Beware of the water—Idaho DEQ says popular panhandle lakes have high levels of harmful algal blooms
Bloom burgs: Harmful algae blooms are proliferating across the Columbia River Basin. Courtesy of Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department
By Jordan Rane. September 6, 2021. Wanna know how record heat, drought and a few seemingly harmless extra degrees of water temperature can impact otherwise lovely lakes? Check out the creepy blue-green swirl of foam accumulating on the shores of some of northern Idaho’s prettiest bodies of water.
And read the accompanying public health advisories.
After sampling the water at three popular swimming and recreation areas in northern Idaho in July and August the state’s Panhandle Health District issued warnings.
Fernan Lake, Hayden Lake and a portion of Lake Pend Oreille (where it meets the mouth of its namesake river) have been affected by dangerously proliferating cyanotoxins, better known by this summer’s increasingly eruptive water-borne acronym—HAB
HAB, or harmful algal blooms, technically refers to bacteria and not algae (an important component of a healthy aquatic ecosystem).
While algal blooms photosynthesize like plants in warm, calm, nutrient-rich waters, with spiking temperatures they can rapidly rise to toxic levels often marked by a green-ish or brown foamy mat that doesn’t just look nasty to swimmers, waders and anglers—it plays nasty, too.
Human exposure to HAB-inhabited water can cause a range of reactions, from skin and eye irritations, allergic responses, headaches and nausea to muscle cramping and liver and kidney damage.
Pets are particularly at risk.
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“Animals exposed to HAB may die within tens of minutes or hours,” warns the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in a sobering online brochure about harmful algal blooms that’s likely receiving record hits this summer.
In California, the presence of HAB’s in the Merced River fueled speculation about their possible role in the mysterious and as yet unsolved August death of a family of hikers and their dog in one of the year’s most bizarre stories.
Scum and foam
Increasing temperatures in popular Idaho panhandle lakes are likely the prime cause, if not the only cause, for algal blooms, according to the Idaho Statesman, in a report that begins with one of the more arresting leads we’ve read in a while: “Come on in, the water’s warm, scummy and full of dangerous bacteria.”
Water temperature trends in freshwater lakes aren’t tracked by state agencies in northern Idaho or eastern Washington, which has also experienced HAB issues. But some have been pushing 80 degrees this summer, far above expected levels in the low- to mid-70s.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Pets exposed to HAB may die within tens of minutes or hours.” —Idaho Department of Health and Welfare[/perfectpullquote]
Experts believe temperature levels and proportional HAB growth is steadily rising in lakes across the Columbia River Basin.
“You can’t deny that temperature helps fuel algae blooms,” Colleen Keltz, water quality spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Ecology, told the Statesman.
How to report HABs in Idaho
“One of the more common visual HAB indicators is a blue-green water color with a surface scum or foam,” says Brian Reese, a water quality standards analyst at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
The bloomWatch app allows people to report HAB sightings and upload images.
“HAB can also look like someone spilled paint, or grass clippings floating through the water,” says Reese.
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Health and Welfare recommends avoiding water with any suspected algal bloom—which can be reported to the DEQ through the bloomWatch app or by emailing algae@deq.idaho.gov with a description of the potential bloom, the name and location of the water body and photos.
Columbia Insight contributing editor Jordan Rane is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in CNN.com, Outside, Men’s Journal and the Los Angeles Times.
