Ohio Governor John Kasich has now spoken publicly about why he fired the Ohio Department of Agriculture director.
Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
Dave Daniels says he was surprised when he was called into Kasich’s office last week and fired. But Kasich says it came down to protecting Lake Erie.
“I feel very strongly about the lake and as we get into transition, I want to make sure I have somebody there who is fully on board with that and sometimes change is necessary.”
Kasich says he’s disappointed lawmakers and farmers want to just study the lake. He says it’s been studied and he wants action now to protect it. He says it is unacceptable to continue to allow it to be polluted with runoff from farms. For his part, Daniels says he joined farmers in their reservation about an executive order Kasich signed this summer that created tougher rules on farm runoff to keep nutrients that can cause algae blooms out of Lake Erie.
