Toxic, Blue-green Algae Infesting Northeast Lakes

Algae closes Newton beach

NEWTON, N.H. -- A potentially toxic algae has hit a third pond in New Hampshire, and authorities have closed it.

The cyanobacteria was discovered Tuesday near the town beach in Country Pond. State environmental officials are advising the public to avoid the water and keep pets away.

Showell Pond in Sandown and Willand Pond in Somersworth were closed this month because of the algae. It contains toxins that can cause everything from skin irritation, vomiting and diarrhea to liver and central nervous system damage.


Quebec's famous lakes teeming with blue-green algae

Unsightly and potentially toxic, blue-green algae has infested Quebec's prized lakes, fed by fertilizers that keep summer home lawns plush and green and local residents and authorities fretting.
With its half-a-million lakes, Quebec is nirvana to fishermen and boaters fleeing inner city stress for the peace and calm of summer cabins and mansions on the shores of cool lakes.

But this summmer, a pall has fallen over this idyllic paradise and over the surface of many lakes in the form of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria.

Besides turning the lake surface a putrid shade of green, the pond scum or bloom, as cyanobacteria is also called, can be toxic, causing skin irritation on contact and liver or nervous system problems when swallowed.

The Quebec government has posted warnings on the Internet for 72 lakes and rivers people should not drink from -- three times the number from last year.

"For two weeks, they've been providing us with water for drinking and cooking. At the beginning of the summer it was bottled, but since last week it comes in tanker trucks," said Cowansville Mayor Arthur Fauteux, whose 12,500 citizens live some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Montreal.

Most of the polluted lakes in Quebec are resort areas where decades of growing human activity has battered ecosystems to the point of fragility.

"They've built houses and cut down trees to get better views of the lakes, they've replaced natural vegetation with lawns that need fertilizing. There are many factors that over the years have wrought a change in the quality of the lake waters," Department of Environment biologist Marc Simoneau told AFP.

Blue-green algae chiefly get their nourishment from phosphorous, which is rarely found in water but becomes abundant in the presence of fertilizer that washes off lawns and farms...

"Quebec is no more polluted than other regions around the world," David Bird, a cyanobacteria specialist with the University of Quebec, Montreal, told AFP.

"These precautions are the result of global awareness to the real danger of toxic cyanobacteria after all those people died in Caruaru, in Brazil."

In 1996, some 50 people at a blood dialysis center in Brazil died after getting injections of cyanobacteria contaminated water in their veins.