Tourist influx turns Windermere green, researchers say

dojan, 12 days ago

They just dump the sewage in the lake? No wonder they get algae blooms.

Nighed, 12 days ago

If you believe the water company, it’s just treated sewage and it’s going into the rivers that feed the lake.

The problem is that ‘treated’ sewage is still kinda dirty and has lots of nutrients that feed the blooms still.

dojan, 12 days ago

Yeah. Farmland generally doesn’t help much either. I’m in Sweden and the baltic sea is basically dead partially due to sewage and farming, and partially due to fishing rules leading to people throwing back fish which subsequently die from the rapid pressure change, leaving more stuff to decompose and suck up all the available oxygen. The oxygenation of the baltic sea is also heavily dependant on storms, and thanks to climate change those have been a bit more wonky.

The problem isn’t necessarily the cyanobacteria themselves, they are toxic, but they do increase the amount of available oxygen. The problem is that when they die, they decompose and the bacteria that break them down use up all the available oxygen, slowly suffocating the sea. Or well, lake in this case.