When Blooms Strike: HABs in Water Supplies
Facts and figures can certainly comprise the backbone of any convincing argument, but there are some who say that man is most swayed by a good story. It is for that reason that we will now follow three stories of towns, just like your own, that found themselves caught in a cycle they could not escape.
Provo, UT
In July of 2016, a blue-green algae bloom was spotted in the eastern section of Utah Lake, known as Provo Bay. Utah Department of Environmental Quality tests found that the bloom was producing two cyanotoxins — anatoxin-a and microcystin — at levels exceeding state limits, in some cases over three times the legal threshold. Satellite imaging confirmed that the bloom had spread to cover 90% of the lake’s surface and, within a month, the contaminated water had begun flowing from the lake into the Jordan River — which, itself, flows into Great Salt Lake.
Luckily, Utah Lake functions only as a recreational body of water. While thousands of residents in and around Provo, Utah, and along the Spanish Fork River and Little Cottonwood Creek, saw their water service interrupted, the number of algae-related illnesses was relatively low. One Associated Press retrospective put the tally at, “130 … people who have reported vomiting, diarrhea, headache and rashes,” while The Daily Herald reported Utah Poison Control received over, “… 322 calls from people concerned about the health of either themselves or their pets.”
The Provo Bay bloom was undeniably the largest single algal event to hit the area and, as this stuff tends to do, it grew from there.
In 2017, a dozen cyanobacteria outbreaks were reported around the state, including Utah Lake, and in 2018, anatoxin-a and microcystin were again found at levels far exceeding state thresholds in a Provo Bay blue-green algae bloom. Describing the conditions under which blue-green algae will proliferate in rates seen in these blooms, the Water Quality division of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality cited the following;
- high levels of nutrients in the water.
- warm water temperatures.
- abundant sunlight.
- calm water. (UDEQ)
Conditions like the ones described by the Utah state DEQ are frequently seen together, and are not uncommon in a body of freshwater. As summers become drier, lengthier, and enter into drought conditions, average air and water temperatures will rise, and the lack of cloud cover will make more direct sunlight available to the upper photosynthesizing layer of fresh water — called the epilimnion — where algae reproduces. Under these circumstances, lakes and rivers often dry substantially, lowering their surface level, and created isolated ponds where smaller blooms can sicken or kill wildlife.
As for the increase in nutrients, Amy Joi O’Donoghue touched on that in her coverage of the 2018 bloom for Utah-local Deseret News, saying, “The onset of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, is fueled by an excess of nutrients in the water, particularly phosphorus. Excess phosphorus is linked to human activities such as wastewater treatment discharges, agricultural operations and storm runoff.” As I discussed in my previous post, increased levels of growth-inhibiting nutrient — that is Nitrogen in a saltwater environment and Phosphorus in a freshwater one — could potentially create “seed” that could sustain blooms year-round, or make summertime blooms more fertile and prolific. The reality that O’Donoghue is touching on here is that pollution from industry and urbanization are at the crux of the issue of poisonous algae blooms.
Here again, we see mankind’s handprint in the soil — and, lo, does it fill with water.
Salem, OR
In May of 2018, for the first time in Oregon history, algal bloom toxins were detected in municipal tap water. The call came suddenly, through mass-text — a Civil Emergency. Indeed, it was nothing short of an emergency.
Not one, not two — but three simultaneous blooms occurred in separate parts of the Detroit Lake, which feeds into the local water supply. In one location, presence of liver toxins — microcystin and cylindrospermopsin — was over ten times that recommended by the CDC.
Prior to this, large algae blooms were not uncommon in Detroit Lake. In fact, blooms had saturated the water that very weekend just one year prior. Writing for Statesman Journal, Zach Urness quoted longtime resident and local business owner Dean O’Donnell, who said that the locals are accustomed to exercising caution with regard to the water.
As someone who grew up at the lake, we have never altered our plans to avoid the water due to an algae bloom and we have never gotten sick. In general, we do not drink the water, we shower after we get out of the water and we clean and cook our fish prior to eating them. — Dean O’Donnell
Despite their usual care, local officials were forced to take steps when, six days later, the water was declared unfit for consumption by children, animals, and anyone with a weakened immune system in the cities of Salem, Turner, and Stayton. Levels of toxicity were reportedly “low”, but the fallout was extreme.
Within days there were widespread reports of price gouging and shortages of bottled water throughout Salem, and the surrounding areas. The situation was so dire that Governor Kate Brown declared a state of emergency in Salem and mobilized the Oregon National Guard to deliver and distribute fresh water tanks.
The water advisory lasted for nearly a month.
In a 2018 article contributed to the Oregonian by the Salem Statesman Journal, titled Did climate trigger toxic algae bloom hurting Salem’s water?, Zach Urness, the very same reporter who covered the original 2016 contamination, offers some speculation as to what circumstances may have caused the historic bloom, which has returned with high levels of toxicity in subsequent years.
On 2016’s weather conditions, Urness writes, “The month of May was parched by every standard. It was the fourth-driest and sixth- hottest May in records dating back to 1892, National Weather Service officials said. In a normal May, the Willamette Valley and Cascade Foothills would get 2.5 to 3 inches of precipitation. This year, only a quarter inch of rain fell, [National Weather Service] officials said.” Indeed, these condition would certainly result in an increased water temperature, and the lack of storms would mean calmer waters and sunnier skies all around. What may have, at one time, been a harmless seasonal bloom, can quickly turn harmful under increasingly hot and dry conditions.
