Researchers study the toxicity and airborne spread of algal blooms
Aug 12, 2024, 6:36 PM | Updated: 6:55 pm
PROVO — University students are investigating whether algal blooms in Utah Lake could be airborne in a study that started Monday.
Utah State University students will repeatedly send a drone boat into the lake’s water during the week. This is not only safer for students when the water is rough but might also be healthier for them as they study the algal blooms.
“The thing is, if, let’s say, the boat tips over or they get to come in contact with it, they do get sick. You don’t want that to happen,” said Dylan McPeake, a Master’s student in civil and environmental engineering at USU.
The yellow drone boat floating across the Utah Lake. (Mike Anderson, KSL TV)
McPeake said they want to see if they can give staff at the Department of Environmental Quality another option, essentially using a robot to take samples. USU professors said this study is being run through principal faculty investigators at the university.
“If the water is dangerous, you don’t want to, ideally, don’t want to send someone on a boat to collect samples,” he said.
A map charting the course of the drone boat. (Mike Anderson, KSL TV)
But there’s another concern that potentially affects anyone who comes to Utah Lake: a cyanobacteria called microcystin, which can be quite nasty in the right amounts.
“For the most part, you go to see the more mundane effects, which are going to be things like constipation, occasional headaches, diarrhea, that sort of thing,” McPeake said of the bacteria. “For the more extreme end … you run the risk of things like liver failure or hemorrhaging or death.”
That’s why the boat’s filters, which run for 12 hours a day, take in samples of the air around the lake.
The air filters that capture air in the lake. (Mike Anderson, KSL TV)
“One thing that’s been seen in places like Michigan and New Zealand is it hasn’t been checked at Utah Lake yet,” McPeake said. “It’s actually possible for the microcystin in the water to actually aerosolize. They get in the air and then pose a threat to inhalation.”
McPeake said if the bacteria is in the air, concentrations would likely be much lower on the shore than from a boat. Most people might not even notice any issues in a single-day trip, but the students would like to know for sure.
