Should algae blooms halt lake recreation? Officials seek guidelines
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
Although Marion County's recent water crisis has ended and tap water is safe to drink again, one thing stays the same:
The blue-green algae is still at Marion Reservoir.
Yes, the amount is down. Yes, it's being filtered out of city water plants.
But that dangerous toxin-producing algae is still there — and it's not going anywhere.
Area officials hope the public knows this. And they also hope that the state will set firm, numerical guidelines that tell exactly when the water is dangerous and when it should be closed off from recreation.
Morgan Marler, senior technician at the Hillsboro water plant, said that her staff takes samples out at Marion Reservoir and sends them out to be analyzed at a Missouri laboratory. She hopes that the data they collect — and will continue to collect indefinitely — will tell locals when the water is dangerous and when another bloom is about to explode.
County sanitarian David Brazil, who works in the Marion County Health Department, is serving as a liaison between the various groups affected by the dangerous algae bloom — groups including the cities, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, just to name a few.
Although the immediate crisis is over, this problem won't go away any time soon, he said.
"This potentially is a long-term problem," Brazil said.
During the thick of the June water crisis, the Corps closed swimming beaches and restricted recreation. If the water was potentially dangerous then, it could be dangerous again — but how will people know when that happens?
Brazil says that KDHE needs to establish standards — exact cell counts — that the entities can turn to when deciding to hold back the boats or close beaches at the Reservoir.
"It would be inappropriate for me to make a judgment call on these cell counts," he said.
The problem is this: The United States has done very little research on these toxins or how concentrated they have to be to harm the body. Most research comes from places like New Zealand, Canada, and Australia.
Here are a few numbers.
Studies done at a Florida research lab showed that if a person spent an hour in water with a cell count of 5,000 cells per milliliter, he or she had "significantly increased" odds ratios for eye irritation, rash, and gastrointestinal symptoms.
Scientists in Australia and the United Kingdom have proposed different levels of alerts based on cell counts. The lowest level, with little cause for alarm, has a cell count of 500 to 2,000 cells per milliliter, while the highest levels reach up to 15,000 cells per milliliter. At that point, officials could declare an emergency situation.
When similar outbreaks occurred in Oregon, state health officials said that people should avoid recreational contact with the water when cell counts hit the 15,000 to 20,000 mark.
And according to Morgan Marler, the World Health Organization suggests that recreation should be halted in two scenarios: first, if one species' cell count hits 15,000, and second, if the combined cell count of more than one species hits 50,000.
So how do those numbers compare to our Marion Reservoir?
These are the results from samples taken on July 10. Keep in mind, both anabaena and microcystis algae produce toxins that attack the body's liver and nervous system.
— Hillsboro Cove swimming beach: 44,352 cells/ml of anabaena, 16,254 cells/ml of microcystis.
— Corps office swimming beach: 946 cells/ml of anabaena, 1,849 cells/ml of microcystis.
— Water intake structure at dam: 121,647 cells/ml of anabaena, 33,765,399 cells/ml of microcystis.
According to the previously mentioned WHO guidelines, the water at Hillsboro Cove and the intake structure was not safe for human contact on that day. Yet both areas remained open as normal.
However, those cell counts have dropped "significantly" since then, Marler said. Just a week later, on July 16, the highest cell count for anabaena or microcystis was 9,240 cells/ml — not high enough to pose a problem, according to the WHO.
Another point to consider: Just because the scums are gone doesn't mean the algae is. The blue-green algae can still be there even if you don't see it.
But the question remains: Who decides when the water gets too dangerous?
In the end, the standard needs to be set by KDHE, not people in Marion County, David Brazil said. It's up to the state to take the leadership role.
So far, "they've been a part of the process," he said.
