Agraria Journal Winter 2021

USGS EROS/ LANDSAT 8 IMAGE A hazardous algal bloom containing the toxin microcystis covered large portions of western Lake Erie in September 2017. AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 9 Farmers often talk in terms of acres, and the Ohio revised code, which defines what agriculture is in the state, follows suit. It uses the language of “parcels, tracts, or lots” to describe agricultural land—the purpose of which is to bound the land into different categories so that property lines can be defined, and properties can be bought and sold. This conception of land as only property does not make a lot of ecological sense, particularly when it comes to water. Anyone who has dealt with a heavy rain knows that water does not respect these constructs, and that boundaries can quickly become meaningless. Water needs to move, and will move. It makes more sense, then, to think of farms as parts of ecosystems rather than just property. That was the thinking behind the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) passed in 2019 by the citizens of Toledo. The bill created legal standing for an ecosystem by giving individual citizens the right to take legal action on behalf of Lake Erie and its watershed. The motivation for the group behind the legislation, Toledoans for Safe Water, is widely referred to as the “Toledo Water Crisis,” during which the city’s residents were told not to drink their tap water for three days in August of 2014 because of an algae bloom near a water intake station for the city. Microcystin, a toxin created by blue-green algae that can affect the liver and neurological BY SHERYL CUNNINGHAM AN A GUME T FOR THE RIGHTS OF NATURE Water Knows No Boundaries BY SHERYL CUNNINGHAM “We the people of the City of Toledo declare that Lake Erie and the Lake Erie watershed comprise an ecosystem upon which millions of people and countless species depend for health, drinking water and survival.”