Concerns bloom over algae

Environmentalists are expressing deep concern over a large algae bloom on Shuswap Lake that was first noticed last Friday.

The bloom, captured in a photo taken from a helicopter by a biologist tracking fish movement in the lake last week, was originally thought to be pollen.

The provincial Ministry of Environment received several calls from the public saying “there’s something odd out there and it has an odour to it,” said Ian McGregor, regional manager of the ministry’s Fish and Wildlife branch in Kamloops, Friday.

On closer examination, Environmental Protection officials discovered that what they were looking at were long plumes of brown-looking algae that stretched some 50 kilometres from Salmon Arm Bay to Cinnemousin Narrows, pushing a little bit into Anstey Arm as well, said McGregor.

Samples were sent to Vancouver for testing and, while officials confirmed the samples were algae, they were unable to identify them because they had broken down.

Fresh samples were sent to algae specialists Monday and McGregor is awaiting results, but suspects the algae is not a common one.

“This is not a healthy sign,” he said. “It is an indication the health of the lake is deteriorating, paradise is deteriorating and we have to be careful.”

McGregor called Dr. Ken Ashley, an associate professor and limnologist at UBC.

Ashley told those attending a Shuswap Lake Integrated Planning Process (SLIPP) meeting held in Salmon Arm last spring how human-caused nutrient loading had destroyed Lake Winnipeg.

He said that if Shuswap Lake were allowed to deteriorate to the extent of Lake Winnipeg, it would likely never recover, that the costs to remediate the lake would be too high.

In response to McGregor’s questions about the algae bloom, Ashley told him he did not believe it was a point-of-source phenomenon, meaning there is likely no one cause.

He told McGregor the algae bloom is probably watershed based, perhaps caused by run-off from heavy rains. But exactly what the cause is remains a mystery.

McGregor says a SLIPP document produced over the winter is just being completed. One of the recommendations of the document is to develop a co-ordinated water-quality and water-use monitoring program.

As well, he notes, technical experts and the public advisory team recommended that the process be expanded to include the entire watershed.

“The ink is just drying on the document and we’re getting an algae bloom like this on the lake for the first time in history,” he says. “What concerns me is this occurrence is of major significance. Even if it is a natural occurrence, it has never occurred to the degree we’re currently experiencing, which to me, is a signal that something has gone awry.”

McGregor is also concerned that in his 30 years of experience, nobody has ever witnessed such an algae bloom before and experts were unable to identify what it is or where it came from.

“Right now, a bloom that might generally mean an accumulation of natural and human-based nutrients somehow got into lake,” he says, noting that area residents will have to decide if they want to direct their tax dollars to rescuing the lake. “It’s the cumulative impacts of a multitude of issues, an early warning sign that Shuswap Lake might not be able to support much more.”

It is, he adds, a signal from nature and a good opportunity to start paying attention to the Shuswap watershed ecosystem.