![Lake-Erie](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Lake-Erie.svg)
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest
lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
by surface area of the five
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
and the eleventh-largest globally.
It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by
volume
Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). Th ...
of the Great Lakes
and therefore also has the shortest average water
residence time
The residence time of a fluid parcel is the total time that the parcel has spent inside a control volume (e.g.: a chemical reactor, a lake, a human body). The residence time of a set of parcels is quantified in terms of the frequency distributi ...
. At its deepest point Lake Erie is deep.
Situated on the
International Boundary
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...
between
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, Lake Erie's northern shore is the
Canadian province
Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...
of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, specifically the
Ontario Peninsula
The Ontario Peninsula is the southernmost part of the province of Ontario, and of Canada as a whole. It is bounded by Lake Huron to the west, Lake Ontario to the east, and Lake Erie to the south. At its tip, it is separated from Michigan by the D ...
, with the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
s of
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, and
New York on its western, southern, and eastern shores. These jurisdictions divide the surface area of the lake with water boundaries. The largest city on the lake is
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, anchoring the third largest U.S. metro area in the
Great Lakes region
The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
, after
Greater Chicago
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
and
Metro Detroit
The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is a major metropolitan area in the U.S. State of Michigan, consisting of the city of Detroit and its surrounding area. There are varied definitions of the area, including the ...
. Other major cities along the lake shore include
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
;
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 ...
; and
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
.
Situated below
Lake Huron
Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...
, Erie's primary inlet is the
Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively refe ...
. The main natural outflow from the lake is via the
Niagara River
The Niagara River () is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York (state), New York in the United States (on the east) ...
, which provides
hydroelectric power
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...
to Canada and the U.S. as it spins huge turbines near
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...
at
Lewiston, New York
Lewiston is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 15,944 at the 2020 census. The town and its contained village are named after Morgan Lewis, a governor of New York.
The Town of Lewiston is on the western bord ...
and
Queenston, Ontario
Queenston is a compact rural community and unincorporated place north of Niagara Falls in the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is bordered by Highway 405 to the south and the Niagara River to the east; its location at the epony ...
.
Some outflow occurs via the
Welland Canal
The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller in St. Catharines t ...
, part of the
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Ameri ...
, which diverts water for ship passages from
Port Colborne
Port Colborne is a city in Ontario, Canada that is located on Lake Erie, at the southern end of the Welland Canal, in the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario. The original settlement, known as Gravelly Bay, dates from 1832 and was renamed afte ...
, Ontario on Lake Erie, to
St. Catharines on
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
, an elevation difference of . Lake Erie's environmental health has been an ongoing concern for decades, with issues such as
overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
,
pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
,
algae bloom
An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in Fresh water, freshwater or Ocean, marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term ...
s, and
eutrophication
Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. It has also been defined as "nutrient-induced increase in phytopla ...
generating headlines.
Geography
Geographic features
Lake Erie (42.2° N, 81.2W) has a mean elevation of
above sea level. It has a surface area of
with a length of
and breadth of
at its widest points. It is the shallowest of the Great Lakes with an average depth of 10
fathoms 3 feet or
and a maximum depth of
Because Erie is the shallowest, it is also the warmest of the Great Lakes, and in 1999 this almost became a problem for two
nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
s which require cool lake water to keep their reactors cool.
The warm summer of 1999 caused lake temperatures to come close to the limit necessary to keep the plants cool.
Also because of its shallowness, it is the first to freeze in the winter. 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
seiche
A seiche ( ) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves and seas. The key requirement for formation of ...
s.
The "waves build very quickly", according to other accounts.
The region around the lake is known as the "thunderstorm capital of Canada" with "breathtaking" lightning displays.
Sometimes fierce waves springing up unexpectedly have led to dramatic rescues; in one instance, a
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
resident trying to measure the dock near his house became trapped but was rescued by a fire department diver from
Avon Lake, Ohio:
Lake Erie is primarily fed by the Detroit River (from
Lake Huron
Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...
and
Lake St. Clair
Lake St. Clair (french: Lac Sainte-Claire) is a freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan. It was named in 1679 by French Catholic explorers after Saint Clare of Assisi, on whose feast day ...
) and drains via the Niagara River and Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario. Navigation downstream is provided by the Welland Canal, part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Other major contributors to Lake Erie include
Grand River,
Huron River,
Maumee River,
Sandusky River
The Sandusky River ( wyn, saandusti; sjw, Potakihiipi ) is a tributary to Lake Erie in north-central Ohio in the United States. It is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Ma ...
,
Buffalo River, and
Cuyahoga River
The Cuyahoga River ( , or ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie.
As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so mu ...
. The
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...
covers .
Point Pelee National Park
Point Pelee National Park (; french: Parc national de la Pointe-Pelée) is a national park in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, Canada where it extends into Lake Erie. The word is French for 'bald'. Point Pelee consists of a peninsula of la ...
, the southernmost point of the Canadian mainland, is located on a peninsula extending into the lake. Lake Erie has 31 islands (
13 in Canada, 18 in the U.S.), located generally in the western side of the lake. The largest of these is
Pelee Island Pelee may refer to:
* Île Pelée, an island off Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France
* Pelee, Ontario, an island in Lake Erie, Canada
*Point Pelee National Park, a park in Ontario, Canada
*Mount Pelée, a volcano in Martinique
*Peleus
In Greek mytho ...
.
Water levels
Lake Erie has a
lake retention time
Lake retention time (also called the residence time of lake water, or the water age or flushing time) is a calculated quantity expressing the mean time that water (or some dissolved substance) spends in a particular lake. At its simplest, this fi ...
of 2.6 years,
[ the shortest of all the Great Lakes.] The lake's surface area is . Lake Erie's water level fluctuates with the seasons as in the other Great Lakes. Generally, the lowest levels are in January and February and the highest in June or July, although there have been exceptions. The average yearly level varies depending on long-term precipitation. Short-term level changes are often caused by seiche
A seiche ( ) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves and seas. The key requirement for formation of ...
s that are particularly high when southwesterly winds blow across the length of the lake during storms. These cause water to pile up at the eastern end of the lake. Storm-driven seiches can cause damage onshore. During one storm in November 2003, the water level at Buffalo rose by with waves of for a rise of . 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 datum. The high water records were set from April 1986 through January 1987. Levels ranged from above datum.[
* Historic Low Water. In the winter of 1934, Lake Erie reached its lowest level at below datum.][ Monthly low water records were set from July 1934 through June 1935. During this twelve-month period water levels ranged from below the datum to even with the datum.][
]
Geology
Lake Erie was carved out by glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
ice and in its current form 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
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
which is softer than the carbonate rocks of dolomite Dolomite may refer to:
*Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral
*Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock
*Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community
*Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
and limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
on the western side. Thus, the eastern and central basins of the modern lake are much deeper than the western basin, which averages only deep and is rich in nutrients and fish.[ Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes because the ice was relatively thin and lacked erosion power when it reached that far south, according to one view.
