Lake Erie

Lake Erie appeared on maps as Lac du Chat as early as 1650. René de Bréhant de Galinée recorded the name of the lake as Lac Érié around 1670. The name Erie is derived from the Iroquoian word erielhonan, meaning "long tail". ==Geography==

Geographic features Lake Erie (42.2° N, 81.2W) has a mean elevation of and in 1999 this almost became a problem for two nuclear power plants which require cool lake water to keep their reactors cool. The shallowest section of Lake Erie is the western basin where depths average only ; as a result, "the slightest breeze can kick up lively waves", also known as seiches. Meanwhile, at the western end of the lake, Toledo experienced a similar drop in water level. • Historic High Water. In the summer of 1986, Lake Erie reached its highest level at above the datum. The high water records were set from April 1986 through January 1987. Levels ranged from above the datum. • Historic Low Water. In the winter of 1934, Lake Erie reached its lowest level at below the datum. Monthly low water records were set from July 1934 through June 1935. During these twelve months water levels ranged from below the datum to even with the datum. ==Geology==

Lake Erie was carved out by glacier ice and went through many phases before its current form which is less than 4,000 years old, which is a short span in geological terms. Before this, the land on which the lake now sits went through several complex stages. A large lowland basin formed over two million years ago as a result of an eastern flowing river that existed well before the Pleistocene ice ages. This ancient drainage system was destroyed by the first major glacier in the area, while it deepened and enlarged the lowland areas, allowing water to settle and form a lake. The glaciers were able to carve away more land on the eastern side of the lowland because the bedrock is made of shale which is softer than the carbonate rocks of dolomite and limestone on the western side. Thus, the eastern basin and central basin of the modern lake are much deeper than the western basin, which averages only deep and is rich in nutrients and fish. ==History==

Indigenous peoples At the time of European contact, there were several Indigenous peoples living around the shores of the eastern end of the lake. The Erie tribe (from whom the lake takes its name) lived along the southern edge, while the Neutrals (also known as Attawandaron) lived along the northern shore. The tribal name "erie" is a shortened form of the Iroquoian word , meaning "long tail". The name may also come from the word eri, meaning "cherry tree". Near Port Stanley, there is an Indigenous village dating from the 16th century known as the Southwold Earthworks where as many as 800 Neutral Indigenous peoples once lived; the archaeological remains include double earth walls winding around the grass-covered perimeter. For decades after those wars, the land around eastern Lake Erie was claimed and utilized by the Iroquois as a hunting ground. As the power of the Iroquois waned during the last quarter of the 17th century, several other, mainly Anishinaabe, displaced them from the territories they claimed on the north shore of the lake. There was a legend of an Indigenous woman named Huldah, who, despairing over her lost British lover, hurled herself from a high rock from Pelee Island. Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to be explored by Europeans, since the Iroquois who occupied the Niagara River area were in conflict with the French, and they did not allow explorers or traders to pass through; explorers followed rivers out of Lake Ontario and portaged to Lake Huron. British authorities in Canada were nervous about possible expansion by American settlers across Lake Erie, so Colonel Thomas Talbot developed the Talbot Trail in 1809 as a way to stimulate settlement to the area; Talbot recruited settlers from Ireland and Scotland, and there are numerous places named after him in southern Ontario, such as Port Talbot, the Talbot River, and Talbotville. During the Prohibition years from 1919 to 1933, a "great deal of alcohol crossed Erie" and a casino operated on Middle Island. During the 20th century, commercial fishing was prevalent but so was the boom in manufacturing industry around the lake, and often rivers and streams were used as sewers to flush untreated sewage which ended up in the lake. Sometimes poorly constructed sanitary systems meant that when old pipes broke, raw sewage would spill directly into the Cuyahoga River and into the lake. A report in Time magazine in 1969 described the lake as a "gigantic cesspool" since only three of 62 beaches were rated "completely safe for swimming". By 1975 the popular commercial fish blue pike had been declared extinct, although the declaration may have been premature. By the 1980s, there were about 130 fishing vessels with about 3,000 workers, but commercial fishing was declining rapidly, particularly from the American side. Great Lakes Compact In 2005, the Great Lakes states of Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and the Canadian Provinces of Ontario and Quebec endorsed the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Compact. