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Harmful algae
Research keeping water safer By Christina Dierkes Outreach Specialist/Ohio Sea Grant dierkes.10@osu.edu
Giving thanks Top left, Bishop Daniel E. Thomas joined other volunteers at Helping Hands of St. Louis in East Toledo to serve a free Thanksgiving lunch to over 300 guests. Top right, John Ginter has clean-up duty. Bottom left, Diane Bohland and Carolyn Turnwald of St. John XXIII Parish do kitchen work. Bottom right, Bishop Thomas visits with guest Odell Welch. (Press photos by Ken Grosjean)
Court rules for Tiger Ridge
State to appeal exotic animal ruling By Larry Limpf News Editor news@presspublications.com
©2015 Hospice of Northwest Ohio
The Ohio Department of Agriculture will appeal a court decision ordering the return of animals the department seized in 2015 from the Tiger Ridge Exotics refuge in Stony Ridge. Wood County Common Pleas Court Judge Reeve Kelsey last week issued the order, setting a deadline of Nov. 29 at 5 p.m. for the animals to be returned to Ken Hetrick, the refuge owner. “ODA attorneys will also file a motion delaying the ordered movement of the animals until the appeal process is resolved. The department finds the law, and subsequent court decisions across the state, are clear regarding the scope of Ohio’s Dangerous Wild Animals Program. The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled the Director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture has authority in determining DWA issues, as specified by Ohio Revised Code,” said Mark
Bruce, communications director for the agriculture department. Judge Kelsey’s ruling says the agricultural department treated Hetrick unfairly and didn’t equitably apply the state’s relatively new Dangerous Wild Animals Act, which bans unpermitted ownership of certain animals and reptiles after Dec. 31, 2013, when it seized the animals. “Several wildlife shelter permits were granted after the Dec. 31, 2013 deadline,” the judge wrote. “Many animal holding facilities were not in compliance with regulations for up to a year or longer after their wildlife shelter permits had been granted But the ODA looked at Mr. Hetrick with ‘an evil eye and an unequal hand.’ The court finds that ODA purposefully and intentionally discriminated against Mr. Hetrick when it denied his wildlife shelter permit application.” The order requires the agriculture department to issue a permit for 2016 to Hetrick and allows him 30 days to apply for a renewal of his permit for 2017.
Judge Kelsey’s order also notes Hetrick’s facility had been licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and no animal had escaped or injured someone in the 40 years he’d been housing animals. In the fall of 2014, Hetrick began receiving funds from donors across the nation and raced to make the improvements required by state law as well as purchase the needed insurance. “We’re working every night to try to get in compliance with everything they want,” he said at the time. “I have the signs made. I have the insurance, microchips.” Donations have been sent, he said, and a “small army of guys” helped install new fencing to meet state regulations. Hetrick said in 2014 his animals were donated to him from owners who no longer wanted them and many were elderly. Tiger Ridge Exotics was then home to six tigers, three lions, one liger, one leopard, one bobcat, one mountain lion, one bear and two timber wolves.
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In the aftermath of the 2014 harmful algal bloom (HAB) in Lake Erie, which left residents in the city of Toledo without drinking water, there’s been a lot of activity around making sure something similar doesn’t happen again. Water treatment plants have added additional testing for the algal toxin microcystin that caused Toledo’s water shutdown, Dr. Justin Chaffin scientists are monitoring HABs as they develop, and backup intakes let larger plants avoid pulling in potentially contaminated water altogether. But remembering the news reports of people stuck without water for days, some concerned citizens may still wonder “what if?” Dr. Glenn Lipscomb at the University of Toledo will address just that question. As a chemical engineer, one of his focus areas is membrane separation, where thin filter membranes are used to separate very small particles or even molecules – oxygen from the nitrogen and gases that make up the air we breathe, for example. “When this incident we had two years ago occurred, it was a natural fit,” Lipscomb said. “It was obvious that a reverse osmosis membrane would take out the microcystin in the water, and it was just a question of coming up with a way to provide some certainty to the fact that it’ll do that.” Reverse osmosis (RO) occurs when water is pushed through a semipermeable membrane with “holes” that are too small for anything but the water molecules themselves. The process is commonly used in drinking water purification, as it removes minerals and particles that can cause undesirable flavors. Partnering with NSF International (forContinued on page 2
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When you are hungry, cold and sitting in the dark, none of those other things seem to matter too much.
Matt Reese See page 8