Information on Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB)

Here's a concern regarding the Toxic algae bloom FYI: perhaps the bacon Hill Association should be involved in an effort to ensure NY takes measures to address the issue?

Important Harmful Algal Bloom Alert - Important Harmful Algal Bloom Alert Watch Governor Cuomo make HAB clean up promises that will be extremely challenging to fulfill: Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Unveils 12th ... Ho, Ho, Ho. Happy Holidays, Fractivists, I am thrilled to share important news about an announcement made by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on 12/21/17 regarding Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) cyanobacteria hazards that our campaign helped bring to widespread public attention beginning last September. I encourage you to read this detailed alert very carefully if you are concerned about neurotoxic HABs that threaten your drinking water or property investments. See: Waterbodies with Harmful Algal Blooms Notifications in 2017 Background All during the fall, Toxics Targeting documented that HABs threatened drinking water supplied to millions of New Yorkers from upstate New York to New York City. The Governor just disclosed that dozens of people were actually sickened by drinking water polluted by HABs. That is a shocking failure to protect public health. The good news is that Governor Cuomo has now pledged to solve the HAB problems in 12 impaired waterbodies and staked his reputation on achieving that outcome. I assure you that we will respectfully hold him fully accountable for keeping that promise. The bad news is that his $65 million proposal has virtually no chance of succeeding for reasons that I will detail below. Moreover, there is no reason why New York's HAB clean up efforts should be limited to only 12 waterbodies. In short, the Governor's proposal must be drastically revised in order to resolve all of New York's HAB concerns in one fell swoop. That is precisely what we have already asked him to do. I look forward to working with you to achieve that goal in order to protect New York's environment, public health and economic interests. Our New HAB Campaign Bears Fruit When HAB problems began to come to light late last summer, Toxics Targeting immediately mapped local hazards, generated extensive press coverage and spearheaded grassroots organizing efforts to eliminate this problem on a statewide basis. See: Harmful Algal Blooms in New York State Our call for action has garnered nearly 1,300 signatories from across America. Keep beating the bushes for more signatories: Coalition Letter Which Requests That Governor Cuomo Take Urgent Action to Eliminate Water Quality Impairments That Cause Cyanobacteria Harmful Algal Blooms Across New York State Many thanks to Auburn City Councilors, Terry Cuddy and James Giannettino, Jr., as well as their colleagues at Save Owasco Now for building support for our request. The coalition letter to the Governor generated a response from the Region 7 DEC Director which extolled the virtues of his agency's water quality efforts and ignored our substantive requests for statewide water pollution clean up. See: DEC 11/13/17 Response to 10/25/17 Harmful Algal Bloom Coalition Letter Our Powerful Letter Writing, Phone Banking, Coalition Building and Media Outreach Efforts Helped Turn the Tide on Taking HAB Action Over many months, we cranked up the heat using our tried and true advocacy and organizing techniques. Bravo. Great work. New York State finally changed its tune last week when the Governor proposed a $65 million clean up program to solve HAB problems in 12 impaired waterbodies across upstate New York. That is a lot of money in a year when the state could face a $4.4 billion budget deficit. Please note that there is no done deal. The Governor simply announced a proposal that will be included in his State of the State address on 1/3/18. The 12 lakes proposed for action are: Chautauqua Lake, Conesus Lake, Honeoye Lake, Cayuga Lake, Skaneateles Lake, Owasco Lake, Lake Champlain at Port Henry, New York portion of Lake Champlain at Isle La Motte watershed, Lake George, Lake Carmel, Putnam Lake, Monhagen Brook Watershed and Palmer Lake. I invite you to watch the Governor's presentation so that you can hear his own words. Note that two of the lakes are misspelled in his PowerPoint (video at 14:37: Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Unveils 12th ... Governor Cuomo's Proposed $65 Million Plan Sounds Impressive, But it is Woefully Insufficient to Solve New York's HAB Problems Each lake's problems would be assessed and an "individualized" clean up plan would be formulated over a three-month period at a proposed cost of $500,000.00. Four "summits" would be held to allow public participation in the proceedings. "Best Management Practices (BMPs)," computer modeling and other efforts would be undertaken to resolve each lake's water pollution problems. The 12 lakes all have complex "non-point" pollution problems, notably agricultural and stormwater run-off. It is critical to understand that BMPs to control non-point pollution sources are strictly voluntary. They carry no regulatory weight. The Governor's proposal essentially lets agricultural polluters totally off the hook. Ineffective BMPs and New York's colossal failure to enforce Clean Water Act regulatory requirements for literally decades got our state into this water pollution crisis. More than 200 rivers, lakes and bays across New York are included in the 303(d) National Impaired Waters Registry and require comprehensive watershed clean up plans called Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) that often have been delayed for decades. Check to see if your local waterbodies are included in the 303(d) registry: Draft Map of Impaired Waterbodies Included in the New York State 303(d) Registry New York Has an Unprecedented Opportunity to Reverse Long-Standing Deterioration of Water Quality Even though Governor Cuomo's proposal has fatal technical and public policy flaws that must be corrected, this proceeding offers an unprecedented opportunity for our campaign to begin to reverse the deterioration of many of the waterbodies that we fought so long and hard to protect from shale fracking and fossil fuel infrastructure harm. That is why today is a red letter day in our efforts to restore many of New York's irreplaceable water resources after decades of neglect. The only way to curtail HABs is to conduct comprehensive watershed assessments that pinpoint all of the "point" and "non-point" sources of phosphorus, nitrogen and other nutrients that cause cyanobacteria and other algal blooms. A "point" source could be a wastewater treatment plant effluent discharge. A "non-point" source could be a farmer's field that is releasing fertilizers or manure to groundwaters or tributaries. The nutrient contributions of all of those pollution sources must be determined. Then they must be systematically alleviated and eliminated throughout each impaired watershed by adopting and enforcing a comprehensive TMDL clean up plan. This is an extraordinarily complex undertaking because watersheds are often huge areas with wide ranging contamination sources. There is No Way to Conduct Giant Watershed Pollutant Assessments or to Develop Individualized Watershed Clean up Plans in Only Three Months For example, according to DEC, "The watershed draining into Cayuga Lake is the largest of the Finger Lakes, covering 785 square miles (approximately 500,000 acres) in parts of 6 counties (Cayuga, Tompkins, Seneca, Schuyler, Tioga and Cortland) and is home to 120,000 people. The watershed consists of agricultural, residential, industrial, and forested land. More than 140 streams flow into the lake along its 95 mile shoreline." It is absurd to suggest that a lake of this size and complexity could be assessed in order to develop a meaningful clean up plan in only 90 days. New York State has already failed to adopt a TMDL as a "high priority" for Cayuga Lake since 2002. Intensive work on the TMDL has been underway since 2013 and no plan has yet been proposed. Please note that "cookie-cutter" clean up plans based on general assumptions and computerized modeling would be an irresponsible waste of public funding because they would be doomed to failure. New York's Failure to Clean Up Chautauqua Lake and the New York City Reservoir System Must Not be Replicated in Future TMDLs The Governor's proposal includes Chautauqua Lake because that impaired waterbody has been beset with HABs. A TMDL was adopted for this impaired waterbody in 2012 based on voluntary BMPs and computerized modeling that obviously failed to resolve the lake's HAB problems. See: (TMDL) for Phosphorus in Chautauqua Lake - New York State ... In 2000 New York State adopted a TMDL for the New York City Reservoir system that similarly failed to prevent HABs in at least four reservoirs last summer. The world's largest unfiltered drinking water system was not included in the Governor's HAB proposal. See: TMDL - New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Both of these earlier TMDLs failed to control non-point pollution sources adequately. The profound shortcomings of these TMDLs must be eliminated from efforts to resolve HAB hazards in other waterbodies. Our coalition letter requests that Governor Cuomo adopt and implement comprehensive TMDL regulatory programs for all waterbodies impaired with HABs that threatened drinking water. These TMDLs must involve strict regulatory control programs overseen by State and Federal environmental authorities. Conclusion In conclusion, New York's water pollution hazards were required to be cleaned up 45 years ago through the implementation of the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments, later known as the Clean Water Act. Fulfilling the requirements of this law will be extremely challenging. If it were simple, New York's water contamination hazards would have been eliminated decades ago. Over the last 17 years, Toxics Targeting has developed unmatched experience working on waterbodies impaired by point and non-point pollution problems. This background can help guide efforts to clean up all of New York's impaired waterbodies polluted by HABs without further delay. See: Aid to Environment, Or Threat to Lake?; Cornell Pursues Pumping Plan, But Critics Fear Fouled Water I look forward to working with owners of properties impacted by HABs, anyone who drinks water threatened by HABs and all others who want New York strictly protected from water pollution hazards that were required to be cleaned up long ago as a matter of state and federal law. If your local waterbody experienced HABs but is not included among the 12 waterbodies chosen by the Governor for action, you will have to fight hard to expand the list. Arguably the most egregious shortcoming of the Governor's proposal is that it does not include Seneca Lake. See: Waterbodies with Harmful Algal Blooms Notifications in 2017 I invite Lake Association representatives and concerned citizens from all waterbodies impaired by HABs to contact me. The sooner, the better. The State of the State address is less than a week away. All for one, one for all. More very shortly. Onward and upward. Walter Hang