Could restoring swampland fix Lake Erie algae crisis?

The neon cyanobacteria swirling across Lake Erie for the past three months or so signals to scientists and farmers alike: The annual plague of toxic algae is far from cured. “It looks like someone dumped green paint in the water,” said Tim Davis, an aquatic biologist at Bowling Green State University. “We’re still in the middle of the bloom. It’s setting up to be the third- or fourth-biggest one in recent history.”Bill Mitsch, a world-renowned wetlands expert and Ohio State environmental-science professor emeritus, believes he has a remedy.In a scientific paper published recently, Mitsch proposed restoring 10 percent of the swamps that once coated northwestern Ohio before pioneers drained the land for agriculture. He said that 100,000 acres of the former Great Black Swamp could be recruited to act as nature’s kidneys and sponge up agricultural runoff that feeds cyclical cyanobacteria blooms.But the revival of even a fraction of the western Lake Erie basin’s marshes could be a tough sell in a region where 15,000 farmers produce hundreds of millions of dollars worth of soybeans, corn, wheat and livestock.