As many as three glaciers advanced and retreated over the land, causing temporary lakes to form in the time periods in between each of them. Because each lake had a different volume of water, their shorelines rested at differing elevations. The last of these lakes to form, ]Lake Warren
Lake Warren was a proglacial lake that formed in the Lake Erie basin around 12,700 years before present (YBP) when Lake Whittlesey dropped in elevation. Lake Warren is divided into three stages: Warren I , Warren II , and Warren III , each define ...
, existed between about 13,000 and 12,000 years ago. It was deeper than the current Lake Erie, and its shoreline existed about inland from the modern one. The shorelines of these lakes left behind high ground sand ridges that cut through swamps and were used as trails for Indians and later, pioneers. These trails became primitive roads which were eventually paved. U.S. Route 30
U.S. Route 30 or U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is an east–west main route in the system of the United States Numbered Highways, with the highway traveling across the northern tier of the country. With a length of , it is the third longest ...
west of Delphos, Ohio
Delphos is a city in Allen and Van Wert counties in the U.S. state of Ohio approximately 14 mi (23 km) northwest of Lima and 13 mi (21 km) east of Van Wert. The population was 7,101 at the 2010 census.
The Allen County po ...
, and U.S. Route 20
U.S. Route 20 or U.S. Highway 20 (US 20) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway that stretches from the Pacific Northwest east to New England. The "0" in its route number indicates that US 20 is a major coast-to-coast route. S ...
west of Norwalk and east of Cleveland were formed in this manner. The ancient sand dunes are visible in the Oak Openings Region in Northwest Ohio
Northwest Ohio, or Northwestern Ohio, consists of multiple counties in the northwestern corner of the US state of Ohio. This area borders Lake Erie, Southeast Michigan, and northeastern Indiana. Some areas are also considered the Black Swamp are ...
. There, the sandy dry lake bed soil was not sufficient to support large trees with the exception of a few species of oaks, forming a rare oak savanna
An oak savanna is a type of savanna—or lightly forested grassland—where oaks (''Quercus ''spp.) are the dominant trees. The terms "oakery" or "woodlands" are also used commonly, though the former is more prevalent when referencing the Medite ...
.
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
The Erie people (also Eriechronon, Riquéronon, Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were Indigenous people historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvani ...
(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
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...
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.[ Europeans named the tribe the ''Neutral Indians'' since these people refused to fight with other tribes.][
Both the Erie and Neutrals were conquered and assimilated by their hostile eastern neighbors, the ]Iroquois Confederacy
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
, between 1651 and 1657 during the Beaver Wars
The Beaver Wars ( moh, Tsianì kayonkwere), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (french: Guerres franco-iroquoises) were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout t ...
. 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
The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawat ...
, 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.[
]
European exploration and settlement
In 1669, Frenchman Louis Jolliet
Louis Jolliet (September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore an ...
was the first documented European to sight Lake Erie, although there is speculation that Étienne Brûlé
Étienne Brûlé (; – c. June 1633) was the first European explorer to journey beyond the St. Lawrence River into what is now known as Canada. He spent much of his early adult life among the Hurons, and mastered their language and learne ...
may have come across it in 1615. 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
Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...
. 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
Port Talbot (, ) is a town and community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, situated on the east side of Swansea Bay, approximately from Swansea. The Port Talbot Steelworks covers a large area of land which dominates the south ...
, the Talbot River, and Talbotville.[
]
During the War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
, Oliver Hazard Perry
Oliver Hazard Perry (August 23, 1785 – August 23, 1819) was an American naval commander, born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The best-known and most prominent member
of the Perry family naval dynasty, he was the son of Sarah Wallace A ...
captured an entire British fleet
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
in 1813 near Put-in-Bay, Ohio
Put-in-Bay is a village located on South Bass Island in Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio, United States, east of Toledo. The population was 154 at the 2020 census.
The village is a popular summer resort and recreational destinati ...
, despite having inferior numbers. American soldiers swept through the Ontario area around Port Rowan burning towns and villages.[ Generally, however, with the exceptions of the ]American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
and the War of 1812—which involved conflicts between the U.S. and the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
—relations between the U.S. and Canada have been remarkably friendly with an "unfortified boundary" and an agreement "that has kept all fleets of war off the Great Lakes."
In 1837, rebellions broke about between Canadian settlers and the British Colonial government. These primarily concerned political reforms and land allocation issues. Some of the rebels stationed themselves in the U.S. and crossed the ice from Sandusky Bay
Sandusky Bay is a bay on Lake Erie in northern Ohio, formed at the mouth of the Sandusky River. It was identified as ''Lac Sandouské'' on a 1718 French map, with early variations recorded that suggest the name was derived from Native American lan ...
to Pelee Island wearing "tattered overcoats and worn-out boots", and carrying muskets, pitchforks, and swords,[ but the islanders had already fled.][ Later, there was a battle on the ice with the Royal 32nd Regiment, with the rebels being driven to retreat.][
]
Settlers established commercial fisheries on the north coast of the lake around the 1850s. An important business was fishing.[ In the pre-Civil War years, railways sprouted everywhere, and around 1852 there were railways circling the lake.] Maritime traffic picked up, although the lake was usually closed because of ice from December to early April, and ships had to wait for the ice to clear before proceeding. Since slavery had been abolished in Canada in 1833 but was still legal in southern U.S., a Lake Erie crossing was sometimes required for fugitive slaves seeking freedom:
Prior to modern radar and weather forecasting
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia a ...
, merchant ships were often caught up in intense gales:
There were reports of disasters usually from sea captains passing information to reporters; in 1868, the captain of the ''Grace Whitney'' saw a sunken vessel with "three men clinging to the masthead," but he could not help because of the gale and high seas.
A balloonist
In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or tethered to a fixed point. It is distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat that ...
named John Steiner of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
made an ambitious trip across the lake in 1857. His voyage was described in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'':
In 1885, lake winds were so strong that water levels dropped substantially, sometimes by as much as two feet, so that at ports such as Toledo, watercraft could not load coal or depart the port. During the history of the lake as a fishery, there has been marked battling by opposing interest groups:
Predictions of the lake being over-fished in 1895 were premature, since the fishery has survived commercial and sport fishing, pollution in the middle of the 20th century, invasive species and other ailments, but state and provincial governments, as well as national governments, have played a greater role as time went by. Business boomed; in 1901, the Carnegie Company proposed building a new harbor near Erie, Pennsylvania, in Elk Creek to accommodate shipments from its tube-plant site nearby. In 1913, a memorial to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was built on Put-in-Bay island featuring a Doric column.
