Pandora's Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway

13/ BLUE, GREEN, AND DEADLY

181 181 What we’re seeing is a system out of balance. —Gregory Boyer, chemistry professor, State University of New York, 2008 13 BLUE, GREEN, AND DEADLY F amily vacations spent at lakes are supposed to create pleasant memories, lasting mental images of giddy children leaping off docks and stressedout parents frolicking with their kids in a sort of liquid heaven. The best trips can turn even the most unfortunate mishaps into treasured, comedic adventures. Broken-down vehicles and bouts of stomach flu that made everyone miserable become the stuff of family legend and laughter. Yet, there are times when tragedy prevails, trumping the highlights of the most revered vacations. Such was the case in 1999, when a Vermont family headed to a cabin on the shores of Lake Champlain. The Couture family of Burlington, Vermont, went to the scenic lake with their beloved Labrador, named Bear, for a few days of relaxation. There, they became the unwitting victims of an environmental tragedy that was spreading across the Great Lakes and many 182 C H A P T E R 1 3 182 of the region’s inland lakes. Like most Labrador retrievers, Bear was drawn to the water like a moth pulled toward light. The dog bolted for the lake and lapped up some of Champlain’s liquid bounty. Four hours later, Bear was dead.1 The killer wasn’t a boat, a car, or old age. Toxic algae killed the Couture’s family pet. Several more dogs died that year after drinking water from Lake Champlain; one died within an hour of slaking its thirst in the lake. All of the animals were casualties of the same deadly menace: cyanobacteria, or bluegreen algae—a naturally occurring bacteria capable of releasing compounds more toxic than some types of poison nerve gas. Gregory Boyer, a chemist at the State University of New York who determined that the dogs that died after drinking Lake Champlain water had ingested blue-green algae, said the incidents were heartbreaking. “These pets were parts of people’s families; it was fairly traumatic,” Boyer told researchers at a Great Lakes conference in 2007. “Kids were writing letters to the editors of newspapers saying, ‘Please save my dog.’ It was very sad.”2 The dog deaths on Lake Champlain were cause for concern in the Great Lakes, which were afflicted by the same type of toxic algae. In fact, the toxin in Lake Champlain that killed the dogs surfaced the same year in mats of blue-green algae that formed on the surfaces of shallow bays around Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Ontario. No longer were the toxic remnants of industrial discharges the only threat to humans, fish, or wildlife in the Great Lakes basin. Potentially deadly algae blooms posed equally acute health risks in places like Saginaw Bay, Maumee Bay, Green Bay, and the Bay of Quinte. A group of scientists were analyzing color satellite images of the Great Lakes in 1995 when they noticed bright green patches on the surface of Lake Erie’s Maumee Bay. The water wasn’t the deep blue characteristic of the rest of the lakes—it was fluorescent green. The color contrast between water in the bay and deeper areas of the lakes was striking, provocative, and unsettling. The lime green water suggested that a pernicious problem from the 1960s had returned: blue-green algae blooms. Its sudden return that year left boaters and shoreline-property owners wondering why the resurgent lake was covered with a blanket of scum that looked like green paint and smelled like sewage. 183 B L U E , G R E E N , A N D D E A D LY 183 Scientists quickly figured out that the bright green cloud scum on the surface of western Lake Erie was a bloom of cyanobacteria—a harmful algae bloom. Cyanobacteria are a class of bacteria that have the ability to release potent toxins when they float to the surface, form a mat of blue-green algae, and die. One of the most common strains of blue-green algae is Microcystis aeruginosa. It often surfaces in lakes and ponds with high concentrations of phosphorus. Microcystis blooms were common in Great Lakes bays prior to 1972, before new pollution-control regulations dramatically reduced phosphorus discharges into the lakes. The controls improved water quality and greatly reduced the incidence of blue-green algae blooms in western...