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East Oregonian
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Saturday, November 18, 2017
Toxic algae: Once a nuisance, now a severe threat
Snake River, some Oregon
reservoirs test positive
Associated Press
MONROE, Mich. — Competing in a
bass fishing tournament two years ago, Todd
Steele cast his rod from his 21-foot motorboat
— unaware that he was being poisoned.
A thick, green scum coated western Lake
Erie. And Steele, a semipro angler, was sick-
ened by it.
Driving home to Port Huron, Michigan,
he felt lightheaded, nauseous. By the next
morning he was too dizzy to stand, his
overheated body covered with painful hives.
Hospital tests blamed toxic algae, a rising
threat to U.S. waters.
“It attacked my immune system and shut
down my body’s ability to sweat,” Steele
said. “If I wasn’t a healthy 51-year-old and
had some type of medical condition, it could
have killed me.”
He recovered, but Lake Erie hasn’t. Nor
have other waterways choked with algae
that’s sickening people, killing animals
and hammering the economy. The scourge
is escalating from occasional nuisance to
severe, widespread hazard, overwhelming
government efforts to curb a leading cause:
fertilizer runoff from farms.
Pungent, sometimes toxic blobs are
fouling waterways from the Great Lakes to
Chesapeake Bay, from the Snake River in
Idaho to New York’s Finger Lakes and reser-
voirs in California’s Central Valley.
Last year, Florida’s governor declared
a state of emergency and beaches were
closed when algae blooms spread from Lake
Okeechobee to nearby estuaries. More than
100 people fell ill after swimming in Utah’s
largest freshwater lake. Pets and livestock
have died after drinking algae-laced water,
including 32 cattle on an Oregon ranch in
July. Oxygen-starved “dead zones” caused
by algae decay have increased 30-fold
since 1960, causing massive fish kills. This
summer’s zone in the Gulf of Mexico was the
biggest on record.
Tourism and recreation have suffered.
An international water skiing festival in
Milwaukee was canceled in August; scores of
swimming areas were closed nationwide.
Algae are essential to food chains, but these
tiny plants and bacteria sometimes multiply
out of control. Within the past decade,
outbreaks have been reported in every state,
a trend likely to accelerate as climate change
boosts water temperatures.
“It’s a big, pervasive threat that we as a
society are not doing nearly enough to solve,”
said Don Scavia, a University of Michigan
environmental scientist. “If we increase the
amount of toxic algae in our drinking water
supply, it’s going to put people’s health at
risk. Even if it’s not toxic, people don’t want
to go near it. They don’t want to fish in it or
swim in it. That means loss of jobs and tax
revenue.”
Many monster blooms are triggered by an
overload of agricultural fertilizers in warm,
calm waters, scientists say. Chemicals and
manure intended to nourish crops are washing
into lakes, streams and oceans, providing an
endless buffet for algae.
Government agencies have spent billions
of dollars and produced countless studies on
the problem. But an Associated Press inves-
tigation found little to show for their efforts:
—Levels of algae-feeding nutrients such
as nitrogen and phosphorus are climbing in
many lakes and streams.
—A small minority of farms participate
in federal programs that promote practices to
reduce fertilizer runoff. When more farmers
want to sign up, there often isn’t enough
money.
—Despite years of research and testing,
it’s debatable how well these measures work.
Depending on farmers
The AP’s findings underscore what many
experts consider a fatal flaw in government
policy: Instead of ordering agriculture to stem
the flood of nutrients, regulators seek volun-
tary cooperation, an approach not afforded
other big polluters.
Farmers are asked to take steps such as
planting “cover crops” to reduce off-season
erosion, or installing more efficient irrigation
systems — often with taxpayers helping foot
the bill.
The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation
Service, part of the Department of Agricul-
ture, says it has spent more than $29 billion
on voluntary, incentive-based programs since
2009 to make some 500,000 operations more
environmentally friendly.
Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for
programs, told AP the efforts had produced
“tremendous” results but acknowledged only
about 6 percent of the nation’s roughly 2
million farms are enrolled at any time.
In response to a Freedom of Information
Act request, the agency provided data about
its biggest spending initiative, the Envi-
ronmental Quality Incentives Program, or
EQIP, which contracts with farmers to use
pollution-prevention measures and pays up to
75 percent of their costs.
An AP analysis shows the agency paid
out more than $1.8 billion between 2009 and
2016 to share costs for 45 practices designed
to cut nutrient and sediment runoff or other-
wise improve water quality.
A total of $2.5 billion was pledged during
the period. Of that, $51 million was targeted
for Indiana, Michigan and Ohio farmers in
the watershed flowing into western Lake Erie,
where fisherman Steele was sickened.
