Toxic algae contaminates Toledo’s water

Environment News Service: More than 400,000 residents of Toledo, Ohio’s fourth largest city, are without water following the detection of the toxin Microcystin in the public water system, caused by an algal bloom in the area.

On Saturday, Governor John Kasich, a Republican, declared a state of emergency for Lucas County, where Toledo is located, and neighboring Wood and Fulton counties. This declaration allows state government to maximize the use of its resources to support local authorities in addressing this situation. The state Emergency Operation Center was activated Saturday.

State and local officials are working together to arrange for drinking water to be shipped into the affected areas. Eleven water distribution sites at fire departments and schools are open today, the second day of the emergency, but residents must bring their own containers to most of them.

To date, 33,000 gallons of potable water have been produced by the Ohio National Guard, and 15,000 additional gallons in collapsible containers have been distributed along with 9,000 cases of water. Additional deliveries are arriving on a regular basis.

The American Red Cross of Northwest Ohio is activating volunteers to assist with bulk distribution of water. Water at retail stores has been restocked...

Toledo's skyline at Sunset, shot by Northern Magnolia, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Agricultural productivity loss as a result of soil and crop damage from flooding

Debra Levey Larson at the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois: The Cache River Basin, which once drained more than 614,100 acres across six southern Illinois counties, has changed substantively since the ancient Ohio River receded. The basin contains a slow-moving, meandering river; fertile soils and productive farmlands; deep sand and gravel deposits; sloughs and uplands; and one of the most unique and diverse natural habitats in Illinois and the nation.

According to a recent University of Illinois study, the region’s agricultural lands dodged a bullet due to the timing of the great flood of April 2011 when the Ohio River approached the record high of 332.2 feet above sea level.

“The floodwaters eventually drained back into the Ohio River and upper Mississippi River ultimately leaving approximately 1,000 acres of agricultural land flooded from a backup in the middle and lower Cache River Valley, which flooded the adjacent forest-covered alluvial soils and the slightly higher cultivated soils,” said U of I researcher Ken Olson.

According to Olson, who has studied the effects of that particular flood extensively, these cultivated soils drained by the middle of June 2011 and were planted to soybeans. The floodwaters left a thin silt and clay deposition on the agricultural lands and crop residue when they receded. These coatings included significant amounts of soil organic carbon, microbes, and pathogens. After the coatings dried, they were incorporated into the topsoil layer of the alluvial soils using tillage equipment.

“Because the flooding occurred during the non-growing season for corn and soybeans, the mixing in of sediment into the topsoil prior to planting resulted in little significant loss of soil productivity, little soybean damage, or yield reduction on lands outside the levees along the Mississippi, Cache, and Ohio rivers,” Olson said....

Fly fishing in 1938 on Bay Creek in Illinois

Drought leads to less seized marijuana

Kyle Nagel in the Dayton Daily News comes up with some stoner-related news: Ohio officials seized about 40 percent fewer marijuana plants in 2012 as part of a national program to battle growing operations. Officials said the drop can be attributed to drought conditions decreasing production.

The anti-marijuana operation, in which Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation works with county sheriffs, seized about 30,000 marijuana plants this year, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office announced last week. That was a drop from 50,704 in 2011 in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration-led Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.

The decades-long program funds state agencies — including about $500,000 annually in recent years for Ohio — to search and seize or destroy marijuana growing operations. Officials say the effort is important because marijuana is the only “drug of abuse” grown inside the U.S.

States use much of that money to pay for helicopters that fly over residential areas or farmland looking for growing operations. Those operations are often cut into farmland without a farmer’s knowledge.

But this year, Ohio officials noticed more marijuana growing in residential areas, such as gardens. BCI employs trained spotters to look for signs of marijuana from helicopters, and agents on the ground find the operations and make arrests, if possible.

“I think people are seeing what’s happening in other states, with some attitudes and some legislation passed about legalization for medicinal purposes, and they think, ‘I’ll take my chances,’ ” said Scott Duff, a BCI special agent supervisor for Ohio’s marijuana eradication program....

