The 2023 summer months set new records for heat.  Along with the falling records, increasingly there have been deadly reminders of how global warming is destroying the environment:  unprecedented heat waves, rising sea levels, huge wildfires, once-in-a-millennium droughts, staggering rainstorms and floods.  These all are examples of the impact that a rapidly heating planet is having on the world.

The decades-old predictions of how climate changes would destabilize the world’s climate sadly have turned out to be accurate – if not underestimating the negative impacts.

The heat, the droughts, the fires, the famines are all obvious examples.  But there are other threats that have received less attention.

The rapidly heating planet is causing big problems in lakes across the globe, including here in New York.  Freshwaters used for recreation and as drinking water sources, are under threat from a poison – algal blooms.

The blooms are a blue-green slimy substance that floats in water.  Harmful algal blooms aren’t your typical green surface ooze that you may see on the top of lake waters.  While ugly to look at when at the surface, a bloom can also be dangerous, so much so that the state has a blanket policy warning to stay out of the water should there be evidence of one.

The heating planet drives the production of algal blooms.  Warmer temperatures prevent water from mixing, allowing algae to grow thicker and faster.  Algal blooms absorb sunlight, making water even warmer and promoting more blooms.

While every algal bloom isn’t toxic – some algal species can produce both toxic and nontoxic blooms – toxic blooms can cause problems for swimmers and other recreational users in the form of rashes or allergic reactions.  People who swim in a bloom may experience health effects, including nausea, vomiting, headaches, respiratory problems, skin rash and other reactions. There have also been reports nationwide of dogs and livestock dying shortly after swimming or wading in a bloom or drinking from water bodies with blooms.

Heat alone doesn’t stimulate algal blooms.  Climate changes have also caused stronger, more powerful storms, storms that release much more rainwater than in storms of the past.  Those incredible downpours swiftly flush whatever is sitting on the land directly into lakes, so instead of letting a natural filtration process take place, nutrients that would benefit the soil are washed into surface waters and wreak havoc in the water in the form of algal blooms.

The nutrients these blooms primarily rely on are phosphorus and nitrogen.  The algal blooms have increased due to a rise in nutrient runoff from sources such as soil erosion from fertilized agricultural areas and lawns, erosion from riverbanks, riverbeds, land clearing (deforestation), and sewage effluent.  All of these are the major sources of phosphorus and nitrogen entering waterways.  These nutrients coupled with warm, calm water is the recipe for an algal bloom.

Usually, algal blooms crop up in late summer and early fall.

This year, as in other recent years, this threat showed up in lakes as the summer progressed.  New Yorkers who are increasingly concerned about this threat to water supplies, have begun to mobilize to call on Governor Hochul to take action.  They point out that the threat has been growing for years and they want stronger and swifter regulatory action by the state government.

In their letter, they urge the governor to act to resolve problems in lakes that have documented algal blooms.  Moreover, they urged that the governor set strict timetables for state action and provide the necessary funding to in order to clean up affected lakes.

There can be no doubt that the state must develop a more aggressive game plan for dealing with the growing threat posed by algal blooms.  The planet will continue to heat up, storms will become more intense and as a result blooms will get the nutrients to grow and multiply. 

Only through concerted action can the state begin to adequately address the problem.  Unfortunately, for too long, efforts to attack this menace have fallen far short of the actions needed.

In the meantime, New Yorkers can check to see if a lake has had a confirmed algal bloom and can report their observations of one to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. 

Of course, the world must do everything possible to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and aggressively embrace energy efficiency programs and alternative energy sources.  But when it comes to protecting surface water and drinking water supplies, the state has to do a lot more to reduce the runoff from agriculture, landscaping and wastewater sources.  New York must be proactive about protecting drinking water supplies and recreational waters.  The costs for prevention are vastly cheaper than the cost of remediation and illness.