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush in September 2008. An international water-rights policy overseen by the Great Lakes Commission, the compact aims to prevent diversion of water from Great Lakes to distant states, as well as to set standards for use and conservation. It had support from both political parties, including United States Senator George Voinovich of Ohio and Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, but is not popular in the southwestern states because of frequent drought conditions and water scarcity. ==Lake environment==

Climate Lake Erie in winter to build an offshore wind farm on the north shore of the lake, from Port Maitland to Nanticoke for a distance of , In 2008, concerns arose that the "newest invader swarming in the Great Lakes", the bloody-red shrimp, might harm fish populations and promote algal blooms. The shore of the lake is also host to invasive species of the Phragmites reed genus. Eutrophication and cyanobacterial blooms showing beach erosion, algae, and uprooted trees as a result of environmental issues Lake Erie has experienced in decades. An ongoing concern is that nutrient overloading from fertilizers and human and animal waste, known as eutrophication, in which additional nitrogen and phosphorus enter the lake, will cause plant life to "run wild and multiply like crazy". The conservation practices are not monitored and have not been kept up. One recent account suggests that the seasonal algal blooms in Lake Erie were possibly caused by runoff from cities, fertilizers, zebra mussels, and livestock near water. Blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria) bloom, were problematic in August 2019. According to a news report in August, "scientists fully expect [it] to overwhelm much of western Lake Erie again this summer". By August 12, 2019, the bloom extended for roughly . A large bloom does not necessarily mean the cyanobacteria ... will produce toxins", said Michael McKay, executive director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor. "Not enough is being done to stop fertilizer and phosphorus from getting into the lake and causing blooms," he added. Water testing was being conducted in August. The largest Lake Erie blooms to date occurred in 2015, exceeding the severity index at 10.5 and in 2011 at a 10, according to the NOAA. In early August, the 2019 bloom was expected to measure 7.5 on the severity index, but could range between 6 and 9. At that time, satellite images depicted a bloom stretching up to on Lake Erie, with the epicenter near Toledo, Ohio. Snakes The Lake Erie water snake, a subspecies of the northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon), lives in the vicinity of Ohio's Put-in-Bay Harbor and had been placed on the threatened species list. In the 1970s, patches of the lake were declared dead because of industrial waste and sewage from runoffs; as The New York Times reporter Denny Lee wrote in 2004, "The lake, after all, is where the Rust Belt meets the water." chronicled in a Time magazine article which lamented a tendency to use rivers flowing through major cities as "convenient, free sewers"; It was the first grand jury investigation of water pollution in the area. The grand jury indicted four corporations for polluting Lake Erie and waterways in northeast Ohio. Facing fines were Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., Shell Oil Co., Uniroyal Chemical Division of Uniroyal Inc. and Olin Corp. United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell gave a press conference December 18, 1970, referencing new pollution control litigation, with particular reference to work with the Environmental Protection Agency, and announcing the filing of a lawsuit that morning against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide into the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland. Jones filed the misdemeanor charges in district court, alleging violations of the 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act. Cleveland's director of public utilities Ben Stefanski pursued a massive effort to "scrub the Cuyahoga"; the effort cost $100 million in bonds, according to one estimate. and the United States and Canada established water pollution limits in an international water quality agreement. The Corps' LEWMS was also instituted at that time. The clearing of the water column is partly the result of the introduction and rapid spread of zebra mussels from Europe, which had the effect of covering the lake bottom, with each creature filtering a liter of fresh water each day, helping to restore the lake to a cleaner state. There have been instances of beach closings at Presque Isle because of unexplained E. Coli contaminations, possibly caused by sewer water overflows after heavy downpours. Since the 1970s environmental regulation has led to a great increase in water quality and the return of economically important fish species such as walleye and other biological life. There was substantial evidence that the new controls had substantially reduced levels of DDT in the water by 1979. According to chemical engineer Peter Douglas, there is sufficient storage space beneath Lake Erie to hold between 15 and 50 years of liquid emissions from the 4,000 megawatt Nanticoke coal plant. But there has been no substantial progress on this issue since 2007. ==Economy==

