The algal blooms poisoning U.S. lakes tripled in number last year

Not all algal blooms are toxic, and not all toxic algal blooms make people sick. But when phosphorous and nitrogen wash into a lake and mix with warm water, the resulting algae can produce a byproduct called cyanotoxin, which can cause fever, headache, drowsiness, vomiting, and rashes in humans. Fish have it even worse: In 2017, the blooms caused fish kills in at least six water bodies.

Though the pollution that causes them comes from a variety of sources, there’s a pretty strong consensus that algal blooms are primarily the result of runoff from nearby farms. That’s why it’s so hard to stop them from happening: While it’s relatively easy to locate and fine a factory that dumps chemicals into a river, tracing fertilizer pollution upstream to a single farm is practically impossible. There’s just no easy way to tell whose chemicals are washing off their crop fields due to rain and erosion. So when it comes time to pay for the damages, the burden falls primarily on the water utilities who have to filter polluted water.

“There are rarely any fines when algae blooms occur,” says Anne Weir Schechinger, senior economic analyst for the Environmental Working Group, in an email. “The majority of algae blooms are caused by agricultural pollution, and farmers aren’t held accountable for the pollution they put into the water.”

In early May, Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz blamed the agricultural lobby for the state’s lack of progress on farm pollution control. “We live in a state where our legislature is a wholly owned subsidiary of the farm bureau,” he said, while speaking at an algae conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, according to the Toledo Blade. “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

But according to Civil Eats, the Ohio Farm Bureau may be changing its tune ever so slightly. The organization invited Bill Kellogg, a conventional farmer who has quietly implemented runoff-reducing measures like planting pollinator patches and cover crops, to share his story with its constituents. Kellogg told the website his logic is simple: If farmers don’t make strides toward improving water quality on their own, they’ll eventually face tougher regulations. For the time being, the federal government’s approach to conservation is pretty farmer-friendly. Programs are optional, and there are robust incentives for growers who elect to reduce their environmental impact. In 2015, federal spending for the Environmental Quality Incentives program was over $600 million.

Still, this incentives-based approach hasn’t yet proven successful, and in the absence of more robust federal guidelines, some states have started mandating conservation measures on farms. “One good rule is in Minnesota—the state government requires farms that are on public waterways to plant perennial vegetation buffers between farm fields and waterbodies to reduce runoff from entering water,” Schechinger says. “Vegetative buffers, cover crops, and grass waterways are all good farming techniques that can prevent and reduce runoff.”

Meanwhile, algal bloom season starts soon. Next time you’re tempted to tell Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to go jump in a lake (this is the man who sees the Clean Water Act as a threat to private property owners), make sure it’s a green one.