I-Team investigation: Lake Erie algae blooms and the ghost of the river burning

CLEVELAND Its taken 45 years, but the jokes about the river burning in Cleveland have faded.

Now they cant be replaced by jokes about Lake Erie being the only great lake where you cant drink the water.

We dont want to be the butt of late night comedians again, says Rep. Dave Hall, the Republican chairman of the Ohio House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Hall, whose district stretches from Millersburg north to Brunswick, says the first concern is public safety, and the second is an image problem that can impede economic development in a region that appears poised on the brink of a comeback.

Halls committee will hold hearings to look at what to do to prevent a repeat of what happened last summer in Toledo.

For an entire weekend, close to half a million people living in and near Toledo couldnt drink their water for fear that an algae bloom on Lake Erie had rendered it toxic.

The concern was over a bloom that produced microcystin a toxin that in too high of amounts can lead to liver and stomach problems.

Julius Ciaccia, Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, warns that without change, the region is doing worse than playing with fire its playing with its source of drinking water.

(The blooms) will come again, just like the river burned, he says.

There are three main sources of the pollution that leads to the blooms: storm water overflows, faulty septic systems, and farm fertilizer runoff.

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I-Team investigation: Lake Erie algae blooms and the ghost of the river burning