Clean Freshwater Updates – Page 6

Harmful Algae Bloom Research? More Funding!

This terrific article by CNBC presents a nice summary of some issues pertaining to Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB) across the USA. At its end, it remarks that funding for HAB research has been cut over the past several years from $22 milion to $9 million.

If this were not true, it would be considered preposterous. After all, the total budget for the US Government in 2016 is $3,950,000,000,000,000 — of which $9,000,000 is being applied for HAB research.

Let’s look at these numbers again.

$3,950,000,000,000,000.
$9,000,000.

When the 12th largest body of water in the world, Lake Erie, and the 11 million people who rely on it for their water supply are dramatically and negatively affected on an annual basis by HAB outbreaks, this meager investment is clearly insufficient.

Consider that an estimated $6,000,000,000 will be spent on the presidential election alone … and you see the problem here.

According to this terrific report by Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution , which is admittedly 20 years old, the annual cost of HAB in the USA THEN was about $50,000,000 year. That number is surely higher now … most likely markedly so.

The solutions for reducing HAB are out there. They cost money. It takes research.

A country with a budget such as our’s, with one-year presidential political campaigns that spend more than the money the National Basketball Association grosses in a year, can do much better.

Or HAB will only get worse.

CA algae blooms explained in Door County WI

Over the past few days. I have been struggling to find a clear explanation for the HAB (Harmful Algae Boom) that has overtaken Silverwood Lake, which is fed by the Mojave River, in Southeast CA. Then I happened upon a part-time resident of Door County, WI — one of the Midwest’s premier vacation spots– who was lamenting to me about the well-known, on-again-off-again HAB issues this beautiful area has experienced.

“We are told that our children can swim in the water,” she said, “and then … they can’t.”

Her frustration was palpable, and in it I found my answer: sometimes HAB can be explained when ALL elements work in balance to affect a Lake.

Silverwood Lake is unusual in that it is deep. Almost 170 feet at its deepest. But it is NOT unusual in its vulnerability to the primary factors which explain HAB in water. Always at the forefront is a tributary or land runoff super-loaded with nutrients — primarily phosphorus — pouring into a slow-moving body of water.

In Dour County, WI, that body of water is the Bay of Green Bay.

In Utah, there is Lake Utah.

In Florida there is Lake Okeechobee.

In CA, among lakes, there is Silverwood Lake.

And so it goes ….

To reduce HAB with solutions that have a chance at long-term potential, we must control what we can control — and go back to the basics of sound land management.

Utah Lake’s not so dirty secret ….

As Utah Lake battles one of the most serious Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB) in its history, once again the explanations for the outbreak are readily available.

The first? It is shallow. An average depth this year of between nine and ten feet.

The second? Water in Utah County, within which Utah Lake resides, is used primarily for agriculture. Crops that feed the cattle and dairy farms which, according this somewhat dated yet still relevant assessment from Utah Extension, show that Utah County was ranked first in the state in Total Cash Receipts from crop production and ranked third in Cash Revenue from livestock production.

As of July 2016, farmers and ranchers were being discouraged from using water from Utah Lake for irrigation and animals. The fact that these agricultural operations are using the very water to which they contribute excessive amounts of phosphorus (and other nutrients), that foster HAB, is ironic.

And, unfortunately, all too common.

Lake Okeechobee … a thumbnail explanation for HAB crisis.

No doubt about it … Florida is in crisis-mode as it contends with the horrible side-effects of Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB). Unfortunately, the crisis was all to predictable, after nearly unprecedented torrential winter rains filled Lake Okeechobee to threateningly high levels — and resulted in mass-draining of the polluted (see: toxic) lake.

ABC News reported on July 4th that Florida’s Gold Coast is suffering from a nearly worst-ever tourist turnout. Hundreds of millions of tourist dollars have already been lost, and more economic fallout will follow.

As far back as 1999, concerns over phosphorus loading from agriculture were being presented by the State of Florida Environmental Protection Agency. In 2011, even more clarity regarding phosphorus runoff into Lake Okeechobee, largely from area agriculture, was brought to light:

Water quality in the lake has degraded over time due to high phosphorus loadings resulting from man-induced hydrologic and land use modifications over the past 60 years. The total phosphorus concentrations that currently exist in the lake are in excess of the amount needed for a healthy ecosystem. The in-lake total phosphorus concentrations have doubled over the last 50 years ….

With all the aforementioned heavy rain, in February, 2016, concerns over flooding resulted in the Army Corp of Engineers decision to drain Lake of Okeechobee at a rate of 70,000 gallons per second. And eventually all this dirty water flows to the tourist areas … bringing HABs with it.

A February 26, 2016 article by ThinkProgress.org was downright prophetic in predicting the “What Happens Next” stemming from this inevitable, if ill-fated, decision.

The simple fact is this: too many nutrients in water are a bad thing. They present a problem that spreads with runoff from land, which flows into waterways and then moves to other areas. Florida’s Gold Coast may be the latest, and most glaring example. But it is far from the only one.