BGSU gets $5.2M for new Lake Erie Center for Fresh Waters

BOWLING GREEN - Bowling Green State University announced this week the founding of the Lake Erie Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health.

“It’s a new federally funded research center that will certainly help us to better understand and prevent toxic algae blooms that plague portions of the Great Lakes and impact fresh water everywhere in the world,” said BGSU President Rodney Rogers.

The center is being established primarily through a $5.2 million five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

“This grant is a strong show of support of the quality and importance of the research into the harmful algae blooms,” Rogers said.

Along with BGSU as the lead, many other institutions are partnering on research projects being conducted at the center.

Those include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Ohio Sea Grant, the Ohio State University, University of Toledo, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, University of North Carolina and University of Tennessee.

“We’ve been working together successfully for a period of about four or more years,” said George Bullerjahn, director of the new Lake Erie Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health. “Really what this grant does is it enhances our ability to work together for a longer period of time with a lot more resources.”

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, congratulated the local professors and others who helped earn the grant and bring those dollars to this region, and described the work as critical for people in this region.

Kaptur noted this watershed, the largest in the Great Lakes, encompasses an area from west of Fort Wayne, south to Findlay and the Blanchard River, north to Michigan and the western side of Ontario.

“We realized that there was no political instrumentality that covered that area,” she said. “That makes it even more difficult to hold people accountable.”

State Rep. Randy Gardner, R-Bowling Green, said he has been working with lawmakers at each level on both sides of the aisle to address the issue, including Kaptur, U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, and Ohio’s U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman.

“This almost exclusively has become a bipartisan issue,” Gardner said. “The list of institutions coming together to be a part of the research aspect of this is just impressive.”

Rogers said algal blooms result in losses of more than $2 billion annually from their impact on drinking water, agriculture and recreation, making it a significant public issue.

Projects at the Lake Erie Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health are focused on understanding and addressing it, from toxins, to advanced monitoring, to economic impact.  

“The science is incredibly important for understanding these blooms,” said Timothy Davis, an algal bloom researcher at the center.

“The center brings together top researchers around the nation,” Rogers said. “With our partners, our goal is to make sure that we will begin to address and build the scientific capacity to understand this issue and to begin to address this issue.”

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