SUPERIOR, WI—Kiyoko Yokota, certified lake manager and associate professor of biology at SUNY Oneonta, co-authored a report released last week that challenges current understandings of harmful algae blooms and may help communities better prepare for them. The results of studies led by scientist Dr. Kait Reinl, research coordinator at the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve in Superior, Wisconsin, were published on February 17 in the scientific journal, “Limnology and Oceanography Letters.”
Cyanobacterial blooms, also known as harmful algal blooms, are an environmental and public health threat around the globe. Blooms can produce unpleasant tastes and odors, deplete oxygen in water, produce toxins that are harmful to people and animals, and impact water treatment systems. Researchers’ current understanding is that blooms occur largely when water temperatures are warm or hot, but there is evidence that blooms also occur in cold water, including under ice.
Glimmerglass Lake (aka Otsego) faces its biggest ecological challenge since the last Ice Age in the form of harmful algae blooms, “HABs,” which can make lake water not only unpotable, but un-swimmable, un-skiable, un-rowable and unpopular. Fortunately, we have the A-Team on the job: The new incoming president of the North American Lake Management Society, none other than our own Dr. Kiyoko Yokota of SUNY Oneonta, and Mr. Doug Willies, who is going to lead the effort to get a DEC-approved HAB mitigation and remediation plan in place in order to organize and formalize the response. Kiyoko is a brilliant scientist whose specialty is quagga mussels, the little culprits that may be exacerbating the HABs, and Doug is a can-do organizer and a canny Scot who can pinch the life out of a penny or a quagga mussel. We couldn’t have a better team leaders to address the challenges of keeping Glimmerglass Lake from turning into Pea Soup Pond.
Chip Northrup Cooperstown
Editor’s Note: The Harmful Algal Bloom Action Team—a collaboration of water professionals, researchers, and educators from the national network of Water Resources Research Institutes, the North Central Region Water Network, and Cooperative Extensions from the 12 states in the North Central Region of the United States—is holding its third annual Harmful Algal Bloom Research Symposium on January 5 and 6, 2023. This virtual symposium is free. Visit the North Central Region Water Network’s website for more information. The symposium will include discussions about the latest harmful algal bloom research, examples of effective bloom management, and the latest technologies being used to tackle this global issue.
The Otsego Lake and SUNY Oneonta communities worked together to protect property, life, and the environment around Otsego Lake on Saturday, November 5.
Saturday morning had me concerned about whether the autumn no-wake zone buoy Buoyfest would be a success or would be only the first day of a multiple day effort to retrieve our NWZBs. Winds were strong enough to cause concern, and we had lost the services of four divers, who we had planned to work with us, in the 24 hours prior to the event.
Health and other good reasons prevented those four divers from participating. The preparation work provided on Friday by Otsego Lake Association members Bill Richtsmeier, Mickie Richtsmeier, Doug Willies and Peter Regan facilitated an early departure. The focus and experience of graduate students Sarah Coney and Brian Hefferon provided core successes which inspired our SUNY Oneonta undergraduate students and recent graduates, Liv Bartik, Alan Brault, Zach Lebid, and Katlin Mancusi, to see the work through to completion.
The OLA Board of Directors was well represented, providing essential tender services: Wayne Bunn, Peter Regan and Kiyoko Yokota. Chuck Hascup masterfully employed his barge to support our work. I am grateful to all.
The last two NWZBs, at Springfield Landing and Lake Front, will be retrieved and swapped for spar buoys, as is our tradition, on the weekend prior to Christmas Eve. That typically involves breaking through thin ice along the shoreline to reach those buoys, but the shallow depths involved encourage a lighthearted attitude about this December work.
Paul H. Lord SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station Divemaster and Instructor
Dr. Kiyoko Yokota was on hand at the Biological Field Station dock on Otsego Lake yesterday for the removal of what Paul Lord, standing at left, who leads the BFS diving team, termed a “monster buoy.” The Continuous Lake Monitoring Buoy (CLMB) just completed its second year tracking conditions deep in the lake, which can be compared with CLMBs around the national and world, to allow the local researchers to prepare for changing conditions caused by global warming. Dr. Yokota, an assistant professor of biology at SUNY Oneonta and BFS researcher, said the CLMB noted numerous more days above 26 degrees Celsius this summer than the year before. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)
DETAILS IN THIS WEEK’S FREEMAN’S, HOMETOWN EDITIONS