During the Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
years from 1919 to 1933, a "great deal of alcohol crossed Erie"[ along with "mobster corpses" dumped into the Detroit River which sometimes washed up on the beaches of Pelee Island.] Notable rum runners
Rum-running or bootlegging is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling usually takes place to circumvent taxation or prohibition laws within a particular jurisdiction. The ter ...
included Thomas Joseph McGinty and the Purple Gang
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers comprised predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detr ...
. The Coast Guard
A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...
attempted to interdict the Canadian liquor with its Rum Patrol
The Rum Patrol was an operation of the United States Coast Guard to interdict liquor smuggling vessels, known as "rum runners" in order to enforce prohibition in American waters. On 18 December 1917, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was sub ...
, 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
The Cuyahoga River ( , or ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie.
As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so mu ...
and into the lake. A report in ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' 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
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
, New York, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
, Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
and the Canadian Provinces of Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
and Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
endorsed the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Compact. The compact was signed into law by President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
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
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician serving as the 16th United States secretary of energy since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she pre ...
of Michigan, but is not popular in the southwestern states because of frequent drought conditions and water scarcity
Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is whe ...
.
Lake environment
Climate
Lake Erie in winter
Like the other Great Lakes, Erie produces lake-effect snow when the first cold winds of winter pass over the warm waters. When the temperatures of the relatively warm surface water and the colder air separate to at least to apart, then "lake-effect snow becomes possible:"
Heavy lake-effect snowfalls can occur when cold air travels or longer over a large unfrozen lake.[ Lake-effect snow makes Buffalo and Erie the eleventh and thirteenth snowiest cities in the entire United States respectively, according to data collected from the ]National Climatic Data Center
The United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), previously known as the National Weather Records Center (NWRC), in Asheville, North Carolina, was the world's largest active archive of weather data. Starting as a tabulation unit in New Orl ...
. Since winds blow primarily west to east along the main axis of the lake, lake-effect snowstorms are more pronounced on the eastern parts of the lake. Buffalo typically gets of snow each winter and sometimes of snow; the snowiest city is Syracuse, New York
Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...
, which can receive heavy snowfall from both the lake effect process and large coastal cyclones. A storm around Christmas in 2001 pounded Buffalo with of snow.
The effects of the warmer lake water is reduced when the lake freezes over. In January 2011, for example, residents of Cleveland were glad when Lake Erie was "90 percent frozen" since it meant that the area had "made it over the hump" in terms of enduring repeated snowfalls which required much shoveling. Being the shallowest of the Great Lakes, it is the most likely to freeze and frequently does. In contrast, Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
has never completely frozen over since the warmer and deeper portion is in the south, although it came close to being totally frozen during three harsh winters over the past century. In past years, lake ice was so thick that it was possible to drive over it or go sailing on iceboat
An iceboat (occasionally spelled ice boat or traditionally called an ice yacht) is a recreational or competition sailing craft supported on metal runners for traveling over ice. One of the runners is steerable. Originally, such craft were boats ...
s.[ Many lake residents take advantage of the ice and travel; some drive to Canada and back:][
]
Windy conditions
Strong winds have caused lake currents to shift sediment on the bottom, leading to shifting sandbars
In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It o ...
that have been the cause of shipwrecks.[ But winds can have a peaceful purpose as well; there have been proposals to place electricity–producing ]wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...
s in windy and shallow points in the lake and along the coast. Steel Winds
Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant t ...
, a former steel mill site in Buffalo, has been developed as an urban wind farm housing 14 turbines capable of generating up to 35 megawatts of electricity. A plan by Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
to build an offshore wind farm
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...
on the north shore of the lake, from Port Maitland to Nanticoke Nanticoke may refer to:
* Nanticoke people in Delaware, United States
* Nanticoke language, an Algonquian language
* Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, a state-recognized tribe in New Jersey
Place names Canada
* Nanticoke, Ontario
** Nanticoke Generating S ...
for a distance of , has been met with opposition from residents. Canadians near Leamington and Kingsville have organized protest groups to thwart attempts to bring wind turbines to the lake; reasons against the turbines include spoiling lake views. Plans to install turbines in Pigeon Bay, south of Leamington were met with opposition as well. The notion that bird and bat migration may be hurt by the wind turbines has been used to argue against the wind turbines as well.
Microclimates
The lake is responsible for microclimate
A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few squ ...
s that are important to agriculture. Along its north shore is one of the richest areas of Canada's fruit and vegetable production; this southernmost tip, particularly in the area around Leamington, is known as Canada's "tomato capital".[ The area around Port Rowan has special trees which grow because of the "tempering effect of the lake", and species include tulip trees, ]dogwood
''Cornus'' is a genus of about 30–60 species of woody plants in the family Cornaceae, commonly known as dogwoods, which can generally be distinguished by their blossoms, berries, and distinctive bark. Most are deciduous trees or shru ...
, sassafras
''Sassafras'' is a genus of three extant and one extinct species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia.Wolfe, Jack A. & Wehr, Wesley C. 1987. The sassafras is an ornamental tree. "Middle ...
and sour gum.[ In this area there are many greenhouses which produce a "variety of tropical plants rarely cultivated so far north", including some species of cacti, because of the lake's tempering effect.][ Along the southeastern shore of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York is an important ]grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years ago, ...
growing region, as are the islands in the lake. Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
orchards are abundant in northeast Ohio to western New York.
Long-term weather patterns
According to one estimate, of water evaporates each year from the surface of the lake, which allows for rainfall and other precipitation in surrounding areas. There are conflicting reports about the overall effect of global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
on the Great Lakes region, including Lake Erie. One account suggests that climate change is causing greater evaporation
Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when humidi ...
of lake water, leading to warmer temperatures as well as ice in winter which is less thick or nonexistent, fueling concerns that "Erie appears to be shrinking" and is the most likely candidate among the five Great Lakes to "turn into a festering mud puddle."[ In 2010, the '']Windsor Star
The ''Windsor Star'' is a daily newspaper based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Owned by Postmedia Network, it is published Tuesdays through Saturdays.
History
The paper began as the weekly ''Windsor Record'' in 1888, changing its name to the ''Bor ...
'' reported that the lake experienced record-breaking water temperatures reaching in mid-August and compared the lake to a "bath tub".
Ecosystems
Lake Erie has a complex ecosystem with many species in interaction. Human activity, such as pollution and maritime ship traffic, can affect this environment in numerous ways. The interactions between new species can sometimes have beneficial effects, as well as harmful effects. Some introductions have been seen as beneficial such as the introduction of Pacific salmon
''Oncorhynchus'' is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmon and Pacific trout. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek ὄγκος (ónkos, “lump, bend”) + ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos, “snout”), i ...
