Algae blooms that grow in the surfaces of some lakes and rivers are not only gross to look at, they can be toxic.
Algae blooms that grow in the surfaces of some lakes and rivers are not only gross to look at, they can be toxic.
In 2014, two dogs swimming in Utah Lake died from exposure to the toxic algae, and another dog died from it in 2020 in the Virgin River in Zion’s National Park. The phenomenon was also to blame for the deaths of 15 calves and three adult cows in 2004 after they drank water from Matt Warner Reservoir in eastern Utah.
University of Utah civil and environmental engineering professor Ramesh Goel, who has been studying algae blooms at Utah Lake and other bodies of water in the state, has just received a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to explore on a genetic level why some algae blooms are poisonous and others are not.
“We’re looking into the genotypes of why some generate toxins and others don’t, even though they belong to the same genus,” Goel says. “Classical ecological monitoring is not sufficient to pinpoint this, so what we are doing has never been done at this level.”
Read More: University of Utah
