Credit: The relatively rare "deer bloom" is less of a threat than this summer's forthcoming algae bloom.

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  • The relatively rare “deer bloom” is less of a threat than this summer’s forthcoming algae bloom.

With temperatures sure to warm up at some point, Lake Erie find itself hurtling toward yet another annual algae bloom that will further threaten water quality and beach-going safety this year.

The New York Times, granting northern Ohio one of its occasional datelines, sums up the matter rather tidily:

Lake Erie is sick. A thick and growing coat of toxic algae appears each summer, so vast that in 2011 it covered a sixth of its waters, contributing to an expanding dead zone on its bottom, reducing fish populations, fouling beaches and crippling a tourism industry that generates more than $10 billion in revenue annually.

So the predicted strong rains during the rest of March and April portend vast algae blooms this summer – most notably near Toledo and Sandusky. And the trend since 2002 has been a general increase in the size, scope and depth of the blooms, which essentially strangle the lake and all life within it for months on end.

This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2013.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

5 replies on “Lake Erie: Algae Blooms Ensure Ongoing Threat”

  1. So the algae blooms are from rain?
    Really…
    There is some fishy information here…
    Yup I meant that pun too!

  2. The algae blooms are from nutrients (fertilizer) being washed off fields and out of sewage plants into the streams and rivers by the rain. The nutrients feed the algae and the algae bloom grows bigger and bigger. The algae eventually dies and rots, stripping oxygen from the water during decomposition to make carbon dioxide. Fish are killed by the lack of dissolved oxygen in the water.

  3. Moral of the story: start composting on your own land (including your own human waste). start discontinuing use of fertilizers, especially chemical ones that are synthetic and quickly water soluble, as they run off as soon as they are washed off.

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