Fishing Species of fish Lake Erie is home to one of the world's largest freshwater commercial fisheries. Lake Erie's fish populations are the most abundant of the Great Lakes, partially because of the lake's relatively mild temperatures and plentiful supply of plankton, which is the basic building block of the food chain. The lake contains steelhead, lake trout, king salmon, whitefish, smelt, and many others. Not all walleyes thrived. The combination of overfishing and the eutrophication of the lake by pollution caused the population to collapse, and in the mid-1980s, the blue walleye was declared extinct. But the Lake Erie walleye was reportedly having record numbers, even in 1989, according to one report. There have been concerns about rising levels of mercury in walleye fish; a study by the Canadian Ministry of the Environment noted an "increasing concentration trend" but that concentrations were within acceptable limits established by authorities in Pennsylvania. Because of these and other concerns, in 1990, the National Wildlife Federation was on the verge of having a "negative fish consumption advisory" for walleye and smallmouth bass, which had been the main catch of an $800 million commercial fishing industry. The longest fish in Lake Erie is reportedly the sturgeon which can grow to long and weight , but it is an endangered species and mostly lives on the bottom of the lake. Commercial fishing Estimates vary about the fishing market for the Great Lakes region. In 2007, one estimate of the total market for fishing in the Great Lakes, including commercial and recreational fishing, was $4 billion annually. Pennsylvania had a special $3 stamp on fishing licenses to help "compensate commercial fishermen for their losses", but this program ended after five years. Cuts of 30 to 45 percent for certain fish were made in 2007. But other groups have entered the political process as well, including environmentalists, lakefront property owners, industry owners and workers seeking cost-effective solutions for sewage, ferry boat operators, even corporations making electric-generating wind turbines. Management of the fishery is by consensus of all management agencies with an interest in the resource and work under the mandate of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. The commission makes assessments using sophisticated mathematical modeling systems. The commission has been the focus of considerable recrimination, primarily from angler and charter fishing groups in the U.S. which have had a historical antipathy to commercial fishing interests. This conflict is complex, dating from the 1960s and earlier, with the result in the United States that, in 2011, commercial fishing was mostly eliminated from Great Lakes states. One report suggests that battling between diverse fishing interests began around Lake Michigan and evolved to cover the entire Great Lakes region. The analysis suggests that in the Lake Erie context, the competition between sport and commercial fishing involves universals and that these conflicts are cultural, not scientific, and therefore not resolvable by reference to ecological data. Sport fishing The lake supports a strong sport fishery. While commercial fishing declined, sport fishing has remained. The deep cool waters that spawn the best fishing is in the Canadian side of the lake. As a result, a fishing boat that crosses the international border triggers the security concerns of border crossings, and fishermen are advised to carry their passport. There was a report that charter boat fishing increased substantially on the American side, from 46 to 638 charter boats in operation in Ohio alone, during a period from 1975 to 1985 as pollution levels declined and after populations of walleye increased substantially in the lake. It is possible to fish off piers in winter for burbot; the burbot make a midwinter spawning run and is reportedly one of Erie's glacial relics. But venturing on Lake Erie ice can be dangerous. In a 2009 incident, warming temperatures, winds of and currents pushing eastward dislodged a miles-wide ice floe which broke away from the shore, trapping more than 130 fishermen offshore; one man died while the rest were rescued by helicopters or boats. Agriculture The lake's formerly more extensive lakebed creates a favorable environment for agriculture in the bordering areas of Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York. The