Toxic algae out break in 2013 fooled U.S. experts

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2013/11/09/Toxic-algae-out-break-in-2013-fooled-U-S-experts.html

Toxic algae out break in 2013 fooled U.S. experts

Western Lake Erie’s 2013 toxic algae outbreak was worse than expected, fooling the most advanced scientific prediction model the federal government has developed and covering more of the lake’s open water than any of the recent outbreaks except the 2011 record.

The University of Toledo’s top algae researcher, Tom Bridgeman, an associate professor of environmental science and a researcher at UT’s Lake Erie Center, presented a graphic that reflected that information at the UT College of Law’s 13th annual Great Lakes water-law conference on Friday.

The graphic showed this year’s bloom — while not a record-setter — went well beyond the Lake Erie islands and fanned out across more of the lake than expected. It didn’t get past Cleveland and penetrate the lake’s central basin as did the 2011 outbreak.

“The 2013 bloom was second only to 2011 in the open water,” Mr. Bridgeman told nearly 300 people who attended the seminar.

Another noteworthy feature of this year’s bloom: It was so dense along Lake Erie’s southern shoreline that a lot of it spent extended time underneath the water instead of on its surface.

High winds mixed it deep into the water. The lake’s predominant form of toxic algae, microcystis, tends to bubble up and float to the surface as it releases gases. But the mat was so thick that the weight of it kept a lot of the algae deep under water, Mr. Bridgeman said.

That helps explain why the water-treatment plant in Ottawa County’s Carroll Township, which serves 2,000 people, became so overwhelmed by the algae’s toxin, microcystin, that superintendent Henry Biggert took the unprecedented action of shutting it down. Mr. Biggert had service switched over temporarily in September to the system that serves the Port Clinton area.

That was the first time in Ohio history that a Lake Erie water-treatment plant was taken offline because of algae.

The Toledo water-treatment plant, northwest Ohio’s largest and most sophisticated, was able to neutralize the algae. But plant operators there also noticed higher-than-normal spikes and ended up getting $1 million more in emergency funds from Toledo City Council to ward off the threat.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, using a newly developed scientific model, accurately predicted the 2013 bloom would be “significant,” but did not anticipate it being as bad as it was.

“They got close, but they underestimated what the bloom actually was,” Mr. Bridgeman said.

In a 110-page report planned for release later this month, a state task force trying to reduce western Lake Erie’s toxic algae will call for a 40 percent reduction in all forms of phosphorus entering northwest Ohio waterways.

The Ohio Phosphorus Task Force’s report, an update to its initial 2010 study, could affect farmers, sewage plant operators, large land-based businesses such as golf courses, and homeowners — anyone who uses or manages large amounts of fertilizers.

State and federal legislators are expected to use the task force recommendations when deciding whether to expand existing laws or adopt new ones.

Efforts could include a stronger focus on mixing nutrients in farm soil to reduce agricultural runoff into waterways, tighter controls on animal manure — including a ban on winter application — and an effort to fix sewage overflows faster.

The recommendations have been anticipated for months. They were made public by Mr. Bridgeman at the conference.

Mr. Bridgeman said the state task force chairman, Ohio Lake Erie Commission Executive Director Gail Hesse, gave him permission to release an excerpt of the report.

The seminar included discussions of similar algae problems in other parts of America, such as Florida, the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Cheasapeake Bay.

“In Florida, we focus on the public-health threat,” said Monica Reimer, a Tallahassee lawyer employed by Earthjustice, one of the nation’s largest environmental law groups. “It’s not good enough to say fish are dead. Algae’s a public health threat.”

She said dozens of manatees died in the state in 2013 because they ingested toxic algae.

Emily Collins, an Ohio native who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, likened the Cheasapeake Bay’s ecology to that of the Great Lakes.

She said people don’t realize how long it can take a system to recover once it’s been fouled: The full benefit of a 2009 executive order to clean the Cheasapeake, signed by President Obama shortly after he entered the White House, could take 20 to 40 years beyond the target date of 2025 for many of the pollution controls, Ms. Collins said.

Former Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Chris Korleski, who leads the U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office in Chicago, was the keynote speaker. He said the task of restoring the Great Lakes will take decades, even with $1.3 billion allocated under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative since 2010 to address issues such as algae and other forms of pollution, as well as invasive species.

Climate change complicates restoration efforts, Mr. Korleski said, noting that scientists now believe the greatest factor for algae is the amount of rain that falls between March 1 and June 30.

