City of Lethbridge taking proactive approach to blue-green algae

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, was a point of concern in Lethbridge’s Henderson Lake last year.

“The toxins that are released are harmful to humans, animals, livestock. It’s best to not have any contact. It can cause some skin irritations, but the majority of concerns come from if you ingest it or inhale it,” said Jackie Cardinal, parks natural resource coordinator at the City of Lethbridge.

Throughout much of the month of August, Henderson Lake had an advisory for blue-green algae, but Cardinal says this year has been different.

“We’ve seen lower than typical — like compared to last year — in our algae bloom levels, cyanobacteria levels as well. (This is) largely due to the weather and a strict algaecide program that we’ve been employing since early June.”

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For years, the City of Lethbridge and Lethbridge Polytechnic have teamed up to better understand the water in the lake. This data collection also helps give early warnings to the city so plans can be better created.

“We monitor the oxygen levels as well as we take some nutritional analysis. Then, we also look at the algae and enumerate the concentrations,” said Tyler Branson, an aquaculture operations specialist at Lethbridge Polytechnic.

Besides the importance of the work, it can even be fun for those involved.

“Especially when it’s sunny like this, it’s really nice being on a boat collecting data,” said Jin Kim, a greenhouse technician at Lethbridge Polytechnic on a beautiful day.

Unfortunately, the sun is exactly what they don’t want to see when it comes to the algae population.

“A lot of this algae is photosynthetic, so the sun is our enemy around here. Weirdly enough, the smoke has kind of helped us bring some of that UV down. We’ve had a lot of rain and dilution will always help with our nutrient levels within the water,” said Branson.

Even with Mother Nature on their side, ecosystems are difficult to predict. However, Cardinal is happy with the results of their efforts so far this summer.

“If I was basing predictions for this year on last year, I would saw we should have been solid green by now, but we were proactive in our algaecide approach, getting (Kim and Branson) out early, having a much stronger communication line with the polytechnic has been essential as well,” said Cardinal.