Yet some of the lake’s biggest algae
blooms showed up during those seven years.
The largest on record appeared in 2015, blan-
keting 300 square miles — the size of New
York City. The previous year, an algae toxin
described in military texts as being as lethal
as a biological weapon forced a two-day
Greg Lovett/The Palm Beach Post via AP
This 2016 aerial photo shows blue-green algae in an area along the St. Lucie River in Stuart, Fla. In 2016, Florida’s governor
declared a state of emergency and beaches were closed when algae blooms spread from Lake Okeechobee to nearby estuaries.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya
Charter boat captain Dave Spangler holds a sample of algae from Maumee Bay in
Lake Erie in Oregon, Ohio, in September. Scientists estimate about 85 percent of
the Maumee’s phosphorus, which promotes algal growth, comes from croplands
and livestock operations.
tap water shutdown for more than 400,000
customers in Toledo. This summer, another
bloom oozed across part of the lake and up
a primary tributary, the Maumee River, to the
city’s downtown for the first time in memory.
The type of phosphorus fueling the
algae outbreak has doubled in western Lake
Erie tributaries since EQIP started in the
mid-1990s, according to research scientist
Laura Johnson of Ohio’s Heidelberg Univer-
sity. Scientists estimate about 85 percent
of the Maumee’s phosphorus comes from
croplands and livestock operations.
NRCS reports, meanwhile, claim that
conservation measures have prevented huge
volumes of nutrient and sediment losses from
farm fields.
Although the federal government and
most states refuse to make such anti-pol-
lution methods mandatory, many experts
say limiting runoff is the only way to rein
in rampaging algae. A U.S.-Canadian panel
seeking a 40 percent cut in Lake Erie phos-
phorus runoff wants to make controlling
nutrients a condition for receiving federally
subsidized crop insurance.
“We’ve had decades of approaching this
issue largely through a voluntary framework,”
said Jon Devine, senior attorney for the
Natural Resources Defense Council. “Clearly
the existing system isn’t working.”
Farmers, though, say they can accom-
plish more by experimenting and learning
from each other than following government
dictates.
“There’s enough rules already,” said John
Weiser, a third-generation dairyman with
5,000 cows in Brown County, Wisconsin,
where nutrient overload causes algae and
dead zones in Lake Michigan’s Green Bay.
“Farmers are stewards of the land. We want
to fix the problem as much as anybody else
does.”
The Environmental Protection Agency
says indirect runoff from agriculture and
other sources, such as urban lawns, is now the
biggest source of U.S. water pollution. But
a loophole in the Clean Water Act of 1972
prevents the government from regulating
runoff as it does pollution from sewage plants
and factories that release waste directly into
waterways. They are required to get permits
requiring treatment and limiting discharges,
and violators can be fined or imprisoned.
Those rules don’t apply to farm fertilizers
that wash into streams and lakes when it
rains. Congress has shown no inclination to
change that.
Without economic consequences for
allowing runoff, farmers have an incentive
to use all the fertilizer needed to produce the
highest yield, said Mark Clark, a University
of Florida wetland ecologist. “There’s nothing
that says, ‘For every excessive pound I put
on, I’ll have to pay a fee.’ There’s no stick.”
Some states have rules, including fertilizer
application standards intended to minimize
runoff. Minnesota requires 50-foot vegetation
buffers around public waterways. Farmers
in Maryland must keep livestock from defe-
cating in streams that feed the Chesapeake
Bay, where agriculture causes about half
the nutrient pollution of the nation’s biggest
estuary.
But states mostly avoid challenging the
powerful agriculture industry.
Wisconsin issues water quality permits for
big livestock farms, where 2,500 cows can
generate as much waste as a city of 400,000
residents. But its Department of Natural
Resources was sued by a dairy group this
summer after strengthening manure regula-
tions.
The state’s former head of runoff manage-
ment, Gordon Stevenson, is among those
who doubt that the voluntary approach will
be enough to make headway with the algae
problem.
“Those best-management practices are
a far cry from the treatment that a pulp and
paper mill or a foundry or a cannery or a
sewage plant has to do before they let the
wastewater go,” he said. “It’s like the Stone
Age versus the Space Age.”
Questionable results
Do the anti-pollution measures subsidized
by the government to the tune of billions of
dollars actually work?
Agriculture Department studies of
selected watersheds, based largely on farmer
surveys and computer models, credit them
with dramatic cutbacks in runoff. One found
nitrogen flows from croplands in the Missis-
sippi River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico
would be 28 percent higher without those
steps being taken.
Critics contend such reports are based
mostly on speculation, rather than on actually
testing the water flowing off fields.
