We love our lake. We are surrounded by fresh water, and we want to help keep it that way. Let’s start with your shower. Many of the chemicals in the products you use in your shower eventually make it to the lake: where we swim, fish, and get our drinking water. Water treatment technology does the best it can in filtering out toxins. But what if we did a better job in making sure we did not put harmful chemicals down the drain in the first place?
Kelleys Island Soap Company is committed to helping protect clean water. We do this two ways: (1) we make clean soap free of synthetics and other harmful ingredients; and (2) we donate a portion of the profit from each bar to causes that protect clean water.
Lake Erie Facts: Lake are is one of the five "Great Lakes" in the United States. It is the shallowest and smallest in volume of the Great Lakes. The Lake is fed on the West by the Detroit River and splashes out to the east over Niagara Falls through the Niagara River and St. Lawrence Seaway. The Western Basin, where Kelleys Island sits, its the shallowest, warmest, and most nutrient rich part of the Lake.
Her maximum depth is 210 feet, or 35 fathoms. She is named after the Native American Erie Tribe, a shortened form of the Iroquoian word Erielhonan, meaning long tail. She's the warmest in the summer, and the first lake to freeze in the Winter. She can get rough very quickly, waves building to seiches as winds whip along the fetch of the Lake.
Ironically, Lake Erie is largely responsible for the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It took the dramatic burning of the Cuyahoga River in 1969 to capture the attention of the world on the need for clean water environmental regulation and reform.
Because of her shallow depths, Lake Erie has a water retention time of only 2.6 years. In the Western Basin, water retention is only 20 to 50 days. By comparison, the lake retention time for Lake Superior is 191 years. This means Lake Erie can empty herself and refill in only 2.6 years. This means there is great potential for quick renewal and repair.
It also means that fish love Lake Erie. The temperature, nutrients, and water retention rate make Lake Erie a great place for walleye, perch, and other species to live and raise a family.
Now, tourism in the eight Ohio counties that border Lake Erie supports almost 124,000 jobs and has an annual economic value in excess of $14 billion (data as of 2016).
We love our Lake. We don't put anything in our soap that shouldn't go into our Lake.