“Storms don’t feel like they did when I was a kid. They just don’t. And I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon,” Mr. Korleski said.

“My prediction,” he added, “is we will continue to wrestle with this [algae] issue, we will continue to talk, and — over time — we will make progress.”

Lake Erie algae bloom intensifying

http://www.13abc.com/story/23224481/lake-erie-algae-bloom-intensifying

Lake Erie algae bloom intensifying

A new report this week shows the algae bloom in Lake Erie is intensifying.

It's more than just unsightly.  It's a big threat to the multi-billion dollar tourism industry.

Captain Rick Unger is one of hundreds of charter boat operators on Lake Erie.

"We've been seeing a lot of blooms," says Unger, the owner of Chief's Charters. "They're out there."

A new report this week warns the algae bloom has intensified.  There may be patches of green scum from the Bass Islands west to Maumee Bay.

Meanwhile, the state warning remains in effect at Maumee Bay State Park where it looks like green paint is washing ashore.

The health advisory at the beach means the level of bad bacteria in the water has reached unsafe levels there and could make you sick.

"It's a threat to every business in Northwest Ohio," says Unger.

"The algal bloom in Maumee Bay, particularly, is very large, very intense right now," says Dr. Thomas Bridgeman who works at the University of Toledo and studies these types of blue-green algae blooms in the Great Lakes.

Bridgeman says this year's bloom isn't as large as the massive blob that stretched all the way to Cleveland in 2011, but it's larger than last year.    

"If 2011 becomes the new normal, Lake Erie would be in serious, serious trouble," says Bridgeman.  "It's already in trouble. But if 2011 became the new normal then I would fear for the potential collapse of our fisheries and recreational industries along Lake Erie."

Tourism in Ohio is an $11 billion industry.  $1.2 billion of that is from fishing.

"This is a problem we can fix," says Unger.

Unger is also the President of the Lake Erie Charter Boat Association which has been working with lawmakers for years to fight the fertilizer run-off into the water.

"All of them understand the resource is too valuable to lose and they're all working hard for a solution," says Unger.

Huge toxic algae bloom expected for Lake Erie

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/04/29/wdr-algae-bloom-predicted-lake-erie.html

Huge toxic algae bloom expected for Lake Erie

Scientists are warning that conditions are perfect for a bumper crop of algae to grow in Lake Erie this summer.


They say heavy April showers are washing fertilizer off farm fields into the water in larger amounts, and those chemicals feed algae blooms that starve the lake of oxygen. Feeding on phosphorus, algae produces bad smells and toxins that are absorbed by underwater life, choking it off.

"There's a 99 per cent chance, there's a strong chance, that [we will] have very bad algae this year," said Raj Bejankiwar, a scientist with the International Joint Commission.

The warning comes two years after Lake Erie experienced the worst algae blooms on record.

By the numbers

Approximately 40 million people live around the Great Lakes.
About 73 million tourists visited the Great Lakes in Ontario in 2010.
About $12.3 billion was injected into the economy by those tourists.
Source: IJC

Blooms are traditionally confined to the summer months, mainly August. Last year, however, warmer temperatures in March allowed algae to grow earlier in the year, but the bloom wasn't as big as the one witnessed in 2011.

This year, April rain could cause as big a bloom as the one from two years ago. Heavy spring rain was to partially blame for that one, too.

Phosphorus gets from the fields to the lakes in one of three ways:

Blown there by the wind.
Soaking through the soil, entering the ground water and flowing into rivers and lakes.
Rain washes it off the top of the soil and directly into rivers and lakes.

Bejankiwar is the lead on the Lake Erie Ecosystem Priority, a branch of the IJC that is studying algae levels in Lake Erie. He said it's normal to have some algae in the lake, but not massive blooms.
Bejankiwar said extra nutrients that feed algae also come from sewage treatment plants, recreational properties and golf courses. He said most of the phosphorus comes from farm run-off.

It's not much phosphorus per farm or per hectare, but it adds up, says one professor.
"If we're talking about the amount a farmer would lose, we're talking less than a few grams per hectare," said Ivan O'Halloran, a professor at Ridgetown College.
O'Halloran said that one kg of phosphorus run-off can have a "significant impact" on algae levels.

'No fertilizer police'
He said one way farmers try to decrease the amount of phosphorus that ends up in the lakes is to make sure they only put what they need into the soil. Soil tests can be done to see how much fertilizer is necessary.

However, there are no "fertilizer police," and best management practices are not laws: they are suggestions, O'Halloran said. That all makes it hard to regulate the distribution of fertilizer.

