinking ban in Toledo was lifted after more than two days on Monday, but the scrutiny of what happened is just beginning.
Gov. John Kasich says there will be an extensive review of how the water supply became tainted with a toxin suspected to be from algae in Lake Erie.
A high-ranking state lawmaker is planning hearings on the algae fouling the lake and says he wants to hear from scientists who can say what’s behind the algae.
Republican Sen. Rob Portman says more research is needed to understand how to control the blooms.
“Now that the residents of the Toledo region have access to safe and clean drinking water, we must quickly pin-point how these elevated toxin levels occurred and work to ensure this does not happen again,” he said.
Portman authored the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2013, which was signed into law last month, and was recently named Vice-Chair of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force.
As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Democrat Sherrod Brown backed the 2014 Farm Bill, helping to create the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which provides $1.2 billion over the next five years to promote conservation.
“While the ban has been lifted, our work to ensure safe drinking water has only begun. We must incorporate regional, cutting-edge practices to prevent algal blooms and ensure safe drinking water,” he said.
Ohio’s joint application to the RCPP with Michigan and Indiana for Farm Bill funds to improve water quality in the Western Lake Erie Basin has advanced to the next round, he said.