| Photos courtesy of J. Dyble, NOAA-GLERL (top and right), R. Sturtevant (below) |
Saginaw Bay Workshop Addresses Harmful Algal Blooms Public health officials, beach managers, and Saginaw Bay residents were among the participants who attended a May 8 workshop in Bay City to assess the problem of harmful algal blooms or HABs. The stakeholder workshop dealt specifically with blue-green algae, a type of cyanobacteria that produces toxins. One of those toxins is Microcystis. “The concern is that Microcystis is not a regulated toxin,” says Sonia Joseph of Michigan Sea Grant and the NOAA Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health (CEGLHH), which hosted the workshop. “There are currently no EPA guidelines saying that when you have a bloom, this is what you do.” The purpose of the May 8 workshop was to bring together Michigan’s public health and natural resource managers and decision makers to determine the extent of the harmful algal bloom issue in the Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay and western Lake Erie. A second goal is to create a venue to understand and assess existing knowledge of HABs, and identify how HABs are monitored and reported to the public. Currently, responses to harmful algal blooms tend to vary by county, says Joseph, and may include beach closings, public signage, and distribution of fact sheets to alert the public. Following presentations by nationally recognized HAB experts, Michigan Sea Grant facilitated focus group discussions to identify stakeholder needs. The information obtained from the workshop will assist CEGLHH in providing focused and valuable research, tools, and technology to predict and reduce HABs in the Great Lakes Basin. The Michigan HAB Workshop is the third in a series of stakeholder workshops organized and hosted by CEGLHH and the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network in specific areas encountering harmful algal blooms. Workshops were also held in Wisconsin and Ohio.
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Many people mistake harmful algal blooms with cladophora, a green algae.