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SALT LAKE CITY — The head of Utah's water quality division said the giant algal bloom infesting Utah Lake and the Jordan River will accelerate his request for $1 million to study the algae problem at the state's third largest lake.
Walt Baker said the goal is to develop a "scientific" standard that is rigorous and protective of the lake's health.
"Hopefully this will lead to a specific standard for Utah Lake that says what is absolutely necessary to get at this phosphorus problem," he said.
Baker added that the division planned to make the request of the state water quality board by the end of the year, but the bloom will likely move that request up to August.
"It's a very important study. There are naysayers who believe no matter how much phosphorus you remove, it is still not going to solve the problem," he said.
Close to 80 percent of the algal bloom-causing phosphorus at Utah Lake cames from effluent discharge by wastewater treatment plants, according to Baker.
A new standard he describes as "modest" will put numerical limits on the 34 mechanical treatment plants that operate in Utah in 2020. The estimated cost for upgrades or new facilities is $112 million, while a more aggressive limit imposes costs close to $1.4 billion.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said nutrient removing technology is incredibly expensive, pointing to treatment upgrades carried out by Minnesota for drinking water that saw costs jump from 5 cents per 1,000 gallons to more than $4 per 1,000 gallons.
No sources of drinking water have been contaminated with the blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, but state officials are strongly warning against any cross connections between impacted secondary water systems and culinary water, which could spread the contamination.
On Thursday, a green blob of algae bubbled up out of a storm drain at 3200 West and 148000 South in Bluffdale, leading public works officials to cordon off the area to keep people away out of fear it was part of the harmful algal bloom. Officials later determined some cleaning of a nearby irrigation ditch produced a mass of soapy moss, presenting no health threat.
Related:
Mysterious green foam appears in Bluffdale drain
An area has been cordoned off while health department officials investigate a strange green foam that came out of a Bluffdale roadway drain Thursday.This bloom that has persisted since late last week, however, is presenting cyanobacteria cell counts that are dramatically higher than what water quality scientists have measured in past blooms.
The state reports that the concentrations of the cells are immense — 36 million cells per milliliter compared to the 2014 bloom that had a count of 750,000 cells per milliliter. Physiological effects of exposure to cyanobacteria — which can contain four different types of toxins — have been documented at 20,000 cells per milliliter.
Baker said it is impossible to predict how long the bloom will persist, but the abundance of sunshine and the low lake level have combined to produce a bloom that has covered a majority of the lake's surface of 96,000 acres.
The division has been investigating ways to control blooms, including the application of copper sulphate or a clay-like substance used in combination with hydrogen peroxide.
The solutions, however, come with their own set of potential complications.
"You're basically manipulating an ecosystem," said Jeff Ostermiller, the division's nutrient reduction program coordinator.
"There is at least the potential for non-target effects. I think it is incumbent on us to think of what those non-target effects might be and how we might minimize them. … It should make one nervous to add a known poison to the environment."
Utah Lake is also home to the endangered June sucker fish, which triggers another set of problems that would require consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before any action is taken. Ostermiller said that consultation would take months.
"If there were a silver bullet," he added, "we would not have harmful algal blooms increasing worldwide."
Both Baker and Ostermiller said any sort of "treatment” of the algal bloom does not solve the underlying problem of too much phosphorus in Utah Lake.
"That is a sort of Band-Aid approach. You solve the immediacy of the problem but don't fix it long term," Baker said.
