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Murray State Scientists Searching For Conditions That Cause Harmful Algal Blooms

Algal blooms have popped up all over the world over the past few years, threatening ecosystems and human health. While most blooms are harmless, others can be toxic to people and wildlife. A project at Murray State University’s Hancock Biological Station aims to find out what conditions are conducive for harmful algal blooms.

Watershed scientist Susan Hendricks is a Primary Investigator on the study. Algal blooms are the overgrowth of phytoplankton and can sometimes appear red, green and brown. Hendricks said these blooms occur when the cells multiply to incredible densities. According to the CDC, harmful algal blooms can create dangerous toxins that cause rashes, stomach or liver illness, respiratory problems and neurological effects. Hendricks said the blooms are part of a global water quality issue.

“As water quality changes we’ve got more conditions that lead to these cyanobacteria blooms which affect drinking water sources and recreation and fish habitat,” Hendricks said. “Anything that’s connected with water is gonna feel the impact of these big bad blooms.”

The National Science Foundation awarded the biological station a $3.8 million grant in 2016 for the study into algal blooms. This money funds real-time sensors that report data on water quality every fifteen minutes. Hendricks and other scientists from the station go on monitoring cruises down Kentucky Lake every 16 days to collect water samples that they’ll process in the lab.

Credit Sydni Anderson
Hendricks takes water quality measurements at the Ohio River in Paducah.

“We’re trying to link up those two databases to see if we can track changes that might lead to these cyanobacteria blooms,” she said.

Hendricks said the station hasn’t seen algal blooms in Kentucky release toxins, but rather the beginning of conditions that “set cyanobacteria up to start producing toxins in the future.”

She said increased concentrations of nitrate and phosphate in the water often lead to algal blooms. These nutrients are used in fertilizers and can be washed off of farmland and in to rivers and lakes when it rains. Rising temperatures also promote bloom growth. Hendricks said over the past thirty years, each decade has seen a half-a-degree Celsius increase.

“Things are changing,” she said. “This one of the results of water quality change over time.”

Melanie Arnold is the Water Quality Branch Manager for the Department for Environmental Protection Division of Water. Arnold said there isn’t a consensus on what exactly triggers cyanobacteria to produce toxins. She said the Division of Water routinely monitors algal blooms through satellite imagery. Other state agencies, such as the Department of Public Health, also report blooms...

“They’re connected with all of the local health departments so if anyone goes to the doctor and the doctor determines that their sickness could be related to exposure to a harmful algal bloom, we’ll be notified about that,” Arnold said.

The research team is still in the instrumentation testing phase of the study, Hendricks said, and is measuring the quality of the data collected. While grant funding for the study runs out in two years, the real-time sensors will remain.

“I think that we’re just going to let them run their course and hope that the next group that comes along will want to seek funding to keep the program going,” she said.

Hendricks will not be a part of that next group because she’s retiring. Still, she’s optimistic about the study’s future and has high expectations. She hopes the research and its use of data-gathering can help scientists across the globe answer new questions in water science.

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