On Lake Erie, Getting Rid Of Problem Algae Starts With Giving It Less Food

On a warm late-summer evening, a small speedboat motored across a pea-green stretch of Lake Erie past a beach where a child sat splashing and a pair of newlyweds waded for a portrait photographer. On the sand, unseen or ignored, bright red signs warned people to stay out of the water due to dangerous algae toxins.

Some 70 miles away, farmer Bill Kellogg is trying to do something about the chronic algae blooms in America's southernmost Great Lake. Instead of scattering fertilizer atop his fields, Kellogg now uses a strip till machine that knifes fertilizer pellets 8 inches into the soil - deep enough that heavy rains won't wash it away.

He plants cover crops that strengthen the soil so it can absorb more nutrients. In other fields, he's replaced some crops with buffer strips of grasses and other plants that can absorb nutrient runoff before it shoots into streams bound for Erie, where the runoff would be potent fuel for the algae.

"We accept that we have a target on our back in the agriculture community," Kellogg said.

Bacteria commonly called blue-green algae are often present in bodies of water throughout the world, but if fed too much of the phosphorus and nitrogen in farm fertilizers, they can turn into harmful algae blooms that can affect drinking water , create oxygen-starved dead zones that kill marine life, spoil swimming, boating and tourism and endanger human health .