Grand Lake St. Marys to get its methane digester
Columbus Dispatch – Here’s some good news for a lake used to lots of bad.
Grand Lake St. Marys, the poster child for algae pollution in Ohio, is getting some federal help.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office announced this morning that the Department of Agriculture is making available $1 million toward the purchase of a methane digester.
What is a methane digester? The facility turns methane from manue into energy. Manure that is spread onto farm fields as fertilizer often washes off in the rain and ends up in streams and eventually lakes. The phosphorus from these wastes feed the toxic algae that grows in so many Ohio ponds and lakes.
Blue-green algae, also called cyanobacteria, is common in most Ohio lakes but grows thick in water feeding on phosphorus from manure, fertilizers and sewage that rain washes into streams and eventually into lakes.
The algae can produce liver and nerve toxins.