Henry Denotter, a Kingsville farmer, plants ground cover in the fall to keep the fertilizer from washing into the ditch. After the wheat is harvested, Denotter plants beets and clover in his wheat field to keep the soil in place. Even then, some phosphorus always escapes, he said.
"We do whatever we can to try and retain it, but we have to stay in business, too," Denotter said.
Denotter said it's impossible to keep all the fertilizer in the soil and dire predictions from scientists won't change that.
He thinks scientists should recognize there is only so much farmers can do.
Denotter already uses GPS to determine where he needs to fertilize; uses soil tests to determine how much fertilizer he needs; and uses what he calls a "no-till" system, where he doesn't turn up the earth.
Denotter said it's in farmers' best interest to do what they can to keep the phosphorus in the soil because it costs about $700 per tonne.

Last fall, the Essex Region Conservation Authority and Windsor-Essex County Environment Committee launched an educational campaign about blue-green algae. It's called Overload: Lake Erie Blue Green Algae.

How’s the algae at Lake Erie?

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/sports/erie-fishing-looks-good-but-watch-out-for-the-alga/nW7Mr/?goback=%2Egmp_3809234%2Egde_3809234_member_227761421

Erie fishing looks good, but watch out for the algae

By Jim Morris

People used to ask me, “How’s the fishing at Lake Erie?”

Not anymore.

Now they ask, “How’s the algae at Lake Erie?

“I have actually heard some people say they think the algae helps attract walleyes,” said Jeff Tyson, Lake Erie program administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. “We get mixed reactions, though. Other people don’t like pulling fish through the algae blooms.”

Tyson says scientists see the algae bloom tied to the weather.

“When we have a wet spring, March through June, and loading from the Maumee River (spreading of nutrients from runoff), we can expect algae bloom,” he said. “In 1911 we had record precipitation and that really brought on the algae bloom, but last year it was very dry and we had very little,” he said.

Unfortunately, all the snow and rain has made for wet conditions this spring.

As far as walleye fishing goes, anglers can expect another good year, because there are plenty of fish available from good hatches in 2007 and 2010. And the record hatch of 2003 is still contributing in a big way.

“We figured last year about 35 percent of the walleyes in the lake came from the 2003 class,” Tyson said.

Those 10-year-old fish are now monsters – 30 to 35 inches in length. That means plenty of folks will be catching big fish, more than big enough to earn a “Fish Ohio” pin.

The ’07 fish are 24 inches or more and the ’10 fish are 15 inches and up, making them legal keepers.

Yellow perch fishing is also expected to be good this year. But as it has been in recent years, the further east you go to fish, the larger and more plentiful the perch.

“The catch rate was up last year over 2011,” Tyson said. “It’s holding pretty steady at about 3.5 fish per person, per hour.

“But we’d like to see some better hatches in the Western Basin, There were actually some good hatches in the Central Basin last year and that’s where we’re seeing more stability.”

Although the walleye and perch fishing are considered very good, perhaps the most success in Lake Erie fish management has come with smallmouth bass.

“The catch rate for smallmouth bass in 2012 was the highest we’ve see in at least a decade,” Tyson observed. “It’s been trending up. We have had some good hatches.”

He said the closed season for keeping bass during May and June that was imposed several years ago seems to have improved the fishery.

Generally, the best bass fishing has been around the reefs and the islands, but now bass are showing up along the shore in the main lake – but they aren’t smallmouth. For years, largemouth bass have been caught in the rivers and around marinas and docks, but now they seem to be branching out.

“The University of Toledo has been conducting a near-shore assessment survey over the past two years. We’re seeing a lot of largemouth bass, so it’s a developing fishery and that’s kind of interesting,” Tyson said.

Quotas set: The Lake Erie quotas for yellow perch and walleye have been set. Ohio’s total allowable catch for walleyes is 1.715 million. Last year an estimated 920,000 were caught in Ohio waters. The perch quota is 4.8 million pounds. About 3.5 million pounds were caught in Ohio in 2012.

Tyson said those numbers indicate there will be no change in bag limits for either species this year. The walleye bag limit is four until May 1, then six until March 1, 2014. Perch limits remain as 30 lakewide.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How’s the algae at Lake Erie ?

Wrong questions lead to wrong answers.

The right question to ask is -
How are the Diatoms in Lake Erie ?

