The 2023 summer months set new records for heat. 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.
The decades-old predictions of how climate changes would destabilize the world’s climate sadly have turned out to be accurate.
The rapidly heating planet is also 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 poisonous algal bloom.
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 warrants people and their pets to stay out of the water should there be evidence of one.
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.
Climate changes have also caused stronger, more powerful storms, storms that release much more rainwater than in storms of the past. These 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 feed 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 disaster.
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’re calling for stronger and swifter regulatory action by 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.
New Yorkers can check to see if a lake has had a confirmed algal bloom and can report their observations 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 must do 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.
Blair Horner is executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.