How did awareness of water quality problems in the Great Lakes begin?
In the 1960s people living around the lakes became alarmed about the deteriorating quality of water in the Great Lakes. They found their favourite beaches closed because of high bacteria counts, they were warned against eating contaminated fish and they began to worry about the safety of their drinking water. These obvious signs of pollution put pressure on governments to begin the formidable task of reversing the steady degradation of the lakes. One of the earliest successes was the revival of Lake Erie. In the 1960s this shallowest of Great Lakes was being slowly strangled by the growth of excessive algae, a process called “eutrophication”. The problem was identified as an excess of nutrients flowing into the lake from phosphate detergent, sewage treatment plants and farm runoff. A concerted effort to address this problem paid off in bringing Lake Erie back to better health. Both governments co-operated in limiting phosphates from detergents, in constructing and upgrading sewage trea