What happened in Salem was truly historic, and it let the state legislature to do something historic, themselves. The following September, it enacted rules requiring algae toxin testing from all public water providers throughout the state.
The only other place with rules so strict? Toledo, Ohio.
Toledo, OH
The following represents a rough timeline of events concerning the recurrent algae bloom plaguing Lake Erie and its effects on the local human populations;
- October 2011: The Lake Erie bloom is visible from space. It is the largest freshwater algal bloom since record keeping began in 2002.
- September 2013: Carroll Township, outside of Toledo, shuts down its water treatment plant after detecting dangerous levels of microcystin, interrupting service to some 2,000 people. Second worst bloom on record at the time, after 2011.
- August 2014: Microcystin levels from a blue-green algae bloom reach unsafe levels in municipal water, leaving half a million people across four counties and two states without water.
- August 2015: The previous record is broken and this summer’s algal bloom becomes the largest on record. Algae overflows Lake Erie and flows down over 600 miles of the Ohio River.
- July 2017: Third largest bloom on record, behind only 2011 and 2015. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Ohio Sea Grant speculate phosphorus washed out from farms along the Maumee River may have contributed.
Recently, Toledo voters passed even more landmark legislation, grating Lake Erie “rights normally associated with a person,” though the law has since been challenged by a local farmer. Since the devastating bloom in 2014, Toledo has becoming something of a radical when it comes to environmental law. Despite hurdles, the law is the first ever to extend to lakes the same kinds of legal protections that have been previously won for forests, mountains, and rivers.
Living on the cutting edge has not come cheaply for residents or local lawmakers, who have been living with the ramifications of unchecked industry pollution on their water for decades. Only in recent years have real steps been taken — since the 1970’s — to preserve the lake’s health.
Lake Erie’s situation is a perfect storm of environmental shifts and human impact. The 2015 bloom, for example, water able to cover so much of the Ohio River, in part, because the usually-rapidly flowing river was much shallower and slower that year, owing in part to hot, dry conditions. Phosphorus is contributed from local farms and other industry — almost 42,000 tons per year, according to Michael Wines, writing for the New York Times. Conditions like these make it overwhelmingly possible for a cataclysmic bloom event.
Hometown, USA
The reality is that, as human impact on the climate begins to have a more noticeable effect on our surroundings, these blooms will become not only more common, but more prolific and more toxic. Among these events are some of the largest and most costly municipal algae events within the United States in the last ten years.
Over half of the United States relies on groundwater for persona and residential use. That means that over half of us are potentially getting our drinking water from a freshwater lake or reservoir, or rely on a local watershed to filter the supply. These areas are fertile ground for harmful algae blooms, and one in your area may already be undergoing seasonal blooms. The need to safeguard these areas from further threat by human activity is paramount.
Associated Press. “Toxic Algae Blooms Becoming More Common across US.” New York Post, New York Post, 22 June 2018, nypost.com/2018/06/22/toxic-algae-blooms-becoming-more-common-across-us/.
Circle of Blue. “Toxic Algae Bloom Leaves 500,000 Without Drinking Water in Ohio.” EcoWatch, EcoWatch, 28 July 2017, www.ecowatch.com/toxic-algae-bloom-leaves-500-000-without-drinking-water-in-ohio-1881940537.html.
Hanson, Kurt. “Utah Lake Closed until Further Notice Due to Algal Bloom.” Daily Herald, Herald Communications, 23 May 2017, www.heraldextra.com/news/local/utah-lake-closed-until-further-notice-due-to-algal-bloom/article_bece7271-dc46-5017-8a6b-70de50399ca4.html.
O’Donoghue, Amy Joi. “Advisory Issued after Utah Lake’s Provo Bay Hit with Algal Bloom.” DeseretNews.com, Deseret News, 12 June 2018, www.deseretnews.com/article/900021358/advisory-issued-after-utah-lakes-provo-bay-hit-with-algal-bloom.html.
Olson-Sawyer, Kai. “Waterkeepers Fighting Harmful Algal Blooms from Coast to Coast.” Water Footprint Calculator, GRACE Communications Foundation, 10 Dec. 2018, www.watercalculator.org/footprints/harmful-algal-blooms-waterkeepers/.
Urness, Zach. “Did Climate Trigger Toxic Algae Bloom Hurting Salem’s Water?” Oregon Live, The Oregonian, 7 June 2018, www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2018/06/did_climate_trigger_toxic_alga.html.
Vanderhart, Dirk. “As Climate Warms, Algae Blooms In Drinking Water Supplies.” NPR, NPR, 3 Sept. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/09/03/641606668/as-climate-warms-algae-blooms-in-drinking-water-supplies.
Water Quality Division. “Harmful Algal Bloom on Provo Bay: Warning Advisory Posted.” Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Utah Department of Environmental Quality, 9 Aug. 2018, deq.utah.gov/communication/news/featured/harmful-algal-bloom-provo-bay-warning-advisory.
