Lake Erie

Grants No. 0528674 (NSF) and NA06OAR4170017 (NOAA)

Created by: Helen Domske, NY Sea Grant

Bathymetry of Lake Erie

NOAA GLERL

Lake Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes in volume (119 cubic miles) and is exposed to the greatest effects from urbanization and agriculture.

Measuring 241 miles across and 57 miles from north to south, the lake's surface is just under 10,000 square miles, with 871 miles of shoreline.

The average depth of Lake Erie is only about 62 feet (210 feet, maximum).

The drainage basin covers parts of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario.

Physical Characteristics

Credit: Great Lakes Information Network

Credit: Lake Erie Lakewide Management Plan

Fish, Pol lutionEutrophication:

aestheticsoxygenphosphorus

Contaminants:

wildlifefishsedimentwater

Exotic Species:

food chainbythetrephesgobiesruffequagga musselszebra mussels

Atmospheric ChangePharmaceuticalsEndocrine Disruptors

Eco system Health

Human Health

Fish HarvestOligotrophication

Eutrophication

Beaches

AOCs

Water Levels

Wetlands

Fish Habitat

Co

nce

rns

Time

! 92 0s ! 96 0s ! 97 0s ! 98 0s ! 99 0s 20 00 s

Changing issues over time

Lake Erie Yesterday

• Originally, natural undeveloped lands• Industrialization, urbanization, agriculture• Habitat loss• Nutrient loadings• Eutrophication• Lake Erie was “dying”

Lake Erie LaMP

Lake Erie Today

+ Healthier than 30 years ago

+ Sewage treatment upgrades

+ Controlling phosphates

- Contaminated sediments

- Exotic species

Although Lake Erie is better in regards to phosphorus, all of these issues are still with us.

Lake Erie LaMP

You’re glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed!

No more can they hum, for their

gills are all gummed.

So I’m sending them off. Oh, their future is

dreary.

They’ll walk on their fins and get woefully weary.

In search of some water that isn’t

so smeary.

I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie.

In the 1991 reprint of the book, the last line has been deleted.

PA Sea Grant

Credit: Loretta Cicerrella

Diverse Habitats

beaches

rocky coasts

sand dunes

islands

wetlands

open waters

Lake Erie LaMP

Habitat Loss and Degradation

• Loss of wetlands habitat is a key issue.

• Wetlands are ecologically, economically and socially important to ecosystem health.

• Open waters, islands, tributaries, shoreline as well as swamp forest habitats have been identified as impaired.

• Major stressors include changing land use and altered hydrology.

Human Communities• One-third of Great Lakes population lives

in the Lake Erie basin.• Lake Erie is one of the most heavily

populated freshwater lakes in the world.

Lake Erie supplies drinking water for about 11 million people

Lake Erie LaMP

Biotic Communities

• Great biological diversity• Over 130 fish species in the basin• Abundant bird, mammal, amphibian,

reptilian, invertebrate and plant species

Lake Erie LaMP

Species at Risk • Lake Sturgeon• Eastern Sand Darter • Freshwater Mussels • Lake Erie Water Snake• Fowler’s Toad• Piping Plover• American Chestnut

Lake Erie LaMP

Lake Erie Water Snake• The Lake Erie Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon insularum) is found

only on the islands in the western end of Lake Erie. It is a, brownish, pale gray or lightly patterned water snake that is a subspecies of the darker and more widespread Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon). The pale coloration of the Lake Erie Water Snake is an adaptation to local habitat features of its island habitat, notably the pale gray limestone common in shoreline areas.

Phosphorus Management

• In the past, too much phosphorus created ecosystem problems including “dead zones”

• Target levels for reductions have been met since the late 1980s

• The subsequent invasion of zebra mussels and other ecosystem changes have reduced phosphorus levels impacting biological productivity

This issue continues to be controversial.

Chemical Contaminants

PCBs and mercury have priority status

Organochlorine Compounds

Trace Metals

PAHs

Herbicides

Insecticides &Biocides

DDT

Copper

Mercury

PCBsDioxin

Atr

azin

e

Anthracene

Mirex

Pentachlorobenzene

Toxaphene

Alachlor

Lake Erie LaMP

Primary Stressors• Chemical contaminants • Habitat loss and degradation• Exotics species

Remediation of any one of these causes without addressing the others will not fully restore Lake Erie

Lake Erie LaMP

Benthification• Lake Erie has changed

from an open water system to a benthic system due to zebra and quagga mussel activity.

Lake Erie has always supported a strong commercial fishery.

Commercial fishing began around 1820 and expanded about 20% per year until the 1880s when some species in Lake Erie began to decline.

