Lakes and rivers are home to various blue-green algae species, and not all pose a health risk. Unfortunately, there’s no quick way to determine if a bloom is dangerous. Laboratory testing takes several days, during which the bloom’s toxicity can change rapidly or disappear entirely. Complicating matters further, algal blooms can appear and vanish within hours, making beach closures difficult to manage.

This webinar highlighted the challenges of monitoring and responding to blue-green algae blooms and their economic and public health impacts.

This event was co-hosted by the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin and is part of a quarterly online water symposium series in partnership with the Great Lakes Higher Education Consortium, an initiative of Council of the Great Lakes Region. These events seek to encourage and advance collaborations, share science across borders, encourage students in research and career opportunities and present research that is solving real-world problems.

The panel included:

• Gina LaLiberte, Statewide Harmful Algal Bloom Coordinator and Inland Beach Monitoring Coordinator, WDNR
• Todd Miller, Associate Professor, UW-Milwaukee’s Zilber College of Public Health
• Amy Weckle, Assistant Director, Illinois Water Resources Center