When Do People Pay Attention To Environmental Journalists? Usually When It's Too Late
This is a really good, longish article, well worth your time.
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Lake Erie was an American environmental success story. Once on the verge of biological death from sewage, industrial pollutants and oxygen-depriving algae, the lake bounced back in the 1970s and ’80s, as tougher environmental laws took hold in the U.S. and Canada. Then Erie began to backslide. By 1995, Tom Henry of the Toledo, Ohio, newspaper The Blade reported on the return of toxic algae that could threaten both human health and aquatic life. The algae led to beach closings and fishing restrictions, and have been blamed for eutrophication and a wide range of human ailments. The algae were present at manageable levels for nearly two decades, but the big comeback was fueled largely by phosphorus-based fertilizer running into the lake from farm fields, and was strongest in western Lake Erie, the shallowest and warmest area of the Great Lakes. In those first years, Henry says, his stories got little response from officials, but inspired local disc jockeys to turn “toxic algae” into morning radio skits.
In 2011, when Henry asked about concerns for contamination of the water supply for half a million metro residents, he got a reassuring answer: Among other tools, carbon filtration would keep the city’s Lake Erie water supply safe. Henry kept asking the question and reporting on the algae, which also posed a threat to swimmers and boaters. Since 1996, 270 stories with Henry’s byline that either mention or focus on algae appear in the Blade archives. He filed pieces on how climate change, mayflies or invasive zebra mussels could worsen the algae problem and how earthworms or runoff-absorbing plants could lessen it.
A 2009 Henry story told of the start of an algae warning system for water-filtration plants on the lake, even though regulators still insisted the algae were not a threat. The drinking water question kept coming up. Henry filed stories over the next few years citing algae-research funding cuts and ominously large algae blooms in 2011 and 2013. In May 2014, he reported that that summer’s algae bloom would be a doozy. In July, he wrote about the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s visits to water-filtration plants after the algae began to show up in water plant tests.
On August 2, 2014, the algae hit the fan. Toledo’s water plants were overwhelmed by the algae, and dangerous levels of the toxin microcystin were found in the water supply for 500,000 residents. Taps went dry for two days, and the story finally gained national attention. After water service was restored, Henry wrote a series of stories uncovering documents describing both warnings to Toledo and a possible state takeover of its water facilities.
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http://edge.ensia.com/
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