How to Stop Algal Blooms: Volunteer Power
Scientific environmental advocacy organizations turn to volunteers to combat water pollution by monitoring water ecosystems.
On ten different evenings from April to September, Karla Passalacqua leaves work — the University of Michigan Medical School where she is a research microbiologist — and drives across Ann Arbor, Mich. to meet with a small group of volunteers to test the health of the Huron River. The small team then piles into a vehicle and drives from the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC) headquarters to the sites they’ll be testing that evening.
Over the next two hours, they don waterproof waders to collect water samples, measure flow rate, and record other stream health indicators. The waders keep them dry as they walk into the middle of the stream.
While the process requires a bit of technical knowledge, it’s nothing an average person can’t learn. It’s essentially dipping water from the stream’s center and stringing a flow-monitoring device from bank to bank to get a reading. After dropping samples off at a lab, the job is done.
The HRWC orchestrates the volunteers and their assignments. Since 1956 it has worked to understand and protect the Huron River and its tributaries from pollution and unwanted nutrients. Since 2002, after significant algal blooms in Ford Lake and Belleville Lake, the HRWC has conducted the volunteer-driven Chemistry and Flow Monitoring program, which Passalacqua and her team are members.
The program aims to identify and measure the pollutants in the watershed, so sampling when the water level (and pollution from storm water runoff) is highest is important to the program.
After collection, several municipal and university partners test the water samples for a number of pollutants, including phosphorus, the main culprit in the formation of algal blooms in the Great Lakes.
Nutrient and pollution levels are then reported back to the HRWC, which uses them to recommend policies or interventions to their municipal partners that will ensure the Huron River’s continued health.
They advise municipalities how to enact fertilizer bans to reduce nutrient runoff, create more rain gardens to divert and filter nutrients out of storm water, and carry out education campaigns to encourage community involvement.
Passalacqua is one of many volunteers in the Huron River watershed who drive the work of HRWC’s volunteer monitoring program. The program, unique within Michigan, is one of the few in the United States that harnesses the energy and cost-effectiveness of volunteers to do large-scale monitoring of the 130 mile river and its tributaries. Despite its uniqueness, the trailblazing program has built a significant base of knowledge and legislative success.
A Historical Record of Phosphorus and Algal Blooms
Ric Lawson, a watershed planner at HRWC, has a hand in administering the volunteer program and uses the data collected to write plans for improving water quality in the Huron River watershed. He points out that preventing algal blooms is part of the volunteer program’s origin story.
“That’s why the Chemistry and Flow Monitoring Program here in the Huron River watershed got started. We had some bad algae blooms in two of our impoundments: Ford Lake and Belleville Lake,” said Lawson.
Impoundments are places where a dam blocks the flow of a river, creating a lake where there wasn’t one before. Those slow-moving bodies of water are great collection points for phosphorus and perfect nurseries for algae growth.
The HRWC has enlisted more than 200 volunteers to keep an eye on phosphorus levels — as well as other nutrients, eroded dirt, bacteria, and pH — in the rivers and streams that eventually flow into those lakes.
A long and continuous record of phosphorus levels has a lot of value in understanding a water system and making evidence-based decisions to protect it. The longer the record gets, the better it can identify trends and show how changes in policy affect the rivers.
The Reasons for Success
Lawson said that data collected by HRWC volunteers informed Ann Arbor’s 2007 decision to ban fertilizers containing phosphorus. Volunteer data revealed that phosphorus levels in area streams fell after the ban.
The data from Ann Arbor and other Michigan municipalities convinced legislators to pass a statewide ban on fertilizers containing phosphorus in 2012.
Lawson recognizes the role of volunteers in contributing to the program’s longevity. “If we had to use professional staff to collect all the samples, it would be probably too expensive for our community partners to afford.”
A Different Approach to Monitoring Phosphorus
Jo Lattimore, an aquatic ecologist at Michigan State University, works with Michigan Clean Water Corps’ (MiCorps) volunteer lake monitoring program. MiCorps trains volunteers to monitor over 200 inland lakes throughout Michigan.
For thirty dollars, volunteers can enroll their lake in the monitoring program, collect a water sample twice a year, and receive information about the water quality of their lake.
This data is reported to Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality and other research institutions and universities interested in the health of inland lakes. But it is most often used by the volunteers and their local lake associations to take actions that ensure the lake remains healthy.
Funding is one key difference between the HRWC’s and MiCorps’ programs. MiCorps is funded by the state’s Clean Michigan Initiative, a pool of government money set aside in 1998 by Michigan’s legislature. Now, that money has been spent and with a renewal uncertain, new funding sources are needed.
However, the guarantee of continuous financial support recently expired and Latimore said, “We’re kind of in emergency mode right now.”
Without funding, those valuable continuous records, some started in 1974, are at risk of disruption. The state legislature recently committed to funding the program at least through 2019, though the future after that is uncertain.
Latimore gives credit for the additional year to one vocal group, “Frankly, the volunteers spoke up to their state representatives and said, ‘This program can’t go away. It’s very important.’”
A People-Powered Solution?
Latimore believes MiCorps’ volunteer model is best suited to small inland lakes. “I think [using this model for the Great Lakes] would be challenging. Most of our volunteers live on an inland lake, have a boat there, and it’s easy for them to get out and collect samples.”
She hinted at the possibility of near-shore sampling, which might be helpful in monitoring the nutrients likely to cause algal blooms. But ultimately, the Great Lakes are a different beast. While it has proved a useful tool for combatting algal blooms on small inland lakes, because of the unique challenges posed by the Great Lakes’ size, the model likely can’t scale up.
But when it comes to monitoring the streams and rivers that feed the Great Lakes, the model set out by the HRWC may prove more useful, since it records algae-growing nutrients in streams and rivers before they get into the lake where the task becomes much more difficult.
While he isn’t going to call it a silver bullet, Ric Lawson thinks volunteer monitoring could have an impact on phosphorus levels in the Great Lakes. “If we made that a priority, then I think we would have better ongoing understanding of the phosphorus sources,” said Lawson.
Knowledge stemming from such data has been a key component to banning fertilizers with phosphorus in Michigan. However, Lawson admits that for stopping Lake Erie’s recurrent algal blooms, he doesn’t “think the problem right now is entirely from lack of information.”
The culprit is agriculture. However, it has proved harder to regulate than municipal use of fertilizer. This divide is often referred to as point vs. non-point runoff pollution. Municipal pollution is easier to regulate since it often comes from a single point (e.g., a sewer discharge point). Agricultural pollution, however, comes from hundreds of rivulets running off huge fields. It’s harder to pinpoint and regulate such a diffuse source of pollution.
Lawson touts how the program connects people with their local bodies of water and builds the social needed for meaningful change. “The volunteers are learning something by being out there. […] They’re directly observing conditions in different parts of the watershed, and they can take that information back to their communities and be better stewards,” said Lawson.
Karla Passacquala said that her involvement has changed the way she views the waterways around her. While she was always aware of her local rivers and lakes — they were one of the reasons she moved back to Michigan from Atlanta — she’s gained a greater appreciation for the watershed. “I had no idea how huge it was — all the different creeks and how complex the ecosystem is,” she said.
Although it can’t be quantified in the same way the effects of a phosphorus ban can be, there is reason to hope in the commitment of passionate volunteers like Karla Passacquala who monitor and advocate for their waterways.
