Toxic algae season is here, and it could be a bad one.
A warm spring combined with heavy rain across the South and Midwest, as well as along the saltwater coasts, are fostering early outbreaks of dangerous cyanotoxins associated with what is popularly known as “blue-green algae.”
In Southern California, officials issued one of their earliest warnings ever for a common freshwater toxic algae called Microcystis cyanobacteria after dead fish began floating in Lake Elsinore, a 3,000-acre natural lake at the bottom of the San Jacinto watershed in Riverside County. At least four “danger” alerts have been issued for Northern California waters, including lakes in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in San Francisco’s East Bay area.
In Florida, where “red tides” associated with toxin-producing dinoflagellates have received widespread attention, health officials have issued early-year warnings for several interior lakes, including Lake Okeechobee, the primary freshwater source to the Everglades. Okeechobee had half of its surface area covered by algal blooms last summer.
