By Roy L Hales

The global phenomenon of algae blooms has reached British Columbia. The BC Northern Health issued an advisory for Prince George area last summer. Severe outbreaks have been reported at St. Mary and Cusheon Lakes on Saltspring Island, and Village Bay Lake on Quadra Island. The Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) recently published a monitoring report. I recently interviewed the author, Rex Weyler, about responses to Cortes Island’s algae bloom problem.

“Hague and Gunflint Lakes are typical lakes and the challenges we are having there are also typical when you have a human community that lives around a body of fresh water … The problem is human septic and livestock concentrating nutrients and then passing that into the water table, which then drains into the lake. Those nutrients are feeding the algae booms,” says Weyler.