Nearly $600,000 in federal grant money is on its way to improve the early warning system for algal blooms in Lake Erie. The funding will be used to upgrade data gathering and public access to what’s learned.
The dollars are going to the Great Lakes Observing System, which coordinates information from federal, state and local agencies monitoring the lake.
GLOS communications director Kristin Schrader said the plan is to refine analysis of lake data so that algal blooms are spotted early and that warnings about them are accurate.
Schrader said only some algae poses a health risk, and the public needs to when and where that is.
“As long as they know that water where they are is safe to go into, there’s no reason for people not to be in the water, or swim in the water, or fish in it, or take their pets in it, or anything else,” Schrader says. “That’s what the technology is designed to provide, that information.”
The grant is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