.[ Occasionally there have been mass die-offs of certain species of fish, sometimes for reasons unknown, such as many numbers of ]rainbow smelt
The rainbow smelt (''Osmerus mordax'') is a North American species of fish of the family Osmeridae. Walleye, trout, and other larger fish prey on these smelt. The rainbow smelt prefer juvenile ciscoes, zooplankton such as calanoid copepods ('' L ...
in May 2010.
Invasive species
The lake has been plagued with a number of invasive species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...
, including zebra
Zebras (, ) (subgenus ''Hippotigris'') are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: the Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), plains zebra (''E. quagga''), and the mountain zebra (''E. zeb ...
[ and ]quagga
The quagga ( or ) (''Equus quagga quagga'') is a subspecies of the plains zebra that was endemic to South Africa until it was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic ...
mussels, the goby
Goby is a common name for many species of small to medium sized ray-finned fish, normally with large heads and tapered bodies, which are found in marine, brackish and freshwater environments. Traditionally most of the species called gobies have b ...
and the grass carp
The grass carp (''Ctenopharyngodon idella'') is a species of large herbivorous freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae, native to the Pacific Far East, with a native range stretching from northern Vietnam to the Amur River on the Sino-Russian ...
. One estimate was that there have been 180 invasive species in the Great Lakes, some having traveled in ballast water in international ships.[ Zebra mussels and gobies have been credited with the increased population and size of smallmouth bass in Lake Erie. In 2008 there were concerns that the "newest invader swarming in the Great Lakes", which was the bloody-red shrimp, might harm fish populations and promote ]algae bloom
An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in Fresh water, freshwater or Ocean, marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term ...
s.
Environmentalists and biologists study lake conditions via installations such as the Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island
Gibraltar Island (or the "Gem of Lake Erie") is an island in Ohio, located within Lake Erie. This small 6.55-acre (0.026 km²) island is just offshore of South Bass Island. It is part of Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio.
The rocky ...
. The lab, which was established in 1895, is the oldest biological field station in the United States. Stone Laboratory was donated to the Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
by Julius Stone in 1925 as part of the university's Ohio Sea Grant College Program.[Publishers: (1) Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail National Scenic Byway (2) Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (3) Ohio Sea Grant; Editors: Art Weber, Melinda Huntley of the Ohio Sea Grant College Program]
Explore the Lake Erie Islands
, Retrieved September 1, 2014, (see page 5) "... Lake Erie's shallow, nutrient-rich western basin and the much deeper central and eastern basins. ... The western basin ... dolomite and limestone are more durable than the softer shales ... glacier dug through the stones ... resistance from the dolomite and limestone in the western basin ..." The Great Lakes Institute of the University of Windsor
, mottoeng = Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge
, established =
, academic_affiliations = CARL, COU, Universities Canada
, former_names = Assumption College (1857-1956)Assumption University of Windsor (1956-1963)
, type = Public universit ...
has experts who study issues such as lake sediment pollution and the flow of contaminants such as phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...
.[
Other invasive species in Lake Erie include: spiny water fleas, fishhook water fleas, ]sea lamprey
The sea lamprey (''Petromyzon marinus'') is a parasitic lamprey native to the Northern Hemisphere. It is sometimes referred to as the "vampire fish".
Description
The sea lamprey has an eel-like body without paired fins. Its mouth is jawless, ...
, and white perch
The white perch (''Morone americana'') is not a true perch but is a fish of the temperate bass family, Moronidae, notable as a food and game fish in eastern North America. In some places it is referred to as "Silver Bass".
The name "White per ...
. The invasive plant species in Lake Erie consist mainly of Eurasian milfoil
''Myriophyllum spicatum'' (Eurasian watermilfoil or spiked water-milfoil) is native to Europe, Asia, and north Africa, but has a wide geographic and climatic distribution among some 57 countries, extending from northern Canada to South Africa. It ...
, Trapa natans
The water caltrop is any of three extant species of the genus ''Trapa'': ''Trapa natans'', ''Trapa bicornis'' and the endangered ''Trapa rossica''. It is also known as buffalo nut, bat nut, devil pod, ling gok ( Chinese: 菱角), ling nut, lin ko ...
and purple loosestrife
''Lythrum salicaria'' or purple loosestrifeFlora of NW Europe''Lythrum salicaria'' is a flowering plant belonging to the family Lythraceae. It should not be confused with other plants sharing the name loosestrife that are members of the family P ...
. The shore of the lake is also host to invasive species of the Phragmites
''Phragmites'' () is a genus of four species of large perennial reed grasses found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world.
Taxonomy
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, maintained by Kew Garden in L ...
reed.
Eutrophication and cyanobacteria blooms
An ongoing concern is that nutrient overloading from fertilizers, human and animal waste, known as eutrophication
Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. It has also been defined as "nutrient-induced increase in phytopla ...
, in which additional nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
and phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...
enter the lake, will cause plant life to "run wild and multiply like crazy". Since there are fewer wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
s to filter nutrients, as well as greater channelization of waterways, nutrients in water can cause algal blooms to sprout as well as "low-oxygen dead zones" in a complex interaction of natural forces.[ As of the 2010s, much of the phosphorus in the lake comes from fertilizer applied to ]no-till
No-till farming (also known as zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certai ...
soybean and corn fields but washed into streams by heavy rains. The algal bloom
An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term ''algae'' encompas ...
s result from growth of ''Microcystis
''Microcystis'' is a genus of freshwater cyanobacteria that includes the harmful algal bloom-forming ''Microcystis aeruginosa''. Many members of a ''Microcystis'' community can produce neurotoxins and hepatotoxins, such as microcystin and cyan ...
'', a toxic blue-green algae
Cyanobacteria (), also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name ''cyanobacteria'' refers to their color (), which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, bl ...
that the zebra mussels, which infest the lake, will not eat.
There periodically is a ''dead zone'', or region of low oxygen, in the lake, the location of which varies. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
have been studying the lake's blue-green algae blooms and trying to find ways to predict when they are spreading or where they might make landfall; typically the blooms arrive late each summer. This problem was extreme in the mid and late 1960s, and the Lake Erie Wastewater Management Study conducted by the Buffalo District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined that the eutrophication was caused by point sources such as industrial outfalls and municipal sanitary and storm sewer outfalls, as well as diffuse sources, such as overland runoff from farm and forest land. All of these sources contribute nutrients, primarily phosphorus, to the lake. Growth of organisms in the lake is then spiked to the point that oxygen levels are depleted. Recommendations were made for reducing point source outflows, as well as reducing farm contributions of phosphorus by changing fertilizer usage, employing no-till farming and other conservative practices. Many industrial and municipal sources have since then been greatly reduced. The improved farming practices, which were voluntary, were followed for a while, resulting in remarkable recovery of the lake in the 1970s.
