ALGAE BLOOM HITS SHORELINE
Colchester Harbour a stinky mess
A slimy algae bloom that tucked into Colchester Harbour on Monday forced boaters to head farther out for clean water and forced health officials to close the beach to swimming.
“The harbour is definitely totally involved,” said Mike Tudor, a health inspection manager with the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.
The beach will remain closed as the health unit and members of the Essex Region Conservation Authority monitor the water quality.
Pelee Island also closed two beaches Monday, Mayor Rick Masse said.
“We were getting tinges of algae in certain areas,” Masse said, prompting the closure of Fish Point and East Park beaches.
Tudor said the health unit first heard reports of a bloom 100 yards off Colchester Friday.
An algae bloom reaching the Canadian shoreline is rare.
“Normally currents keep it in the centre of the lake but it depends on wind and weather events,” Tudor said. “The calm weather we’ve had recently and conditions make it favourable (to hit shore).”
Tudor said the health unit has contacted the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change about the bloom.
Algae feeds on nitrogen and phosphorous that get released into the water as run-off from farmers’ fields treated with fertilizers and pesticides.
The bacteria in the algae can produce toxins harmful to humans and animals.
Exposure can cause skin and eye irritation, nausea, vomiting, headaches and in the most serious cases, liver failure and death.
“It is very, very toxic,” Tudor warned.
Katie Stammler, water quality scientist for ERCA, visited the harbour Monday.
“It didn’t smell very good,” Stammler said. “The harbour has that green paint look, it actually looks sick. The beach has suspended algae in the water.”
It takes 48 hours for test results to determine if there are in fact dangerous toxins in the water.
“We will monitor it for the rest of the week,” Stammler said.
A good offshore wind would push the bloom back out into the lake.
“They’re predicting it’ll stick around through Thursday,” Stammler said. Upon hearing that the bloom reached Ontario’s shore, several environmental groups called on the provincial and federal governments to do more to protect the Great Lakes region.
This spring, the federal and Ontario governments released a draft plan for reducing nutrient run-off entering Lake Erie.
“However, the draft plan proposes few new activities or approaches to reduce run-off from agricultural and rural areas. It also lacks timelines and performance metrics needed to keep the plan on track,” said a media release from Environmental Defence, Freshwater Future and Canadian Freshwater Alliance.
“This latest bloom demonstrates current actions are not enough,” it added.
Without action, algae blooms could cost local economies upwards of $272 million annually, the release said.
It didn’t smell very good. The harbour has that green paint look, it actually looks sick. The beach has suspended algae in the water.