The Ohio EPA has its misgivings. But it’s given the Army Corps the certification to dump 800-thousand cubic yards of sediment dredged from the Toledo Harbor into Lake Erie.
Charter boating and environmental groups are going to the Ohio Environmental Review Commission to try to stall this year’s dumping. They maintain that Lake Erie is too shallow to handle the sediment. And they site concerns ranging from navigation to toxic algae blooms.
The  EPA doesn’t disagree. A month ago, it wrote the Army Corps that the dumping quote “is not environmentally acceptable.” But EPA spokeswoman Dina Pierce says the alternative could be closing the Toledo shipping channel – something the state cannot afford.

But the Ohio Environmental Council’s Kristy Myers says the long-term cost of dumping the sediment may be more expensive that finding alternatives such as recycling the sediment onto farm or brownfields.