Algal Blooms Could Produce Neurotoxins.

• Position: LAKE ERIE - Brief article

Algal blooms in Lake Erie's central basin can produce types of cyanobacterial toxins that typically are not detected through routine water-safety monitoring, according to a study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research.

"The cyanobacteria we found in the central basin are completely different from what we've seen in the Toledo area in the western basin," says Justin Chaffin, research coordinator at Ohio State University's Stone Laboratory. "That's troubling because water treatment plants typically aren't set up to look for this bacteria or the toxins they create. It requires more expensive, more sophisticated equipment."

Harmful blue-green algal blooms and the toxic microcystins that accompany them have been a persistent threat in the lake's western basin but, until this study, bloom-related toxins had not been formally documented and analyzed in the central basin.

The water in the central basin had not been thought of as friendly to cyanobacteria because it is not as warm or nutrient-rich as in the western basin...