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Took a trip to willard saturday. Wow that north marina looks like a sewage treatment plant or some other toxic polluted wastewater. There was an extreme amount of the most horrid looking algae around. The disconcerting thing about it was the color. The algae was normal-like but a bright blue paint-like substance was emanating from the algae. This blue paint covered most of the surface around the shorelines of the harbor. All I can say is NASTY! I've never seen so much algae..... even in 20 years+ of fishing utah lake. I was wondering if this blue gunk is poisonous. Any insights? Do you folks think it has contaminated the game fish in willard?
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Unless you were seeing dead fish in the marina, it must not be a problem. There are usually a lot of fish in the marina, so I'm sure there would a some floating if the algae was harmfull.WH2
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Hence the term "Blue/Green Algae" I think it is fresh. A little sun, some O-2 and it will turn brown and sink.
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There was huge mats of algae floating all over the lake on friday. It was fun taking the boat thru it and it would turn the entire wake green. I am not sure what the flouresent color was but my boat has that turquoise color all over it and my socks were all green also (don't ask).
I believe the reason it was all on the surface is the "turnover" and the fact the wind was not blowing to break it all up.
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Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) have a blue pigment in them called phycocyanin. Not all Cyabonbacteria are blue however. Some are red or pink because they contain the pigment phycoerythrin. I've seen thick blue-green algae blooms on Willard that were mostly blue-green but also had quite a bit of pink and red in areas. Pretty sick looking. Some Cyanonbacteria do produce populations that are toxic. For example, a species of Lyngbya is responsible for "swimmers itch".
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Some insightful comments here. I know some blue-green algae are poisonous. I was just caught off guard that the algae itself was not blue-green but the floating paint-like substance was a bright neon blue. Never seen anything quite like that. I have seen pink and red algae that are in the same family though.
The reason for my initial concern was that I recalled that some sewage treatment plants up in Northern Utah were inundated by high water this spring and were forced to flush raw sewage into rivers and streams. It just made me wonder if this was the case at Willard. I heard several years back they did dump raw sewage into the weber river. I just figured that if this indeed has occurred, the high levels of organic matter would account for the widespread, unusually colored algae bloom. I remember that Willard bay used to be crystal clear all summer long. Of course, that was years ago.
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Swimmer's itch is a parasite-induced disease. Some people may develop a contact dermatitis to algae, but the term Swimmer's Itch usually refers to something else. It is present in Pelican Lake.
[url "http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/cercarialdermatitis/factsht_cercarialdermatitis.htm"]http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/cercarialdermatitis/factsht_cercarialdermatitis.htm[/url]
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talk to the oldgeezer (I think that's his name), supposedly he is the best fisherman up at Willard Bay, I have to thank him though because he told me not to go up there, glad he did or I could have contacted something.
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[reply]
Swimmer's itch is a parasite-induced disease. Some people may develop a contact dermatitis to algae, but the term Swimmer's Itch usually refers to something else. It is present in Pelican Lake.
[url "http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/cercarialdermatitis/factsht_cercarialdermatitis.htm"]http://www.cdc.gov/...carialdermatitis.htm[/url] [/reply]
It's true that cercarial dermatitis (see [url "http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/wat/wq/reference/helminth.html"]helminth worms[/url]) is the swimmers itch that most of us here in Utah are familiar with. However, a frequently occurring marine "swimmers itch" is attributed to contact with Lyngbya majuscula, Schizothrix calcicola and Oscillatoria nigroviridis.
[url "http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/wat/wq/wq_aquatic.html#pathogens"]Aquatic Pathogens Essays[/url]
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