As climate change warms water, algae is killing fish and plants in U.S. lakes, including California's Lake Elsinore. New tech could save them.
It’s been 15 years since Danny Taylor last visited Lake Elsinore. He said the water was “brown [and] smelly.” He has family nearby and has been in the area, but skipped lakeside visits. “I just never came back down to the water because of that.”
Climate change is wreaking havoc on some freshwater lakes. They’re getting warmer, and that is spawning lots of toxic algae. When the algae runs rampant like it did 15 years ago, it can kill every other living thing in the lake. Sometimes the city of Lake Elsinore, situated halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, has to close the lake to prevent people from getting sick.
New freshwater in the lake makes the bloom recede. Sometimes the city pumps it in, or a strong rainy season can help. After a while, the algae dies off and the cycle starts again.
The city wants to keep the algae to a minimum because it relies on tourists like Danny Taylor who spend time and dollars when they visit the lake. The city has invested in a marina, hosts a big annual fishing tournament and spruced up the lakeside recreational vehicle camp, Jack Ferguson of the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District said.
“It’s already booked out for the weekends through the summer,” Ferguson said.
But when the bloom is bad enough, business dries up.
Fresh water bodies across the globe are falling victim to this problem as the climate crisis makes water warmer. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 40,000 bodies of water are “impaired” just in the United States.
Lake Elsinore is the largest natural freshwater lake in Southern California. Now the city on its shores is spending $2 million to try out a new technology to fix it.
“This is a very natural process that occurs in all healthy, balanced, water ecosystems,” said Moleaer CEO Nick Dyner. His company’s tech is in the lake now, and he explained it doesn’t use any chlorine or harmful chemicals. Instead, it uses trillions of tiny oxygen bubbles.
“Nanobubbles are extremely small bubbles of gas, hence the word, ‘nano.’ They’re 2,500 times smaller than a grain of salt,” Dyner said.
Bubbles that small aren’t light enough to float to the surface. They stay at the bottom of the lake where oxygen is in shortest supply. Plants and animals then get the oxygen they need to stand a fighting chance, and the algae starves.
“In simplest terms, nanobubble treatment is helping the lake restore itself,” Dyner said.
Standing on the shoreline next to a pair of fishermen, the water district’s Jack Ferguson points to a big, white cube sitting quietly about a stone’s throw from the water’s edge.
“That’s the nanobubble machine right there on that barge,” he said. “It’s probably 80-90 feet offshore.”
The machine has been there since December, and so far, it seems to be working. A kayaker peering over the edge can see 12-14 feet down. It’s some of the best visibility the city has ever recorded. And the water is a deep blue. It was a rainy year, and that usually helps the lake’s water quality. In the hot summer months, the bubbles will have more work to do.
“We’re waiting to see how long this lasts and the water stays clear and dark blue. But I’ve never seen it like this,” Ferguson said.
The city says its measurement of the water’s resiliency has doubled. Algae concentrations have dropped by half in the worst spots and disappeared almost entirely in the best ones.
The owners of the RVs in the lakeside campsite have noticed.
Among the campers is Danny Taylor’s sister. Her trip brought Taylor back to the lake 15 years after that first disappointing trip.
“It’s very clean. I’m really impressed,” Taylor says. “I’ll be back here, definitely. It’s really, really nice.”