The conservation practices are not monitored and have not been kept up. One recent account suggests that the seasonal algae blooms in Lake Erie were possibly caused by runoff from cities, fertilizers, zebra mussels, and livestock near water.[ A second report focuses on the zebra mussels as being the cause of dead zones since they filter so much sediment that this produces an overgrowth of algae.][ One report suggests the oxygen-poor zone began about 1993 in the lake's central basin and becomes more pronounced during summer months, but it is somewhat of a mystery why this happens.] Some scientists speculate that the dead zone is a naturally occurring phenomenon.[ Another report cites Ohio's Maumee River as the main source of polluted runoff of phosphorus from industries, municipalities, tributaries and agriculture, and in 2008, satellite images showed the algal bloom heading toward Pelee Island.][ There have been two-year $2 million studies trying to understand the "growing zone" which was described as a 10-foot-thick layer of cold water at the bottom, in one area, which stretches across the lake's center.][ It kills fish and microscopic creatures of the lake's food chain and fouls the water, and may cause further problems in later years for sport and commercial fishing.][
Algae blooms continued in early 2013, but new farming techniques, climate change and even a change in Lake Erie's ecosystem make phosphorus pollution more intractable. Blue-green algae, or ]Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria (), also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name ''cyanobacteria'' refers to their color (), which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, blu ...
blooms, were problematic in August 2019. According to a news report in August, "scientists fully expect tto 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 (GLIER) at the University of Windsor
, mottoeng = Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge
, established =
, academic_affiliations = CARL, COU, Universities Canada
, former_names = Assumption College (1857-1956)Assumption University of Windsor (1956-1963)
, type = Public universit ...
. "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 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (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
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
.
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. By 2010, the water snake population was over 12,000 snakes.[ While they have a non-venomous bite, they are a key predator in the lake's aquatic ecosystem since they feed on ]mudpuppies
''Necturus'' is a genus of aquatic salamanders native to the eastern United States and Canada. They are commonly known as waterdogs and mudpuppies. The common mudpuppy ''(N. maculosus)'' is probably the best-known species – as an amphibian wi ...
, walleye
The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...
, and smallmouth bass.[ The snake is helpful in keeping the population of goby fish in check.][ They mate from late May through early June and can be found in large mating balls with one female bunched with several males.][
]
Insects and birds
In 1999, a local TV station's Doppler weather radar
Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern wea ...
detected millions of mayflies
Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...
heading for Presque Isle in blue and green splotches on the radar in clouds measuring long. These insects were a sign of Lake Erie's move back to health, since the mayflies require clean water to thrive.[ Biologist Masteller of ]Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
declared the bugs to be a "nice nuisance" since they signified the lake's return to health after forty years of absence.[ Each is long; the three main species of mayflies are ''Ephemera simulans'', ''Hexagenia rigida'' and ''Hexagenia limbata''.][ The insects mate over a 72-hour period from June through September; they fly in masses up to the shore, mate in the air, then females lay up to 8,000 eggs each over the water; the eggs sink back down and the cycle repeats.][ Sometimes the clouds of mayflies have caused power outages] and roads to become slippery with squashed insects.[ Since zebra mussels filter extra nutrients from the lake, it allows the mayfly larvae to thrive.][
]
There have been incidents of birds dying from botulism
Botulism is a rare and potentially fatal illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium ''Clostridium botulinum''. The disease begins with weakness, blurred vision, feeling tired, and trouble speaking. This may then be followed by weakne ...
, in 2000 and in 2002. Birds affected included grebe
Grebes () are aquatic diving birds in the order Podicipediformes . Grebes are widely distributed freshwater birds, with some species also found in marine habitats during migration and winter. Some flightless species exist as well, most notably ...
s, common
Common may refer to:
Places
* Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
* Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts
* Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Clapham Common, originally com ...
and red-breasted merganser
The red-breasted merganser (''Mergus serrator'') is a diving duck, one of the sawbills. The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and ''serrator'' is a sawyer from Latin ''serra' ...
s, loons, diving ducks, ring-billed gull
The ring-billed gull (''Larus delawarensis'') is a medium-sized gull. The genus name is from Latin ''Larus'' which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific ''delawarensis'' refers to the Delaware River.
Description ...
s and herring gull Herring gull is a common name for several birds in the genus '' Larus'', all formerly treated as a single species.
Three species are still combined in some taxonomies:
* American herring gull (''Larus smithsonianus'') - North America
* European ...
s.[ One account suggests that bird populations are in trouble, notably the ]wood warbler
The wood warbler (''Phylloscopus sibilatrix'') is a common and widespread leaf warbler which breeds throughout northern and temperate Europe, and just into the extreme west of Asian Russia in the southern Ural Mountains.
This warbler is stro ...
, which had population declines around 60% in 2008.[ Possible causes for declines in bird populations are farming practices, loss of habitats, soil depletion and erosion, and toxic chemicals.][ In 2006, there were concerns of possible ]bird flu
"Bird Flu" is an urumee melam-dance song by recording artist M.I.A. on her second studio album '' Kala'' (2007). It was released as a digital download in 2006 through XL Recordings under exclusive license to Interscope Records in the US. Cr ...
after two wild swans on the lake were found diseased, but it was learned that they did not contain the H5N1 virus
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type ...
. There were sightings of a magnificent frigatebird
The magnificent frigatebird (''Fregata magnificens'') is a seabird of the frigatebird family Fregatidae. With a length of and wingspan of it is the largest species of frigatebird. It occurs over tropical and subtropical waters off America, bet ...
, a tropical bird with a two-metre wingspan, over the lake in 2008.
Water quality issues and restoration
Lake Erie infamously became very polluted in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of the quantity of heavy industry
Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...
situated in cities on its shores, with reports of bacteria-laden beaches and fish contaminated by industrial waste. In the 1970s, patches of the lake were declared dead because of industrial waste as well as sewage from runoffs; as ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reporter Denny Lee wrote in 2004, "The lake, after all, is where the Rust Belt
The Rust Belt is a region of the United States that experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s. The U.S. manufacturing sector as a percentage of the U.S. GDP peaked in 1953 and has been in decline since, impacting certain regions an ...
meets the water."
There were incidents of the oily surfaces of tributary rivers emptying into Lake Erie catching fire: in 1969, Cleveland's Cuyahoga River
The Cuyahoga River ( , or ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie.
As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so mu ...
erupted in flames, chronicled in a ''Time'' magazine article which lamented a tendency to use rivers flowing through major cities as "convenient, free sewers"; the Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively refe ...
caught fire on another occasion.[ The outlook was gloomy:
In December 1970 a federal ]grand jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
investigation led by U.S. Attorney Robert Jones began, of water pollution allegedly being caused by about 12 companies in northeastern Ohio. 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
The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...
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
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
, and announcing the filing of a lawsuit that morning against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...
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. New sewer lines were built. Clevelanders approved a bond issue by 2 to 1 to upgrade Cleveland's sewage system. Federal officials acted as well: the United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the United States and Canada established water pollution
Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water ...
