Stormwater Management in Michigan: Why LID? - Low Impact Development and Sustainable Stormwater Management - page 233

Figure B-3 Profile of total phosphorus, ATP, and chlorophyll, July 19, 1973.
Water Quality Management in the Lake Erie Basin (1975-1979)
The Lake Erie Wastewater Management Study, initiated in 1974 by the Buffalo
District of the Corps of Engineers under PL 92-500, Section 108(d), focused
on the input of pollutants to the lake from the surrounding drainage basin, some
23,000 square miles of which lie in the United States (Figure B-5). The primary
objective of the study was to identify major sources of pollution (specifically,
phosphorus) and structure a plan to restore and maintain the lake's water quality.
Early in the study it became apparent that non-point sources of phosphorus
in tributary rivers accounted for a significant portion of the total mass load-
ing to the lake, degrading the trophic level. Resource Management Associates
(later to become Cahill Associates) was charged with three critical roles in this
planning effort. The first was to design a comprehensive sampling program con-
ducted by three laboratories for wet weather analysis, utilizing a network of
continuous sampling stations that would develop chemograph-hydrograph data
for mass transport analysis. Hundreds of storm runoff chemistry data sets were
compiled for 12 tributaries over a 2-year period. In addition, the major inflow
to the lake from the upper Great Lakes, the Detroit River, was sampling using
a Corps of Engineers barge designed for major river systems, with multiple
level samplers and velocity meters, the first time this river, with an average
discharge of 192,000 ft 3 /sec, had been measured and sampled in an integrated
fashion.
Second, these data were analyzed to provide input for the Lake Erie model,
developed by Manhattan College. Third, Cahill Associates designed and com-
piled a lake resource information system, with land cover/use derived from