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Cleveland Water Alliance Asks Congress For Funding Help With Algae Bloom

View of Lake Erie
Jeff St. Clair
/
WKSU
View of Lake Erie

Local officials are hoping Congress will help provide funding to clean up algae bloom in Lake Erie. Cleveland Water Alliance Director Bryan Stubbs testified before a committee Tuesday, asking for additional funding to resolve the issue of algal bloom.  The rapid increase of harmful algal bloom is sweeping across the United States, including Ohio.Stubbs and others told a U.S. panel that beaches are closing, fish are dying, and people are becoming ill. Stubbs said that his group is partnering with other Ohio and Michigan organizations to create sensoring technology that monitors the levels of water nutrients that feed algae in lakes.

The Cleveland Water Alliance is deploying this technology on Lake Erie to observe the harmful algal bloom (HAB), microsystems, and cyanotoxins in the water, he said.Data products are also being developed to warn water utility companies when harmful toxins require treatment, according to Stubbs. This problem increased over the past two decades. He said that if the algae is left unchecked then Ohio’s Lake Erie businesses and communities that rely on the lake for drinking water will suffer.   For more information on algal bloom, visit clevelandwateralliance.org  

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Tyler Thompson was a reporter and on-air host for 89.7 NPR News. Thompson, originally from northeast Ohio, has spent the last three years working as a Morning Edition host and reporter at NPR member station KDLG Public Radio and reporter at the Bristol Bay Times Newspaper in Dillingham, Alaska.
Tia is a senior journalism major at Kent State University with experience in broadcast, print, visual and digital journalism. Tia works as a member of Kent State student media's TV2 and is an ambassador for the College of Communication and Information.