Lake Erie Algal Bloom on March 21, 2012

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77506&src=eoa-iotd

After a nearly ice-free winter, Lake Erie was filled with swirls of suspended sediment and algae on the first day of spring 2012. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image at 16:25 a.m. Central Daylight Time on March 21, 2012.
Muddy, tan-colored water along the shoreline reveals sediment that has washed out of the rivers and streams that feed the lake. Milky green, light blue, and white shades may also be sediment-rich waters. As the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Erie’s bottom can be stirred up by strong spring winds and the currents they generate. The lake bottom is rich in quartz sand and silt, as well as calcium carbonate (chalk) from limestone.
Warm temperatures this winter meant more rainfall than snow, and more immediate runoff from streams. River flow with sediment was much higher than average for much of the winter, according to NOAA oceanographer Richard Stumpf.
Some patches of green in the water are algae and other forms of phytoplankton. Air temperatures have been well above normal in the region for most of the winter, and particularly in the past week. Since the lake has been mostly clear of ice, algae and other phytoplankton have been blooming for several weeks. By mid-March, water temperatures in Lake Erie were in the upper 30s (Fahrenheit). “Even when ice covered, Lake Erie can get strong winter algal blooms,” wrote Stumpf.

Related reports
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=76115
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail2.php?MediaID=989&MediaTypeID=1

Lake Erie Algae, Ice, Make a Nice Mix in Winter

http://eponline.com/articles/2012/01/11/lake-erie-algae-ice-make-a-nice-mix-in-winter.aspx

Lake Erie Algae, Ice, Make a Nice Mix in Winter
...

Results of the study, "Diatoms abound in ice-covered Lake Erie: An investigation of offshore winter limnology in Lake Erie over the period 2007 to 2010," are reported by Michael Twiss, Mike McKay, Rick Bourbonniere, George Bullerjahn, Hunter Carrick, Ralph Smith, Jennifer Winter, Nigel D’souza, Paula Furey, Aubrey Lashaway, Matt Saxton and Steve Wilhelm in Volume 38, No. 1, of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, published by Elsevier, 2011.

...

http://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2011/07/agricultural_pollution_blamed.html

Agricultural pollution blamed for Lake Erie blooms, fish woes

Published: Friday, July 29, 2011, 3:05 PM Updated: Friday, July 29, 2011, 3:13 PM

By D'Arcy Egan, The Plain Dealer
Follow

D'Arcy Egan, the Plain DealerRecent rains have pushed a load of nutrients from the major rivers to Lake Erie, provoking algal blooms around the lake like this one in 2010 and causing low oxygen zones.

HURON, OHIO

The blooms are back on Lake Erie, and are just as destructive as in the 1960s when the most productive fishing lake in the world was declared dead. An overload of nutrients was the culprit a half-century ago. It is again, but from a different source.

Farmers from around the region are now being blamed.

"In the 1960s, we had an overload of nutrients from sewage treatment plants, industrial plants and phosphate-rich laundry detergent," said Jeff Tyson, the head of Lake Erie fishery management at the Lake Erie Research Unit in Sandusky. The walleye and whitefish populations plummeted and the popular blue pike became extinct.

"We managed to make changes starting in 1972 with the passage of the Great Lakes Water Quality Act, controlling the point source of phosphate pollution and banning phosphates in laundry detergent."

It worked.

Phosphate pollution declined, algal blooms subsided and walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass thrived. Lake Erie became the Walleye Capital of the World in the 1980s.

In recent years, farmers have been planting more corn to take advantage of high prices driven by the production of ethanol. They are loading fields with phosphate-rich fertilizer to enhance yields. As a result, silt, sediment and fertilizer are finding their way into the Lake Erie watershed. The problem is compounded by the U.S. Corps of Engineers dumping massive amounts of nutrient-rich sediment dredged from the Maumee River into Lake Erie

After a relatively dry summer, the rains over the last couple of weeks have resulted in major runoff from farm fields, triggering an algae-green cast to Western Lake Erie. Viewing satellite images of Lake Erie, the green waters are most evident near the mouth of the Maumee River, a major Lake Erie tributary.

"We fished just west of West Sister Island last week, and found low oxygen levels in that area," said Justin Chaffin, a PhD student at the University of Toledo's Lake Erie Center. "All of the walleye we caught were close to the surface, above the low oxygen layers caused by the bloom."

Tyson said the waters east of Kelleys Island are suffering from low oxygen, as well.

"Because of the low oxygen levels the fish move out, or they move up," said Tyson. "Walleye and even yellow perch will suspend over the low oxygen areas, sometimes diving down to the bottom to feed."

