News releases

June 27, 2008

TO: Editors, news directors
FROM: Terry Devitt (608) 262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu
RE: ALGAE SEASON LOOMS FOR MADISON LAKES

June marks a change of season for Lake Mendota, which is transitioning from a clear-water phase that predominates in late spring and early summer to a period where blue-green algal blooms transform the lake into a murky - and sometimes mucky - environment for the remainder of the summer.

An early bloom was captured this week by University Communications photographer Bryce Richter: http://www.news.wisc.edu/15343.

Being at the top of the Yahara River chain of lakes, Lake Mendota continues to suffer from high levels of nutrients - particularly phosphorus - from manure, eroded soil and sediments, and other diffuse pollution sources from the lake's large watershed. Nutrients from recent runoff events have "primed the pump" for the summer's algae growths in the lakes, according to Richard Lathrop, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Limnology and Department of Natural Resources lake expert.

Recent heavy rains will likely amplify this summer's blooms, he says. "These big storms deliver a heck of a lot of nutrients, and with climate change we're getting bigger storms more frequently." He says management efforts to reduce the flow of nutrients to the lakes will have to be even more aggressive.

For more information, contact Lathrop at (608) 261-7593, rlathrop@wisc.edu.
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