LAKE COUNTY – Amidst already tough economic times, local resorts and tourism-based businesses found themselves facing another challenge in 2009: Algae.
While algae is a part of life on Clear Lake, the algae bloom that hit in the summer of 2009 was so large that it was only matched two other times in 40 years, Deputy Water Resources Director Pam Francis told the Board of Supervisors in October.
“It did take us by surprise,” Francis said at the time.
The particular culprit in this outbreak was the blue-green algae lyngbya, which Water Resources Engineer Tom Smythe said had started showing up in Clear Lake in recent years.
In early summer, county health officials issued warnings not to ingest water or swim in areas where the lyngbya left its thick mats. Contact with skin can result in dermatitis.
The algae's mats, when they weren't broken up, coated the lake's surface and nearby shores, and as it decayed the stench was so severe that local agencies and water districts received numerous calls reporting sewage in the lake.
Numerous tests found that it wasn't sewage, but the algae, according to health officials.
Clearlake was hit hard, as was the Clear Lake Keys, where channels surrounding the community were choked solid with the bright green algae, which dried hard like cement.
Resort owners found themselves with empty businesses, and were struggling to hang on.
“It was devastating,” Clearlake City Council member Joyce Overton said this week, summing up the situation.
She said the city's transient occupancy taxes – or bed tax from accommodations – “are zilch” because of the outbreak.
“In my mind it just wasn't necessary,” Overton said, noting many resorts were just holding on as a result.
The Board of Supervisors discussed short- and long-term solutions – from purchasing equipment to restoring the lake's tules, which are like the lake's lungs – and town halls were held in Clearlake to find ways of working on the problem.
Local residents also got busy, using their boats to break up the mats. A huge volunteer effort took place in the Clear Lake Keys, where thousands of volunteer hours were estimated to have assisted in dealing with the emergency.
Yuba College biology and ecology professor Dr. Harry Lyons, an expert on the lake, explained to community members at a July town hall meeting that Clear Lake is an ancient and complex environment, a warm, shallow green lake with abundant life.
“You cannot manage it to be Lake Tahoe. You have an emerald, not a sapphire,” and as such Lyons said it required a specific, long-term approach to management.
Francis told the Board of Supervisors in a November discussion that a volunteer algae network had been resurrected, and the county had successfully applied for $100,000 in grant funding for equipment purchases.
The county purchased a fire boat from Kelseyville Fire as well as pontoon boats to help with breaking up the algae, and had assistance from Vector Control in working on the problem, Francis said.
Supervisor Denise Rushing said in November that further discussion on the matter was needed, and she called for a future workshop. More recently, the board sent letters to state and federal officials asking that legislation regarding an environmental restoration for Lake Tahoe be rewritten to include funding fro Clear Lake.
Ed Calkins, a member of the Clear Lake Advisory Subcommittee, put a call out to the community, asking for support of the proposal. His Web site at www.konoctibay.com/ offers more details on how to get involved.
Just what led to the lake's 2009 algae bloom still isn't known.
Francis said in November that local water experts weren't sure why it happened the way it did, although there were some notable clues: The lake was about 3 feet lower than average and the highest water clarity on record – 25 feet – was measured in the lake's upper arm on May 18 by the state Department of Water Resources.
Satellite photos taken of the lake and shown to supervisors illustrate the massive mats coating the lake.
“The scope of it was mind-blowing,” Francis said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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