Not STRS but related to one who doesn't like STRS' (and other Ohio retirement systems') retiree benefits.....

From John Curry, July 11, 2011

.....like the "Honorable"(?) Lynn Wachtmann from Napoleon. You remember, don't you? You know, the politician who wanted to base Ohio public servants' retirements on the average of their entire service career rather than the average of the best 3 years? ("Wachtmann agrees with some of Mayer's sentiments. He said final average salary should be based on a 30-year average, and that the state should move to a defined contribution plan.")

Well....Representative Lynn Wachtmann has another brainstorm and this one will ensure the livelihood of his bottled water enterprise at the expense of Ohio taxpayers, boaters and fishermen.......here it is. I have had a personal experience with this topic below and will relate so at the end of this article about Lake Erie.

John

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/07/toxic_algae_love_this_bill_edi.html

Toxic algae love Ohio water withdrawal bill: editorial

Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 11, 2011
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board

If Gov. John Kasich signs Substitute House Bill 231 into law he could unleash a blooming disaster on Lake Erie.

(Click images to enlarge)

Toxic blue-green algae already poses a significant threat to Ohioans' health, drinking water and $10 billion-a-year tourism industry. Scientists refer to the environmental eyesore as cyanobacteria. It is an apocalyptic shade of green and smells as gross as it looks. It produces a toxin, microcystin, that is harmful to humans and animals. It blooms bigger and earlier each year, fed by phosphorus that pours into the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes from farms.

Substitute House Bill 231 would allow industry to withdraw massive amounts of water -- more than neighboring Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario allow. It violates the spirit and possibly the letter of the 2008 Great Lakes Compact -- no surprise since one of its sponsors, Sen. Tim Grendell of Chesterland, worked tirelessly to torpedo that pact. (Its other sponsor, Rep. Lynn Wachtmann of Napoleon in Northwest Ohio, heads a bottling company.)

Less water in the lake means more concentrated levels of phosphorus, which means more blue-green algae.

Kill the bill, Gov. Kasich.

* * * * *

Now for my personal experience related to this very same issue.......and a plea:

As an educator (STRS) retiree (and an OPERS retiree - combined retirement) I have had a personal experience with the problem of algae and its ugly presence on another Ohio lake. For 12 years (full time summer and weekends in the spring and fall) I worked as a seasonal park officer (ranger) for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources at Ohio's largest inland lake, Grand Lake St. Marys. During my tenure there one could find the summer months of July through October with increasing amounts of algae developing at Grand Lake's surface.

This was caused primarily by runoff of watershed farm fields fertilized with manure and commercial fertilizer and aided by watershed homeowners using commercial fertilizer on their lawns that washed off during heavy rains. The result was an ever increasing contamination of the water with not only troublesome algae but also fecal coliform bacteria which caused the closing of the state's beaches at an ever increasing rate. End result.....the state's beaches found themselves posted with the "No Swimming" warning because swimming in the lake's water was unsafe.

Since my retirement from both teaching and "rangering" in 2000 the problem at Grand Lake St. Marys has increased in severity. Recently millions of dollars in home and real estate value loss has resulted and the Auglaize/Mercer county tourist industry has dropped to a trickle which has killed the local economy. Here are a few shots of what Grand Lake looked like last summer. It's too bad that the photographs don't include the stench that one could smell coming from the toxic blue-green algae. Some people even became ill due to contact with the toxins produced by the algae and pets became ill and died due to swimming in the lake.

This year, the State of Ohio has spent over one million dollars treating this lake with alum in an attempt to clean up this cesspool in the making. Will it work? The jury is still out.

The bottom line is......do we want Lake Erie to look the same? You might want to let Representative Lynn Wachtmann know. (district75@ohr.state.oh.us) It's not worth his conflict of interest to find out...is it?

John
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