Fitzpatrick PLANNING TO PREVENT Completes 18 Year Tenure as Farm Bureau Director
By | Jill Sell FREE LANCE WRITER KENT-RAVENNA RECORD COURIER
HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS
A NEWLY- minted hobby farmer recently moved from an urban area to a more rural location. He was happy to own a pond on his property. But he wasn’t so thrilled when he noticed quickly growing green vegetation starting to cover the water. Fearing it was a harmful algal bloom (HAB), the man was sure the toxins would affect his skin, nervous system and liver. And, of course, he knew HABs can cause major problems with public drinking water, animal health and recreational water activities. But there is a happy ending. Not only was the green on his pond not cyanobacteria, it wasn’t even algae. The pond contained common duckweed (Lemna minor), the smallest flowering plants known. The U.S. Forest Service even reports duckweed is used for the bioremediation of waterways with excessive amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen runoff that cause HABs.
18 | SPRING 2020
“A lot of people don’t realize that 99 percent of algae is just a natural biological reaction going on,” said Michelle Wood, program administrator, Holmes Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). “But it’s good to be aware. All our water here drains to the Ohio River. If you care about water quality, you need to know what’s happening on your property.” But what’s going on in Toledo with runoff may not be the same as what is occurring in other parts of the state. “Algal blooms on the Ohio River don’t get as much attention as those on Lake Erie,” said Wood. “But we need plans to stop runoff here, too. There isn’t one plan that is one-size-fits-all plan. We are not like northwest Ohio where the land is flat. Holmes has steeper topography which can complicate runoff. And we have smaller farms here, some five or 10 acres, not 100.”
