Researchers to Study Return of Lake Erie Dead Zone

A $2.5 million grant will fund a 5-year study examining why dead zones have returned to Lake Erie, and researchers hope the findings will allow them to detect the cause and stop the spread before the fishery and tourism industries suffer.

"This is a very serious problem," said University of Michigan's Donald Scavia, professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and lead investigator of the project. "In the 1960s and 1970s the Lake Erie dead zone was a key driver for enacting the Clean Water Act and stimulating the environmental movement. We thought the problem was solved, and the surprise is in the last few years the dead zone is back."

Researchers from U-M, the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research, NOAA, and several other universities will study the possible causes of the dead zone, as well as develop management and policy options and guidance on a course of action to alleviate the problem. CILER is one of 11 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration joint institutes and is administered by the SNRE. The grant, funded by NOAA's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, provides scientists $506,190 for five years.

A dead zone is an area of oxygen starved water that cannot sustain aquatic habitat, said Scavia, who is also the director of Michigan Sea Grant. In the Lake Erie case, researchers will examine three main culprits and the relationships among them: excess phosphorus; zebra mussels; and global warming.

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