SCHAEFER: The 2011 Lake Erie algae bloom was the worst ever recorded, even worse than back in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. But it turns out last year’s outbreak wasn’t much better. At a recent press conference at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Rick Stumpf admitted he initially under-estimated the 2013 bloom.
STUMPF: 2013 was, in fact, the second worst – about an 8.
SCHAEFER: That’s on a scale of 1-to-10. On that same scale, the 2011 bloom would be a 10. Part of the problem with last year’s forecast, Stumpf says, was that July rains were unexpectedly intense, washing heavy loads of phosphorus fertilizer, which feed the algae, from farmland along the Maumee River into in Lake Erie at Toledo. But it wasn’t just the rain. It was also the wind.
STUMPF: North winds which pushed the bloom to the Ohio coast. After that, there were stronger winds which mixed it into the water to the point where the intakes were.
SCHAEFER: The intakes Stumpf is referring to are the underwater pipes where drinking water is pulled from Lake Erie into local water systems. more than 11-million people get their drinking water from the lake. Last September, at western Lake Erie’s Carroll Township, water treatment manager Henry Biggert saw levels of algae toxins so high, he closed the plant and issued a ‘do not drink’ order for some 2-thousand residents.
HENRY BIGGERT: We made that call, somewhat out of fear, but definitely on the conservative side. We didn’t want to take that risk.
SCHAEFER: Biggert says toxins at his plant were three times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended safety level. There are currently NO US public health standards for algae toxins in drinking water. Both the US EPA and the Centers for Disease Control say they hope to release the first national guidelines by the end of this year. According to the CDC, high levels of algae toxins are potentially deadly for people and even low levels can kill farm animals and pets. Biggert has since spent more than a quarter-million dollars in new ozone technology to kill the toxins. But he still sweats the consequences if he guesses wrong.
BIGGERT: Even with our new equipment, you just say never say never with this stuff. There aren’t recall options. You can’t send water out and then, you know, wait a minute, you know, that was a bad batch and call that back.
SCHAEFER: Does any of this keep you up at night?
BIGGERT: Yes.
SCHAEFER: Biggert says he gets free testing from the nearby city of Oregon several times a week during heavy blooms. But in Toledo, the assessment and treatment costs are high. City of Toledo water treatment manager Andrew McClure says he spends about 3-thousand dollars a day for extra chemical treatment when algae blooms are intense – an annual additional cost of over a million-dollars. And all along the lake, more cities are now looking closely at what they need to do to keep algae toxins out of drinking water
NOAA’s Rick Stumpf says that makes NOAA’s weekly algae updates even more important.
STUMPF: We monitor where the blooms are, what the winds are doing, and what the winds are forecast to do. So we will be using the bulletin and the modeling we do in that in order to address any possible concentration of bloom on the Ohio coast.
SCHAEFER: At the end of June, President Obama signed a re-authorization of the federal law aimed at reducing harmful algae blooms. The legislation includes 82-Million dollars to bolster efforts by NOAA and the US EPA to study and monitor toxic algae, for the first time including freshwater systems like the Great Lakes.
* Support for Karen Schaefer’s “Year of the Lake “ series is provided by the Ohio Sea Grant College Program at Ohio State University.