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.[ The 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement significantly reduced the dumping and runoff of phosphorus into the lake. The lake has since become clean enough to allow sunlight to infiltrate its water and produce algae and sea weed, but a dead zone persists. 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
The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...
and other biological life. There was substantial evidence that the new controls had substantially reduced levels of DDT
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. ...
in the water by 1979.[ Cleanup efforts were described in 1979 as a notable environmental success story, suggesting that the cumulative effect of legislation, studies, and bans had reversed the effects of pollution:][
Joint U.S.–Canadian agreements pushed 600 of 864 major industrial dischargers to meet requirements for keeping the water clean.][ One estimate was that $5 billion was spent to upgrade plants to treat sewage.][ The change toward cleaner water has been in a positive direction since the 1970s.
There was a tentative exploratory plan to capture CO2, compress it to a liquid form, and pump it a half-mile (800 m) beneath Lake Erie's surface underneath the porous rock structure.] According to chemical engineer
In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...
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
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...
, which is the basic building block of the food chain
A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web starting from producer organisms (such as grass or algae which produce their own food via photosynthesis) and ending at an apex predator species (like grizzly bears or killer whales), det ...
. The lake's fish population accounts for an estimated 50% of all fish inhabiting the Great Lakes. The lake contains steelhead
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...
,[ ]walleye
The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...
(known in Canada as pickerel),[ ]largemouth bass
The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...
, smallmouth bass,[ ]perch
Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Per ...
, lake trout
The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...
, king salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other v ...
, whitefish, smelt
Smelt may refer to:
* Smelting, chemical process
* The common name of various fish:
** Smelt (fish), a family of small fish, Osmeridae
** Australian smelt in the family Retropinnidae and species ''Retropinna semoni''
** Big-scale sand smelt ''Ath ...
, and many others.[ The lake consists of a long list of well established ]introduced species
An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...
. Common non-indigenous fish species include the rainbow smelt
The rainbow smelt (''Osmerus mordax'') is a North American species of fish of the family Osmeridae. Walleye, trout, and other larger fish prey on these smelt. The rainbow smelt prefer juvenile ciscoes, zooplankton such as calanoid copepods ('' L ...
, alewife, white perch
The white perch (''Morone americana'') is not a true perch but is a fish of the temperate bass family, Moronidae, notable as a food and game fish in eastern North America. In some places it is referred to as "Silver Bass".
The name "White per ...
and common carp. Non-native sport fish such as rainbow trout
The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...
and brown trout
The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...
are stocked specifically for anglers to catch. Attempts failed to stock coho salmon
The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family (biology), family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientif ...
, and its numbers are dwindling. Commercial landings are dominated by yellow perch and walleye, with substantial quantities of rainbow smelt and white bass also taken. Anglers target walleye and yellow perch, with some effort directed at rainbow trout.
Up until the end of the 1950s, the most commonly caught commercial fish (more than 50% of the commercial catch) was a subspecies of the walleye known as the blue walleye
The blue walleye (''Sander vitreus'' var. ''glaucus''), also called the blue pike, was a unique color morph (formerly considered a subspecies) of walleye which was endemic to the Great Lakes of North America. Morphometric studies led biologists t ...
(''Sander vitreus glaucus'') sometimes erroneously called "blue pike". In the 1970s and 1980s, as pollution in the lake declined, counts of walleyes which were caught grew from 112,000 in 1975 to 4.1 million in 1985, with estimates of the numbers of walleyes in the lake at around 33 million in the basin, with many of or more. 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 the threat of PCBs
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by t ...
, It was recommended, that persons eat no more than one walleye meal per month. 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
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...
which can grow to long and weight , but it is an endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
and mostly lives on the bottom of the lake.[ In 2009, there was a confirmed instance of a sturgeon being caught, which was returned to the lake alive, and there are hopes that the population of sturgeons is resurging.]
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.[ Another estimate was more than $7 billion.] But since high levels of pollution were discovered in the 1960s and 1970s, there has been continued debate over the desired intensity of commercial fishing. Commercial fishing in Lake Erie has been hurt by pollution as well as government regulations which limit the size of their catch; one report suggested that the numbers of fishing boats and employees had declined by two-thirds in recent decades. Another concern had been that pollution in the lake, as well as toxins found inside fish, were working against commercial fishing interests.
U.S. fishermen based along Lake Erie lost their livelihood over the past few decades and no longer catch fish such as whitefish for markets in New York. Pennsylvania had a special $3 stamp on fishing licenses to help "compensate commercial fishermen for their losses", but this program ended after five years.[ One blamed the commercial fishing ban on a "test of wills" between commercial and recreational fishermen: "One side needed large hauls. The other feared the lake was being emptied."][
]
Commercial fishing is now predominantly based in Canadian communities, with a much smaller fishery—largely restricted to yellow perch
The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samu ...
—in Ohio. The Ontario fishery is one of the most intensively managed in the world. However, there are reports that some Canadian commercial fishermen are dissatisfied with fishing quotas and have sued the government about this matter, and there have been complaints that the legislative body writing the quotas is dominated by the U.S. and that sport fishing interests are favored at the expense of commercial fishing interests. Cuts of 30 to 45 percent for certain fish were made in 2007.[ The Lake Erie fishery was one of the first fisheries in the world managed on individual transferable quotas and features mandatory daily catch reporting and intensive auditing of the catch reporting system. Still, the commercial fishery is the target of critics who would like to see the lake managed for the exclusive benefit of sport fishing and the various industries serving the sport fishery. According to one report, the Canadian town of ]Port Dover
Port Dover is an unincorporated community and former town located in Norfolk County, Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Erie. It is the site of the recurring Friday the 13th motorcycle rally. Prior to the War of 1812, this community ...
is the home of the lake's largest fishing fleet.[
]
Government regulations
The lake can be thought of as a common asset with multiple purposes including being a fishery. There was direct competition between commercial fishermen and sport fishermen (including charter boats and sales of fishing licenses) throughout the lake's history, with both sides seeking government assistance from either Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
or Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, and trying to make their case to the public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
through newspaper reporting. But other groups have entered the political process as well, including environmentalists
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...
, 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 Great Lakes Fishery Commission is a bi-national commission made up of representatives of the United States and Canada. It was formed by the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, concluded in 1954 and ratified in 1955. It has eight members: fou ...
. The commission makes assessments using sophisticated mathematical model
A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, ...
ing 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.[ If their boat crosses the invisible border line in the lake, upon returning to the American shore, passengers need to report to a local border protection office.][
In 2008, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission tried stocking the lake with ]brown trout
The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...
in an effort to build what's called a ''put-grow-and-take'' fishery. 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. In 1984, Ohio sold 27,000 nonresident fishing permits, and sport fishing was described as big business. In 1992, there were accounts of fishermen regularly catching walleye weighing up to . It is possible to fish off piers in winter for burbot
The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are those that spend some or all of their lives in fresh water, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 1.05%. These environments di ...
