Federal regulators in Canada and the United States Monday announced new targets aimed at reducing phosphorus entering Lake Erie by 40 percent. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister announced the targets to minimize the extent of low oxygen “dead zones” in the central basin of Lake Erie. By doing so, the EPA says the targets will maintain algae growth at a level consistent with healthy aquatic ecosystems and maintain algae biomass at levels that do not produce toxins. Through the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, Canada and the United States committed in 2012 to combat the growing threat of toxic algae development in Lake Erie and to develop targets by 2016. Canada and the United States have committed to develop domestic action plans, by no later than February 2018, to help meet the new targets. Since the 1990s, Lake Erie has seen an increase in algal growth that has compromised water quality and threatens the Lake Erie region’s recreation-intensive economy, according to the EPA.