Strip till unit is being built by Rohrs Manufacturing of McGuffey
By Hardin Soil & Water Conservation District
The Pilot Watershed Project is out of the starting block and running in Shallow Run. Hardin County’s Shallow Run is a watershed encircling Dunkirk and is the focus of a research effort being led by The Ohio State University and several other universities and public and private partners. The research is designed to examine if applying enough conservation practices in this watershed can create a detectable improvement in water quality. More specifically, can conservation practices reduce phosphorus loss from farm fields?
Each year a green slimy algal bloom develops in Ohio’s Lake Erie impacting water quality. Algae use the phosphorus being delivered to the lake as a food source and cover large areas of the lake and can become toxic in certain situations. Boaters, charter captains and many residents in the area don’t like that. Lake Erie, annually, is a billion dollar economic asset for the State of Ohio. Also, the city of Toledo uses water from the lake for its citizens water supply and spends millions of dollars treating water for domestic use. Many look at agriculture as being a major contributor of phosphorus and for the resulting algal bloom.