The Good Old Days….1832: Buffalo, NY - Near mouth of harbor on May 12, lake trout catch of 17,547 lbs.1859: Pomfret, NY becomes Dunkirk, NY – William Johnson takes 75 lb. lake trout 1866: Sandusky, OH - 40-50 tons of fish/day average; Largest whitefish ever caught

in Lake Erie (15 lbs.) on April 30 Dunkirk, NY - 2,000 lbs catch, most of which were lake trout averaging 10 lbs.

One fish caught outside harbor weighs 70 lbs. and is 41/2 feet long 1875: 150,000 whitefish fry stocked by US Fish and Fisheries Commission Detroit River to Cuyahoga River – 500 pound nets harvest 18 million pounds of

fish, excluding herring; included 12 million pounds of whitefish1891: Objects seen at 30 feet deep; herring runs good Point Burwell, ON: 3 lake trout taken at 40 pounds each

Information: NYSDECPhoto: H. Domske

The Good Old Days….1892: Middle Bass Island – lake herring catches of 4,500 lbs per pound net Huron, OH - herring catches of 2,377 pounds per net Vermillion, OH – almost unbroken lines of gill net extend into Canadian waters,

shutting the schools of herring off from the spawning areas off the islands and the head of the lake

1893: Detroit, MI – “Whitefish all out of Lake Erie, and we are after the herring now.” Port Clinton, OH – herring catch from one firm of 35 tons Lorain, OH - Gill net herring catch of 54 tons in 7 days Cleveland, OH – 12 tons of herring in one day 1898: Point Maitland, ON – 371/2 pound lake trout; large quantities of lake trout,

some over 30 lbs.1899: Point Maitland, ON – 6,000 lbs. whitefish, one of which weighed 19 lbs.

Information: NYSDEC

Decline of the FisheryOverfishing, pollution, shoreline and stream habitat destruction, and accidental and deliberate introduction of non-native invasive species, such as the sea lamprey, all played a part in the decline of the fishery.

Fishery Management• In 1954, the U.S. and Canada signed the

Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries.

• In 1955, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission was established to be the forum for state, federal, tribal and provincial fishery agencies to coordinate their research and management.

• The Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries was signed in 1981 by state, federal and provincial fish management agencies to formalize their commitment to lake committees as their ‘major action arm’.

Source: GL Fishery Commission

Lake Erie’s Fish & Fishing

Today, only pockets of the once large commercial fishery remain. For Canada, the Lake Erie fishery (11 species) remains prosperous, and represents nearly two-thirds of the country's total Great Lakes harvest. On the U.S. side of Lake Erie, the commercial fishery is based primarily on walleye and perch.

Source: GL Fishery Commission

Yellow Perch

Canadian Gill Net Boat – Port Stanley, Ontario

Photo: H. Domske

Lake Erie Dead Zone – Anoxic Areas

Source: Dr. Bill Edwards, Niagara University

How does a hypolimnion go hypoxic? Increased

Nutrients

N, K, P, Si

Phytoplankton Bloom

Increased Death & Decay

Heterotrophic Bacteria

Decompose

Oxygen is Depleted

www.abe.msstate.edu/csd/stride_00/eutrop_1.gif

Dr. Bill Edwards, Niagara University

The Oxygen Budget

Air Surface Interface

02 in 02 in

Phytoplankton Production of O2

Water Column Respiration

02 out

Epilimnion

Thermocline

HypolimnionWater Column Respiration

02 out

Sediment

02 out

SedimentOxygen Demand

02 out02 out

02 in

Dr. Bill Edwards, Niagara University

Credit: Bolsenga and Herdendorf

Credit: USEPA

Credit: NOAA GLERL

Microcystis Bloom – Western Basin

Credit: NOAA GLERL

Credit: NOAA GLERL

Photo from OSU Dept. of Agriculture

MIXING

PHOSPHORUSNITROGEN

ALGAL BLOOMS

SINK AND DIE

DECOMPOSITION BY BACTERIA “Dead Zone”

FORMATION

NUTRIENT ENRICHED WATER

CENTRAL BASIN

MORE ALGAL

BLOOMS

WESTERN BASIN

TRANSPORT

* Conroy, J.D., D.D. Kane, D.M. Dolan, W.J. Edwards, M.N. Charlton, and D.A. Culver. Recent Increases in Lake Erie Plankton Biomass: Roles of External Phosphorus Loading and Dreissenid Mussels. In review, Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Credit: Dr. Bill Edwards, Niagara University

Lake Effect Snow

Tobacco Cultivation

Ontario

Photos: H. Domske

Old Woman Creek Ohio