Why is Lake Erie so polluted?

Waste from city sewers made its way into the lake too, as did fertilizer and pesticides from agricultural runoff. As a result of these pollutants, Lake Erie contained increased levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, which contributed to eutrophication - a process that encourages the development of algal blooms.



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The good news is that because Lake Erie is so shallow and turns over every 2.6 years, that it can get healthy pretty fast if the problem sources are reduced/eliminated.

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Currents in Lake Erie can be dangerous! Any current flowing faster than 2 mph is considered dangerous. Dangerous currents can exceed 5 mph — faster than an Olympic swimmer can swim.

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The truth is that all of the fish in Lake Erie are safe to eat. But, some of them should only be eaten about once a month, and a few should be eaten less frequently than that. Years ago, Lake Erie was extremely polluted, so badly that some of the rivers that fed it actually caught fire from all the chemical wastes.

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During the 1960s, Lake Erie was declared a “dead lake” due to eutrophication and pollution. The children's book, The Lorax, written by Dr. Seuss, actually included the following line referring to fish: “They will walk on their fins and get woefully weary in search of some water that isn't so smeary.

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About one-third of the total population of the Great Lakes basin is in the Lake Erie watershed. Approximately twelve million people live in the watershed, including seventeen metropolitan areas with more than 50,000 residents. The lake provides drinking water for about eleven million of these inhabitants.

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Lake Erie has a lake retention time of 2.6 years, the shortest of all the Great Lakes. The lake's surface area is 9,910 square miles (25,667 km2). Lake Erie's water level fluctuates with the seasons as in the other Great Lakes.

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The lake was also an important strategic defense because of possible British invasion from the North. The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River offered avenues of assault if the British controlled them, making Lake Erie a vital link in America's plans to win the war.

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Evaporation continues throughout the winter. Lake Erie, as the shallowest and southernmost lake, is also the warmest and may not always freeze over. If ice cover is insignificant, the open water continues to lose vapor to the dry winter air, dropping water levels.

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Lake Erie and Lake Michigan are ranked the third and fourth most polluted lakes in the United States, according to nature website AZ Animals.

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Lake Karachay, a small lake in the southern Ural mountains in western Russia, is thought to be the most polluted spot on Earth. Starting in 1951, the Soviet Union used Karachay as a dumping site for radioactive waste from Mayak, a nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility located near the town of Ozyorsk.

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Keeping Lake Erie alive: A four-point plan to tackle algae blooms
  1. Harnessing market forces to help farmers reduce nutrient runoff.
  2. Building water smart cities and cultivating water smart citizens.
  3. Improving scientific understanding of algal blooms and their implications.
  4. Creating a policy framework that drives action.


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The average underwater visibility of Lake Superior is about 8 metres or 27 feet, making it the cleanest and clearest of the Great Lakes.

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Things improved for the lake with the passage of environmental legislation in the 1970s. Bihn believes that Lake Erie is one of the great success stories of the Clean Water Act of 1972, leading some to dub it the comeback lake.

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In northeastern Ohio and Michigan folklore, Bessie is a name given to a lake monster in Lake Erie, also known as South Bay Bessie or simply The Lake Erie Monster.

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Why is Lake Erie so important? Erie is the most biologically productive and diverse of all the Great Lakes due to its warm shallow waters. Alongside this astounding biodiversity, more than 11 million people get their drinking water from the Lake Erie watershed.

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1) Walleye This is the go-to Great Lakes fish, especially in Lake Erie. It's abundant, grows to 30 inches or better, tastes great and is easy to target with a variety of techniques. Ice anglers jig for them just like early spring anglers.

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