Cautionary tale for environment

Events unfolding around Grand Lake this summer have been chilling, and they ought to serve as a cautionary tale.
In case you’ve missed the news, toxic blue green algae has pretty much taken over the lake. Swimming has been banned, and so has boating.
The cause of the algae — primarily nutrients from fertilizer run-off — pits the farming community against the retail and tourism community. And because Celina relies upon the lake for its water while St. Marys has wells, the two largest cities on the lake view the problem from different perspectives.
On top of that, the fact that the lake was hand-dug as a reservoir for the Miami-Erie Canal means that it’s too shallow for nature to work its way through the algae issue the way a deep lake would.
Some of that algae-infested water makes its way downstream to the Wabash River via a spillway and tributaries, but few communities in Indiana rely upon the Wabash as the source of their municipal water.
It would be easy to dismiss the Grand Lake problem as someone else’s headache.
After all, we don’t have a big lake in Jay County.
But we do have something else: An aquifer.
The Teays River runs underground through much of the county, and it’s an incredibly precious natural resource, one that is linked directly to all of us via individual wells and municipal water plants.
For years, local officials looking at the growth of concentrated animal feeding operations have wondered if there is a tipping point, a point at which application of manure from local CAFOs is too much for the soil to handle.
How much is too much?
No one seems to know the answer to that question, but the Grand Lake mess should be a pointed reminder that when nature gets out of balance, mankind may not be able to put things right.
And the last thing anyone wants to have happen is damage to the aquifer.
It’s invisible, but its importance to this region makes Grand Lake look like a pond. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]