New Hampshire Bulletin has a long story about cyanobacteria blooms (often called, inaccurately, algae blooms) in the state’s lakes and ponds. The full story is here.
About 60 to 70 water bodies in the state deal with a bloom each year, and half of those tend to be toxic,
Some of the factors that aggravate blooms are worsening with time. Development increases the human toll on lakes from road, fertilizer, and septic runoff. Climate change warms water bodies, concentrates nutrients in times of drought, and increases the frequency of severe storm events, which wash sediments and nutrients into lakes and ponds. The introduction of invasive species and decline in native insect populations can be factors in blooms, too, scientists say.
Over multiple decades with NHDES, Smagula said she had observed more blooms recorded on average each year and more diversity of cyanobacteria species appearing in New Hampshire’s waters. Together, those factors indicate that the problem is growing in scale, she said.
“It’s not just that more people are looking. There actually are more blooms,” she said.
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