; the burbot make a midwinter spawning run and is reportedly one of Erie's glacial relics.
Ice fishing
In winter when the lake freezes, many fishermen go out on the ice, cut holes, and fish. It is even possible to build bonfires on the ice. 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.[ A longer growing season because of the lake-moderated temperatures make the risk of early frosts less likely.]
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, of which about 270 are confirmed shipwreck locations. Research into shipwrecks has been organized by the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Center, located on the grounds of the Great Lakes Historical Society. Most wrecks are undiscovered but believed to be well preserved and at most below the water surface. One report suggests there are more wrecks per square mile than any other freshwater location, including wrecks from Indignous 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.[ While the lake is relatively warmer than the other Great Lakes, there is a thermocline, meaning that as a diver descends, the water temperature drops about , requiring a ]wetsuit
A wetsuit is a garment worn to provide thermal protection while wet. It is usually made of foamed neoprene, and is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports and other activities in or on water. It ...
.[ One estimate is that Lake Erie has a quarter of all 8,000 estimated shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.][ They are preserved because the water is cold and salt-free.][ Divers have a policy of not removing or touching anything at the wreck.][ The cold conditions make diving difficult, requiring divers with skill and experience.][ One charter firm from western New York State takes about 1,500 divers to Lake Erie shipwrecks in a typical season from April through October.][
]
In 1991, the 19th-century paddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses wer ...
''Atlantic'' was discovered.[ It had sunk in 1852 after a collision with the steamship ''Ogdensburg'', west of ]Long Point, Ontario
Long Point is a sand spit and medium-sized hamlet on the north shore of Lake Erie, part of Norfolk County in the province of Ontario, Canada.
It is about long and is about across at its widest point. Lake Erie lies to the south of Long Po ...
, and survivors from ''Atlantic'' were saved by the crew of ''Ogdensburg''. One account suggests 130 people drowned[ while another suggests about 20 drowned.][ There was speculation that the sunken vessel had been a gambling ship, and therefore there might have been money aboard, but most historians were skeptical.]
In 1998, the wreckage of ''Adventure'' became the first shipwreck registered as an "underwater archaeological site"; when it was discovered that ''Adventure''s 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. In 2003, divers discovered the steamer ''Canobie'' near Presque Isle, which had sunk in 1921. Other wrecks include the fish tub ''Neal H. Dow'' (1910), the "steamer-cum-barge" ''Elderado'' (1880), ''W. R. Hanna'', ''Dundee'' which sank north of Cleveland in 1900, ''F. H. Prince'', and ''The Craftsman''. In 2007, the wreck of the steamship named after "Mad" Anthony Wayne was found near Vermilion, Ohio
Vermilion is a city in Erie and Lorain counties in the U.S. state of Ohio, on Lake Erie. The population was 10,659 at the 2020 census. Located about 35 miles west of Cleveland and 17 miles east of Sandusky, it is part of the Cleveland metr ...
in of water; the vessel sank in 1850 after its boilers exploded, and 38 people died. The wreck belongs to the state of Ohio, and salvaging it is illegal, but divers can visit. In addition, there are wrecks of smaller vessels, with occasional drownings of fishermen.
Public parks
There are numerous public parks around the lake. In western Pennsylvania, a wildlife reserve
A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...
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
Long Point Provincial Park is a provincial park on the northwest shore of Lake Erie near Port Rowan, Ontario, Canada. The park is part of a sandy spit of land called Long Point that juts out into the lake. It covers part of the area of Long P ...
is located there and has been designated as a UNESCO Biosphere reserve
Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific program, launched in 1971 by UNESCO, that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments.
MAB's work engag ...
.[ In Ontario's Sand Hill Park, east of Port Burwell, there is a high dune which people climb for picturesque views of the lake.] In southern Michigan, Sterling State Park
William C. Sterling State Park is a public recreation area located in Frenchtown Charter Township with a small portion lying within the city limits of Monroe, Michigan. It is the only Michigan state park located on Lake Erie. The park encomp ...
has campgrounds, for hiking, biking, fishing, boating, with a sand beach for sunbathing, swimming, and picnicking.
Biking
In 1997, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reporter Donna Marchetti took a bike tour around the Lake Erie perimeter, traveling per day and staying at bed and breakfast
Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...
s. She biked through the cities of Cleveland, Erie, Windsor, Detroit and Toledo as well as resort towns, vineyards, and cornfields.[ The trip highlights were the "small port towns and rural farmlands of southern Ontario".][ There are few bike repair shops in Ontario on the route.][
]
Islands
Lake Erie islands tend to be in the westernmost part of the lake and have different characters. Some of them include:
*Kelleys Island has activities such as beach lounging, hiking, biking, and viewing the deep glacial grooves
Glacial striations or striae are scratches or gouges cut into bedrock by glacial Abrasion (geology), abrasion. These scratches and gouges were first recognized as the result of a moving glacier in the late 18th century when Swiss alpinists fir ...
in the bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.
Definition
Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
.[
*Pelee Island is reached by ferry from Leamington, Ontario or by plane or ferry in ]Sandusky, Ohio
Sandusky ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Erie County, Ohio, Erie County, Ohio, United States. Situated along the shores of Lake Erie in the northern part of the state, Sandusky is located roughly midway between Toledo, Ohio, Toledo ( wes ...
and is the largest of the Lake Erie islands.[ The island has a unique ecosystem with plants rarely found in Canada such as wild hyacinth, yellow horse gentian, and prickly pear cactus.][ There are two endangered snakes including the blue racer and the Lake Erie water snake. Songbirds migrate there in spring, and monarch butterflies stop over during the fall.][
*]South Bass Island
South Bass Island is a small island in western Lake Erie, and a part of Ottawa County, Ohio, United States. It is the southernmost of the three Bass Islands and located 3 miles (4.6 km) from the south shore of Lake Erie. It is the third l ...
has the island-village of Put-in-Bay, Ohio
Put-in-Bay is a village located on South Bass Island in Put-in-Bay Township, Ottawa County, Ohio, United States, east of Toledo. The population was 154 at the 2020 census.
The village is a popular summer resort and recreational destinati ...
. It has been described as a party island with scenic rocky cliffs with a year-round population in the hundreds that grows during summer.[
]
Water sports
Kayaking has become more popular along the lake, particularly in places such as Put-in-Bay, Ohio. There are extensive views with steep cliffs with exotic wildlife and extensive shoreline. Long-distance swimmers have swum across the lake to set records; for example, a 15-year-old amputee swam the stretch across the lake in 2001. 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.[ In Port Dover, Ontario, swimmers do high-dives at the annual "Polar Bear Swim" on the beach.] Currents can pose a problem, and there have been occasional incidents of drownings.