Lake Erie sections of western New York have a suitable climate for growing grapes, and there are many vineyards and wineries in Chautauqua County and Erie County. The Canadian region of Lake Erie's north shore is becoming a more prominent wine region as well; it has been dubbed the Lake Erie North Shore, or LENS region, and includes Pelee Island, and since it is farther north than comparable wine-growing areas in the world, the length of the days in the summer are longer. The drainage basin has led to well fertilized soil. The north coast of Ohio is widely referred to as its nursery capital. Tourism Diving for shipwrecks Lake Erie is a favorite for divers since there are many shipwrecks, perhaps 1,400 to 8,000 according to one estimate, One report suggests there are more wrecks per square mile than any other freshwater location, including wrecks from Indigenous watercraft. There are efforts to identify shipwreck sites and survey the lake floor to map the location of underwater sites, possibly for further study or exploration. One account suggests 130 people drowned In 1998, the wreckage of Adventure became the first shipwreck registered as an "underwater archaeological site"; when it was discovered that Adventures propeller had been removed and given to a junkyard. The propeller was reclaimed days before being converted to scrap metal and brought back to the dive site. Other wrecks include the fish tub Neal H. Dow (1910), the "steamer-cum-barge" Elderado (1880), In addition, there are wrecks of smaller vessels, with occasional drownings of fishermen. Public parks in Pennsylvania is a peninsula in Lake Erie There are numerous public parks around the lake. In western Pennsylvania, a wildlife reserve was established in 1991 in Springfield Township for hiking, fishing, cross-country skiing and walking along the beach. In Ontario, Long Point is a peninsula on the northwest shore near Port Rowan that extends into Lake Erie which is a stopover for birds migrating as well as turtles; Long Point Provincial Park is located there and has been designated as a UNESCO Biosphere reserve. In southern Michigan, Sterling State Park has campgrounds, for hiking, biking, fishing, boating, with a sand beach for sunbathing, swimming, and picnicking. Biking In 1997, The New York Times reporter Donna Marchetti took a bike tour around the Lake Erie perimeter, traveling per day and staying at bed and breakfasts. She biked through the cities of Cleveland, Erie, Windsor, Detroit and Toledo as well as resort towns, vineyards, and cornfields. It has been described as a party island with scenic rocky cliffs with a year-round population in the hundreds that grows during summer. In 2008, 14-year-old Jade Scognamillo swam from New York's Sturgeon Point to Ontario's Crystal Beach and completed the 11.9-mile (19.2-km) swim in five hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds, and became the youngest swimmer to make the crossing. It is illegal for swimmers younger than 14 to attempt such a crossing. Currents can pose a problem, and there have been occasional incidents of drownings. Lighthouses , Ontario , Ohio The lake is dotted by distinct lighthouses. A lighthouse off the coast of Cleveland, beset with cold lake winter spray, has an unusual artistic icy shape, although sometimes ice prevents the light from being seen by maritime vessels. Folklore There have been unconfirmed reports of persons spotting a creature akin to the Loch Ness Monster, beginning in the 19th century and sometimes called "Bessie" or "South Bay Bessie". There were reports in 1990 of people seeing a "large creature moving in the water about from their boat" described as black in color, about long, with a snakelike head, and moving as fast as a boat. Shipping traffic The lake has been a shipping lane for maritime vessels for centuries. In 2007, there was a protest against Ontario's energy policy which allows the shipping of coal in the lake; Greenpeace activists climbed a ladder on a freighter and "locked themselves to the conveyor belt device that helps to unload the ship's cargo"; three activists were arrested and the ship was delayed for more than four hours, and anti-coal messages were painted on the ship. Ferryboats Ferryboats operate in numerous places: such as the passenger-only Jet Express Ferry from Sandusky and Port Clinton to Put-in-Bay and Kelly's Island. The Miller Ferry from Catawba Island to Put-In-Bay and Middle Bass Island, the Kellys Island ferry from Marblehead to Kellys Island, and the Owen Sound Transportation Company from Leamington or Kingsville to Pelee Island and Sandusky. However, plans to operate a ferryboat between the U.S. port of Erie and the Ontario port of Port Dover ran into a slew of political problems, including security restrictions on both sides as well as additional fees required to hire border inspectors. Drivers can cross from the United States to the Canadian town of Fort Erie by going over the Peace Bridge. ==See also==