More promising water testing results at Chippewa Lake

CHIPPEWA LAKE — Water readings at Chippewa Lake continue to show an absence of the harmful algal blooms that have plagued the area for most of the past six years, but local experts say a great deal of work remains to solve the root causes of the blooms. Medina County Park District natural resources manager Jim Spetz said readings this week showed harmful blue-green algae bacteria, or cyanobacteria, on less than 1 percent of slide samples. This testing comes after a long spell of weather conditions that prove favorable for algal blooms. Spetz said Chippewa Lake is one of many bodies of water enjoying a relatively algal-bloom-free summer to this point after consistently struggling with them in recent years. Despite some areas of the lake being obscured by clouds, new satellite data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also yielded positive results. "The lake, right now, is overwhelmingly dominated by diatoms," Spetz said. "Those are beneficial in maintaining a productive lake. You need the base of your food chain for a healthy fish population. Diatoms don't produce cyanotoxins like the cyanobacteria that was causing all the problems." "Cyanobacteria is a normal part of a lake community," he added. "There's going to be some in there. This recent sampling location is the same one we've been using for the past few years, and in the past it was always dominated by cyanobacteria. Now, it's almost not showing up in the samples." An experimental water treatment used at Chippewa Lake last August was praised by Spetz but called a "medium-term solution" in definitively stopping harmful algal blooms. "The treatment may have kind of reshuffled the deck at the lake and allowed species that had been around in smaller densities to get a competitive advantage," he said. "The product floats at the surface of the water, and cyanobacteria has the ability to regulate its buoyancy. It rises up when it's nice and sunny then drops in the nighttime. The idea is having that treatment on the surface to continually target what's harmful." Even before applying the treatment last summer, weekly readings at Chippewa Lake had already shown a marked decline in harmful algae compared with 2018. Blooms are the result of excess nutrients such as phosphorous in the lake's sediment and flowing from several inlets. Swimming advisories are issued when such nutrients exceed 6 parts per billion (ppb) in weekly samples. Last year's first advisory was issued April 30 after a reading of 9.49 ppb. Readings jumped to 17.8 and 21.8 ppb over the next two weeks before gradually declining to 10.5 ppb by June 4 and 3.15 ppb by June 11. No swimming advisories were issued after June 25. Readings consistently rose above 20 ppb in 2018 and reached highs of 38.36 ppb that August. The parks district continues to seek funding for lake preservation through sources like H2Ohio, an initiative from Gov. Mike DeWine to reduce harmful algal blooms, improve wastewater infrastructure and prevent lead contamination. "Certainly, Chippewa Lake still has a major nutrient problem," Spetz said. "The cause of this problem hasn't been solved. We've bought ourselves some time by introducing more competition into the lake with the beneficial green algae. We've gotten a benefit from this lake treatment but over the long-term, it's not a solution. It's about eliminating the nutrients." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330)721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.