Lake Erie Environmental Issues

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.

During the 1960s water quality issues in the Great Lakes became a concern and Lake Erie was perceived to be "dying". By the late 1960s, Canadian and American regulatory agencies were in agreement that limiting phosphorus loads was the key to controlling excessive algal growth and that a coordinated lakewide approach was necessary to deal with the phosphorus issue. Open lake phosphorus concentrations declined due to the joint efforts made. These controls represented an unprecedented success in producing environmental results through international cooperation. Geophysical Lake Erie

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Lakewide Action and Management Plans (LAMPs)

Under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the governments of Canada and the United States have committed to restore and maintain the physical, biological and chemical integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes.

The Lake Erie Management Plan (LAMP) is a binational action plan for restoring and protecting the Lake Erie ecosystem. The Lake Erie Partnership develops and implements the LAMP. U.S. EPA and Environment Canada lead the Partnership. It facilitates information sharing, sets priorities, and helps coordinate binational environmental protection and restoration activities.

The next Lake Erie LAMP will be issued in 2018. Until then, the Lake Erie Partnership will be assessing the state of the lake, measuring progress against existing LAMP goals and objectives, and promoting management actions to address identified problems.

LAMP Annual Reports

LAMP annual reports highlight accomplishments and progress in achieving LAMP goals during the previous year; they identify LAMP-related activities including outreach, monitoring, and protection and restoration actions.