Journal Sentinel focuses on agriculture link to Green Bay ‘dead zone’

There’s a nice piece of in-depth environmental reporting by Dan Egan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the Tuesday (Sept. 16) edition. In the wake of the “Lake Erie debacle” earlier this summer, in which a toxic algae bloom required the total shutoff of the Toledo, Ohio municipal water supply, Egan took time to focus on the seasonal and periodic algae-related “dead zone” cropping up in areas of the bay of Green Bay. (Egan quotes UW-Green Bay alumna Tracy Valenta as just the latest in a long line of UW-Green Bay water-quality researchers who have documented the bay’s health over the years. We previously told this story in last fall’s edition of the university magazine, at news.uwgb.edu/magazine/10/24/masters-of-the-new-learning/.) The Journal Sentinel piece reports that the Green Bay metropolitan sewerage district is balking at federal mandates to install expensive new phosphorous-reduction technology when less-regulated, non-point agricultural pollution has been shown to be a much greater contributor. Read more.