Anglers are finding large numbers of walleye in surprisingly shallow water from Huron to Vermilion where oxygen levels are normal, but not in deeper waters a few miles offshore, where catches had been very good a month ago. In some areas, anglers are finding yellow perch suspending well off the bottom, despite most of their preferred forage is found close to the lake bottom.

Eutrophication, when a body of water is inundated with an overload of nutrients that stimulate excessive plant and algae growth, is the biggest problem Lake Erie fisheries manager now face, said Tyson.

"Percids, the yellow perch and walleye, do not do well in a eutrophic lake," said Tyson. "We saw that in the 1960s, when their numbers crashed. It's happening again."

Unfortunately for Lake Erie anglers who favor perch, walleye and smallmouth bass, the species of fish that do well in eutrophic waters are sheepshead, channel catfish, white bass and white perch. The proliferation of white perch, a native of brackish water along the eastern U.S. coast that arrived in Lake Erie through the Welland Canal many years ago, is also impacting schools of yellow perch, said Tyson.

"There's no quick fix," said Tyson. "We have to make changes all around the watershed and limit the nutrients flowing into Lake Erie. We have to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio EPA on board. We must provoke a major change in farming practices."

Ohio Sea Grant Research - Lake Erie diatoms

http://www.ohioseagrant.osu.edu/_documents/twineline/v31i3.pdf

Priming the Dead Zone

Newly discovered winter alga may be be linked to Lake Erie’s summertime event

by Stacy Brannan, Ohio Sea Grant Communications

With the winds howling and snow falling, it seems like few microscopic creatures could survive a winter in Lake Erie. But Ohio Sea Grant researchers Drs. Michael McKay, George Bullerjahn, and Scott Rogers of Bowling Green State University have discovered life under the icy surface in the form of the diatom Aulacoseira islandica—and they believe it may even be contributing to that summertime phenomenon, the Dead Zone.

McKay and Bullerjahn discovered the cold-loving algal plankton in Lake Erie by accident while onboard a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker with New York Sea Grant researchers Michael Twiss and Steve Wilhelm in February 2007. “Apart from Professor David Chandler’s pioneering research in the late 1930s, to our knowledge there had been little done to study Lake Erie, its microbiology, and plankton in the winter months,” McKay says.

“Our plan was to go, do some sampling, and see what was out there. We had no expectations of what we would find.” What they found were pockets of brownishlooking water, some the size of swimming pools and some that stretched for kilometers. At first they suspected it might be stirred-up sediment, but their testing proved otherwise.

“I think a lot of people assume the lake is dormant in the winter,” Bullerjahn surmises. “As biologists, we knew that wouldn’t be true, but we were not prepared for the outcome: large accumulations of healthy diatoms under the ice, causing the ice to look brown.” It turned out that 80% to 90% of the biomass in those discolored water samples was Aulacoseira islandica, a psychrophilic, or cold-adapted, diatom that can survive in low light and seemingly disappears when spring rolls around.

“They don’t seem to be present once the water warms up,” McKay explains. So, how might diatoms that thrive in the winter influence a Dead Zone that occurs in July and August? It all has to do with their life cycle.

The Aulacoseira appear to be able to maintain their position just below the surface of the ice, where they are able to absorb sunlight and multiply. What McKay and Bullerjahn want to know is what happens next. Are they eaten by zooplankton and other organisms? Or do they die and sink to the bottom of Lake Erie? “If it turns out that most of these diatoms end up on the lake floor, they would provide a large source of organic carbon for bacteria to decompose, which would consume oxygen,” McKay says. “If this decomposition happens mainly when the water warms up and stratifies—forming a warm upper layer and a cold lower layer in the summer months—and not during the frigid winter months, it has to be contributing to the Dead Zone.”

To test this theory, the group will use Sea Grant funding to collect data for the next two winters, including taking part in several more science cruises. In addition, Environment Canada will use its icebreaker to deploy sediment traps that will sit on the bottom of the lake during the coldest months of the year, which should help determine if the diatoms are indeed sinking to the bottom of the lake.

If the blooms are occurring because of high nutrient levels in the water, it would be essential to track and potentially limit the source of those nutrients. Other theories point to the zebra mussel invasion as the trigger for Aulacoseira’s growth because of the mussels’ ability to increase levels of dissolved silica, a nutrient needed in large amounts by the algae. Certainly, McKay and Bullerjahn and their newly discovered, winter-loving diatom are poised to shake up the traditional models that considered Lake Erie more or less dormant from November through March. Preliminary data should be available in Summer 2010.