Lighthouses
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
The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...
, 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. Five other people reported seeing something similar on three separate occasions, but there is no scientific evidence of such a creature. There is a ''Lake Erie Monster'' beer and a Cleveland Monsters
The Cleveland Monsters are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL). The team began play in 2007 as the Lake Erie Monsters and since 2015 has served as the top affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hock ...
hockey team.
There have been sporadic reports of people in Cleveland being able to see the Canadian shoreline as if it were immediately offshore, even though Canada is from Cleveland. It has been speculated that this is a weather-related phenomenon, working on similar principles as a mirage
A mirage is a naturally-occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French ''(se) mirer'', from the Latin ''mirari'', meanin ...
.
Shipping traffic
The lake has been a shipping lane for maritime vessels for centuries.[ Ships headed eastward can take the ]Welland Canal
The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller in St. Catharines t ...
[ and a series of eight locks descending to Lake Ontario which takes about 12 hours.][ Thousands of ships make this journey each year.][ During the 19th century, ships could enter the Buffalo River and travel the ]Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...
eastward to Albany then south to New York City along the Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
. Generally there is heavy traffic on the lake except during the winter months from January through March when ice prevents vessels from traveling safely.
In 2007, there was a protest against Ontario's energy policy which allows the shipping of coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
in the lake; Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
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.[ The project was abandoned.][
The ]Great Lakes Circle Tour
The Great Lakes Circle Tour is a designated scenic road system connecting all of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. It consists of routes for circumnavigating the lakes, either individually or collectively. It was designated by the Grea ...
is a designated scenic road system connecting all of the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...
. Drivers can cross from the United States to the Canadian town of Fort Erie
Fort Erie is a town on the Niagara River in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. It is directly across the river from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.
Fort Erie is one of Ni ...
by going over the Peace Bridge
The Peace Bridge is an international bridge between Canada and the United States at the east end of Lake Erie at the source of the Niagara River, about upriver of Niagara Falls. It connects Buffalo, New York, in the United States to Fort Er ...
.[
]
Border crossings
Since the border between the two nations is largely unpatrolled, it is possible for people to cross undetected from one country to the other, in either direction, by boat. In 2010, Canadian police arrested persons crossing the border illegally from the United States to Canada, near the Ontario town of Amherstburg
Amherstburg is a town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In 1796, Fort Malden was established here, stimulating growth in the settlement. The fort has been designated as a National Historic Site.
The town is ...
.
See also
* Bass Islands
The Bass Islands are three American islands in the western half of Lake Erie. They are north of Sandusky, Ohio, and south of Pelee Island, Ontario. South Bass Island () is the largest of the islands, followed closely by North Bass Island () a ...
* Cedar Point
Cedar Point is a amusement park located on a Lake Erie peninsula in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. Opened in 1870, it is considered the second-oldest operating amusement park in the U.S. behind Lake Compounce. Cedar Point is owned and op ...
* Lake Erie AVA
The Lake Erie AVA is an American Viticultural Area that includes of land on the south shore of Lake Erie in the U.S. states of Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. Over of the region are planted in grapevines, predominantly in the Concord grape v ...
* List of lakes by area
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
* List of lakes in Ohio
The following is a list of lakes in Ohio. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, there are approximately 50,000 lakes and small ponds in the U.S. state of Ohio, with a total surface area of about . About 2,200 of these lakes are ...
* Maumee Bay
Maumee Bay on Lake Erie is located in the U.S. state of Ohio, just east of the city of Toledo. The bay and the surrounding wetlands form most of the Maumee River basin, and in 1975 part of the area was incorporated into Maumee Bay State Park. T ...
* Great Lakes Areas of Concern
Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
*Artel Great (born ...
* Great Lakes census statistical areas
* Great Lakes Commission
* Great Lakes Waterway
The Great Lakes Waterway (GLW) is a system of natural channels and artificial canals which enable navigation between the North American Great Lakes. Though all of the lakes are naturally connected as a chain, water travel between the lakes was i ...
* Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal
The Great Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal of North America or GCNA is a water management proposal designed by Newfoundland engineer Thomas Kierans to alleviate North American freshwater shortage problems. It proposed damming J ...
* Great Storm of 1913
The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 (historically referred to as the "Big Blow", the "Freshwater Fury", and the "White Hurricane") was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that devastated the Great Lakes Basin in the Midwestern United States and Sou ...
* International Boundary Waters Treaty
* List of cities along the Great Lakes
This is a list of cities on the Great Lakes of the United States and Canada, arranged by the body of water on which they are located. Cities with more than 100,000 population are in bold, major cities are ''italicized''.
Lake Superior
...
* Sixty Years' War
The Sixty Years' War (1754–1815) was a military struggle for control of the North American Great Lakes region, including Lake Champlain and Lake George, encompassing a number of wars over multiple generations. The term ''Sixty Years' War'' ...
for control of the Great Lakes
* Snowbelt
The Snowbelt is the region near the Great Lakes in North America where heavy snowfall in the form of lake-effect snow is particularly common. Snowbelts are typically found downwind of the lakes, principally off the eastern and southern shores.
Ca ...
* Third Coast
Third Coast is an American colloquialism used to describe coastal regions distinct from the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States. Generally, the term "Third Coast" refers to either the Great Lakes region or in some circles the G ...
References
Further reading
* Assel, R.A. (1983). ''Lake Erie regional ice cover analysis: preliminary results '' OAA Technical Memorandum ERL GLERL 48 OAA may refer to:
* Oakwood Adventist Academy
* Oceania Athletic Association
* Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army
* Ohio Auctioneers Association
* Ohio Achievement Assessment
* Old Achimotans Association
* The Ol ...
Ann Arbor, MI: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Research Laboratories, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.
* Saylor, J.H. and G.S. Miller. (1983). ''Investigation of the currents and density structure of Lake Erie'' OAA Technical Memorandum ERL GLERL 49 OAA may refer to:
* Oakwood Adventist Academy
* Oceania Athletic Association
* Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army
* Ohio Auctioneers Association
* Ohio Achievement Assessment
* Old Achimotans Association
* The Ol ...
Ann Arbor, MI: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Research Laboratories, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.
External links
*
Lake Erie Islands Directory
How many Islands are there in Lake Erie?
Great Lakes Coast Watch
– National Geophysical Data Center
Frozen lighthouse video
via ''Slate Magazine
''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2 ...
''
Explore the Lake Erie Islands
{{Authority control
*Erie
Great Lakes Waterway
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
Erie, Lake
Erie, Lake
Erie, Lake
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
Erie Canal
Regions of Ohio
Saint Lawrence Seaway
Southwestern Ontario
Canada–United States border