People are being warned by the state to avoid all contact with the water in two South Jersey ponds, thanks to a growing harmful algal bloom.
Driscoll Pond and Hopkins Pond, both in Camden County’s Pennypacker Park, have been found by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to have harmful algal blooms that reach the “warning” level on the state’s new advisory scale.
At that “warning” level, public beaches on the affected water are closed for swimming. The state urges people to avoid direct contact with the water, and warned against eating any fish pulled from the water. And the state warns against activities like boating and kayaking, which could lead to secondary water contact.
Contact with the blooms, which are actually made-up of cyanobacteria rather than algae, can cause rashes and allergy-like reactions to flu-like symptoms and gastroenteritis. If the bloom is actively producing cyanotoxins, more serious health effects — like liver toxicity and neurological effects — may occur. The blooms can be fatal to dogs.
Hopkins Pond and Driscoll Pond are typically used for passive recreation, like fishing or walking around, according to Dan Keashen, a spokesman for Camden County. Swimming and boating do not normally occur in the ponds, which Keashen noted are technically connected.
Keashen said that the county’s parks department is partnering with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension to install a bubbler in Hopkins Pond, which could help break up the bloom and others that may form.
“The department will continue to focus its energy on getting the pond back into a healthy body of water in short order,” Keashen said.
Harmful algal blooms reach the “warning” level when samples show they are producing cyanotoxins at levels between 20 and 2,000 parts per billion. At those levels, blooms are known to pose a high risk of adverse health effects.
A water sample taken from the southern end of Hopkins Pond was found to have a type of cyanotoxin known as microcystins at nearly 70 parts per billion on July 29. Meanwhile, a sample taken from Driscoll Pond near its outlet to the Cooper River on the same day microcystins at about 36 parts per billion.
Those levels put both ponds far short of the “danger” level standard on the DEP’s advisory scale, which kicks in when cyanotoxin levels exceed 2,000 parts per billion.
The two ponds are the first to reach “warning” level since the DEP began using the new scale this year. Bruce Friedman, the director of the DEP’s Division of Water Monitoring and Standards, said the state is not in a position to predict if, when and where other blooms will reach the same level.
So far this year, DEP has confirmed harmful algal blooms in 21 waterbodies across the state, according to the state’s dashboard. Of those, 19 remain active while two — in Warren County’s Mountain Lake and Somerset County’s Sunset Lake — have dissipated.
Cyanobacteria are naturally occurring in lakes and ponds across New Jersey. The bacteria thrive in warm, still water that is rich in nutrients like nitrates and phosphorous. Those nutrients tend to be carried into lakes and ponds by heavy rains that wash animal waste, fertilizer, discharge from leaky septic systems and other materials into the water.
Climate change is worsening the harmful algal bloom problem in New Jersey by creating favorable conditions for the bacteria, particularly in summers, with intense rain storms happening more frequently while being spaced apart by longer periods of hot, dry weather.
In November, Gov. Phil Murphy announced a $13.5 million plan to deal with harmful algal blooms in the Garden State through better watershed management to prevent blooms from forming as frequently, and with new mitigation techniques to help dissipate the blooms when they do form.
On Monday, the DEP announced $1 million worth of new grants through that program, plus another $2.5 million in grants for water quality projects that are unrelated to Murphy’s harmful algal bloom strategy. The new grants come after DEP announced $2.5 million in grants in March, as part of Murphy’s plan, which will fund projects in nine lakes.
Read more of NJ.com’s coverage of New Jersey water issues here.
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Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com.