Ohio Fighting Feds Over Plan To Dump Dredging Waste in Lake Erie

"Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig W. Butler and Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director James Zehringer today announced that the state has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its plan to place dredge material from Cleveland Harbor, which includes six miles of the Cuyahoga River, in Lake Erie or not dredge the entire navigation channel unless a non-federal partner pays to place it in confined disposal facilities.

Dredging ensures that the water is deep enough for commercial cargo ships to safely navigate. Since the early 1970s, the Army Corps has dredged the Cuyahoga River navigational channel and deposited the dredge material in one of the on-land areas designated for toxic dredge material disposal.

This year, as they did a year ago, the Corps proposed openly dumping the heavily contaminated dredged material into Lake Erie, which is the cheapest option for the federal government. The state is concerned that the dumping will increase levels of carcinogenic toxins (PCBs). PCBs stay in fat tissue and build up in fish and people as the toxins move up the food chain. Increased toxic PCB levels in Lake Erie fish have already led to consumption advisories and any additional accumulation could lead to a significant crisis for Lake Erie anglers."

The Norwalk Reflector had the story April 7, 2015.