Largest NJ Lake Closed, Thanks To Massive Cyanobacteria Bloom - But Pay To Clean It Up? TAXES!!

[hatrack]

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Around Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey’s largest lake, workers have been laid off, sailing lessons canceled and summers ruined. The reason: clouds of blue-green algae in the water, blooming in quantities never before recorded.

State warnings that the water is unsafe — which began in June and remain in effect for all but one small branch of the lake — have come during a summer of unusually intense algae blooms in many parts of the country. Fueled by heavy rains and hot, sunny days, the blooms have caused high-season swimming bans from lakes in the Pacific Northwest to the entire Mississippi seacoast.

Climate change is a likely factor, scientists say, in an increase in blooms of cyanobacteria — single-cell organisms that, when they grow densely, can produce toxic substances. More frequent, more intense rainstorms that drive nutrients like sewage and fertilizer into waterways — coupled with more hot days to warm the water — create ideal conditions for the blooms, which in recent years have appeared in more places, earlier in the summer.

The biggest challenge is in places with older sewer and stormwater systems that have been overwhelmed by fast-moving storms, as has happened repeatedly this summer in New Jersey and New York. The Environmental Protection Agency has put the cost of upgrading New Jersey’s stormwater system at $16 billion.

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/nyregion/lake-hopatcong-algae.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

[Blues Heron]

1. chemlawn, chemlake. Go natural it's the only way.

Welcome to the future.