Free email bulletin tracks Lake Erie's harmful algal blooms

SANDUSKY — Almost a decade ago, a federal agency began an experimental email bulletin tracking Lake Erie algal blooms.The "experimental" tag has since been removed, and thousands of people subscribe to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Lake Erie Algal Bloom Bulletin.This year's bloom started early, popping up at the end of June.Subscribers to the free email bulletin — available to anyone who signs up at tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/hab/lakeerie.html — view satellite images showing where the bloom has spread and read commentary and forecasts from government scientists.The bulletin is ordinarily issued two days a week — Monday and Thursday — but special issues come out when there is breaking news. The eruption of this year's harmful algal bloom resulted in a special bulletin being sent out June 29.Richard Stumpf, a NOAA scientist who participates in the annual algal bloom forecast at Stone Laboratory near Put-in-Bay, started the email bulletin.It was labeled experimental because "we weren't sure it would work or would be useful," Stumpf said.Almost 3,000 people have signed up for the bulletin."It is a wide variety of people," Stumpf said.Some are scientists, some are involved in lake management or activism for governments and nonprofits, and some are simply people who like to go out on the lake."There are people who are just lake enthusiasts," Stumpf said. "They boat. They fish."Stumpf estimates at least 10 percent of the people on the mailing list are in Canada.People who read the bulletin will notice that it refers to cyanobacteria.The Microcystis that creates harmful algal blooms technically is not a form of algae, but a variety of bacteria that acts like plants and use photosynthesis. Satellites in space can detect cyanobacteria chlorophyll and display the blooms in color in the bulletins.That's handy in tracking the persistent bloom in Sandusky Bay. The kind of cyanobacteria in the bay doesn't produce the thick mats of blue-green scum associated with the lake's main HAB, but the bay's Planktothrix cyanobacteria shows up easily in the satellite photos, Stumpf said.Stumpf said the formerly experimental bulletin has been adopted by NOAA as an official product. That means the agency will make sure it will continue to come out, regardless if any particular person is available. During the last week of June, when three bulletins were issued, Stumpf was out of the country, in Korea.Stumpf said he's pleased the bulletin he created has caught on with Lake Erie buffs."I am quite pleased that we have been able to produce something useful," Stumpf said.Reach reporter Tom Jackson at jackson@sanduskyregister.com and follow him on Twitter @jacksontom.The patches of color in Lake Erie show the presence of algal blooms. The black areas of the lake aren't affected by the blooms yet.