Warming trend in lakes leading to harmful bacteria outbreaks

Don't swim, don't swallow, and most pertinent now that it's fall, keep pets away. Lake Cochituate in Framingham may look pristine, but the state Department of Public Health lists it as one of about a dozen bodies of fresh water in Massachusetts contaminated with harmful levels of the blue-green algae known as cyanobacteria.

"So this algae releases a toxin in the water and it can be harmful if you ingest it," said Alexandra DePalo, Framingham Health Department. "People swimming is not so much of a concern at the moment but we do know that there are a lot of families who walk dogs in some of these parks and dogs may, from time and again, decide to go for a little swim."

A bad decision, apparently, for some dogs over the summer as reports came in from across the country that some canines died after exposure to cyanobacteria-contaminated water.

>> MSPCA warns pet owners of harmful blue-green algae in Massachusetts

Cyanobacteria is also harmful to humans with exposures causing anything from skin irritation to gastroenteritis to even damage to organs.

The state lists four other lakes as well as five ponds and four reservoirs as currently having harmful levels of the algae.

"So we're seeing a warming trend in lakes across the Northeast," said Nathan Torbick, Applied Geosolutions.

That was the conclusion Torbick reached while studying cyanobacteria outbreaks in lakes across New England.

"We took the past 35 years of thermal imagery from NASA to map every lake over eight hectares in New England," he said.

That amounted for nearly 4,000 lakes. The study found most showed a warming trend with an average increase of .8 degrees Celcius or 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

Warmer lakes, Torbick says, will likely mean more days with warning signs up.

"These warming temperatures are essentially going to be a precursor to more frequent, more intense, longer blooms across our inland water bodies."

[ Toxic algae poisoning kills 3 dogs that swam in North Carolina pond, owner says ]

Cox Media Group