Although there is not a nationwide
evaluation, Bramblett said “edge of field”
monitoring the government started funding in
2013 points to the success of the incentives
program in certain regions.
Federal audits and scientific reports raise
other problems: Decisions about which farms
get funding are based too little on what’s best
for the environment; there aren’t enough
inspections to ensure the measures taken are
done properly; farm privacy laws make it
hard for regulators to verify results.
It’s widely agreed that such pollution
controls can make at least some difference.
But experts say lots more participation is
needed.
“The practices are completely over-
whelmed,” said Stephen Carpenter, a Univer-
sity of Wisconsin lake ecologist. “Relying
on them to solve the nation’s algae bloom
problem is like using Band-Aids on hemor-
rhages.”
The AP found that the incentives program
pledged $394 million between 2009 and 2016
for irrigation systems intended to reduce
runoff — more than on any other water
protection effort.
In arid western Idaho, where phosphorus
runoff is linked to algae blooms and fish
kills in the lower Snake River, government
funding is helping farmer Mike Goodson
install equipment to convert to “drip irriga-
tion” rather than flooding all of his 550 acres
with water diverted from rivers and creeks.
But only 795 water protection contracts
were signed by Idaho farmers between
2014 and 2016, accounting for just over 1
percent of the roughly 11.7 million farmland
acres statewide. Even if many farmers are
preventing runoff without government subsi-
dies, as Bramblett contends, the numbers
suggest there’s a long way to go.
Goodson says forcing others to follow his
example would backfire.
“Farmers have a bad taste for regulatory
agencies,” he said, gazing across the flat,
wind-swept landscape. “We pride ourselves
on living off the land, and we try to preserve
and conserve our resources.”
But allowing farmers to decide whether to
participate can be costly to others. The city
of Boise completed a $20 million project last
year that will remove phosphorus flowing off
irrigated farmland before it reaches the Snake
River.
Algae plague spreads
While there’s no comprehensive tally of
algae outbreaks, many experts agree they’re
“quickly becoming a global epidemic,” said
Anna Michalak, an ecologist at the Carnegie
Institution for Science at Stanford University.
A rising number of water bodies across the
U.S. have excessive levels of nutrients and
blue-green algae, according to a 2016 report
by the Environmental Protection Agency and
U.S. Geological Survey. The algae-generated
toxin that sickened Steele in Lake Erie was
found in one-third of the 1,161 lakes and
reservoirs the agencies studied.
California last year reported toxic blooms
in more than 40 lakes and waterways, the
most in state history. New York created a
team of specialists to confront the mounting
problem in the Finger Lakes, a tourist magnet
cherished for sparkling waters amid lush
hillsides dotted with vineyards. Two cities
reported algal toxins in their drinking water
in 2016, a first in New York.
More than half the lakes were smeared
with garish green blooms this summer.
“The headlines were basically saying,
‘Don’t go into the water, don’t touch the
water,’” said Andy Zepp, executive director
of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, who lives
near Cayauga Lake in Ithaca. “I have an
11-year-old daughter, and I’m wondering, do
I want to take her out on the lake?”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention is developing a system for
compiling data on algae-related illnesses. A
2009-10 study tallied at least 61 victims in
three states, a total the authors acknowledged
was likely understated.
Anecdotal reports abound — a young boy
hospitalized after swimming in a Minnesota
lake; a woman sickened while jet-skiing on
Grand Lake St. Marys in western Ohio.
Signs posted at boat launches in the Hells
Canyon area along the Idaho-Oregon line
are typical of those at many recreation areas
nationwide: “DANGER: DO NOT GO IN
OR NEAR WATER” if there’s algae.
In Florida, artesian springs beloved by
underwater divers are tainted by algae that
causes a skin rash called “swimmer’s itch.”
Elsewhere, domestic and wild animals are
dying after ingesting algae-tainted water.
A year ago, shortly after a frolic in Idaho’s
Snake River, Briedi Gillespie’s 11-year-old
Chesapeake Bay retriever stopped breathing.
Her respiratory muscles were paralyzed, her
gums dark blue from lack of air.
Gillespie, a professor of veterinary medi-
cine, and her veterinarian husband performed
mouth-to-nose resuscitation and chest
massage while racing their beloved Rose
to a clinic. They spent eight hours pumping
oxygen into her lungs and steroids into her
veins. She pulled through.
The next day, Gillespie spotted Rose’s
paw prints in a purplish, slimy patch on the
riverbank and took samples from nearby
water. They were laced with algae toxins.
“It was pretty horrendous,” Gillespie said.
“This is my baby girl. How thankful I am that
we could recognize what was going on and
had the facilities we did, or she’d be gone.”