Cannabis shot by Bogdan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Tornadoes' death toll mounts; rescue efforts underway

Jessie Halladay and Doyle Rice in USA Today: A series of tornadoes that cut a swath of death and destruction across at least 10 states left stunned residents digging through rubble Saturday, looking for survivors and bodies.

The death toll stood at 31 early Saturday, including 14 Indiana, 13 in Kentucky, three in Ohio and one in Alabama. Tornadoes also were reported in Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Massive thunderstorms threw off scores of tornadoes, crushing entire blocks of homes, ripping down power lines and tossing cars, buses and trucks on roadways made impassable by debris. The scale of the devastation and the breadth of the storms made it impossible to immediately assess the storm system's damage.

At least four people were killed in and around the town of Chelsea in Jefferson County, Ind. First responders found a 4-year-old boy and his great-grandparents lying on the ground 50 feet from where the elderly couple's home was blown off its foundation and thrown more than 100 feet. "All of this happened in less than 30 seconds," said volunteer firefigthter Cory Thomas.

In Marysville, Ind., most of the several dozen homes that make up the town were destroyed. "Marysville is completely gone," Clark County Sheriff's Maj. Chuck Adams said.

Kentucky declared a state of emergency, and Indiana officials said they were discussing that. Authorities in Ohio planned to survey areas Saturday to determine the extent of the damage there....

February 29, 2012. a view of where a church used to stand in Harrisburg, Illinois, on U.S. Route 45 at south corner with Illinois Route 34 and Illinois Route 145, adjacent to the United States Forest Service office. Shot by Pat York, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

42 weather records set in Ohio during past year

Mark Fisher in the Dayton Daily News (Ohio): Ohioans endured 42 record-setting weather events just in the past year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group active in climate change and global warming issues.

Ohio’s extreme weather included 34 rainfall records, seven heat-related records, and one snowfall record, the environmental group said. Dayton has experienced its wettest fall in at least a century and is on course to reach the second-highest annual precipitation amount since 1893, according to Jamie Simpson, chief meteorologist for WHIO-TV Storm Center 7.

Nationwide, 2,941 monthly weather records were broken, the NRDC announced Thursday while unveiling an interactive website about extreme weather events (www.nrdc.org/extremeweather).

“From heat waves to floods to fires, 2011 was a year of extreme weather for communities throughout the United States. This alarming, yet illuminating data is indicative of what we can expect as climate change continues,” said Kim Knowlton, the NRDC senior scientist who spearheaded the development of the web-based tool. “Actions can be taken today to limit the worst effects of climate change. Our leaders need to make climate change preparedness a priority, if these events will be occurring more frequently and with more intensity.”...

An 1846 map of Ohio

Ohio farms more at risk as world warms

Steve Bennish in the Dayton Daily News (Ohio): Ohio should start preparing now for a hotter planet that puts a top industry, agriculture, at risk, according to the state’s climatologist. Ohio State University geography professor and State Climatologist Jeffrey Rogers said weather extremes that already have hit Ohio are leading indicators of climate change. The state climatologist, an unpaid position, is designated by the federal government as the person to keep track of the state’s climate data. Agriculture is estimated to be worth $93 billion of Ohio’s economic output.

“Ohio needs to plan for the future in which these extremes become even more deleterious to the economy and agriculture,” he said. “The typical person doesn’t notice it, but we are witnessing longer periods with no rain and a few days of heavy rainfall.”

Weather preparation doesn’t fall under the regulatory authority of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said spokeswoman Megumi Robinson, adding she’s unable to comment on the issue.

Rogers said that Ohio is being buffeted by historic weather extremes. The summer of 2010 is the fourth warmest summer since 1895. Three of the warmest six summers since 1895 have occurred in 2002, 2005 and 2010. Ohio rainfall has become more extreme with long dry spells in the warm season punctuated by very heavy rains. With regard to agriculture and in terms of water supplies, Ohio is being hit with long periods of near drought followed by potential flooding and excessive rain that may not help the crops, he said…..

Dr. Tiedjens doing yield work in a corn field. Erie County, Ohio, in 1956 or '57. Shot by Calnut, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license