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Jul 05, 2023

Klamath Tribes raise concerns for public health near toxic algae bloom

UPPER KLAMATH LAKE, Ore. – Officials with the Klamath Tribes are concerned about the Upper Klamath Lake, in more ways than one. “This isn’t something we can bury our heads in the sand and just

UPPER KLAMATH LAKE, Ore. – Officials with the Klamath Tribes are concerned about the Upper Klamath Lake, in more ways than one.

“This isn’t something we can bury our heads in the sand and just ignore,” said Dr. Alex Gonyaw, senior fisheries biologist for the Klamath Tribes.

The Oregon Health Authority has issued a recreational use advisory for the lake due to a toxic level of cyanobacteria in the water.

“The Upper Klamath Lake has been disturbed for many decades by agricultural activity which has resulted in toxic cyanobacterial blooms,” said Dr. Gonyaw.

OHA says these microscopic organisms are harmful to people if ingested, causing everything from nausea and vomiting to dizziness and shortness of breath.

The lake has been a significant point for the tribe for many generations, providing an ecosystem for many culturally significant plants and animals.

“We’ve been screaming for a long time that you cannot poison the local environment without also poisoning people,” said Tribal Chairman Clayton Dumont Jr.

Now, the lake is becoming the center of conversation for a major public health concern.

“At these levels, it can cause really severe illness,” said OSU associate professor Kimberly Halsey.

Water from the Upper Klamath Lake is used to irrigate over 200,000 acres of agriculture land overseen by the Klamath Project.

The Klamath Project, operating since 1906, takes water from the A Canal and uses it to water nearby crops.

The project does not have a major water storage reservoir, meaning water is pulled through the canal every year despite conditions in the lake.

“Our members first report seeing these toxic blooms in its decay and rebirth cycle in the late 30s and early 40s,” Dumont said.

Nations across the world have looked into similar issues surrounding cyanobacteria and public health, trying to find the link between toxic blooms and agriculture.

Numerous studies say toxic blooms, like the one in Upper Klamath Lake, not only lead to lower crop yields, but pose a risk for anyone who eats crops irrigated by the contaminated water.

“There is abundant literature, dozens and dozens of peer-reviewed scientific literature that say microcystin (the toxin produced by the cyanobacteria found in Upper Klamath Lake) accumulates in food crops,” said Dr. Gonyaw.

We reached out to the Bureau of Reclamation to find out its regulations around cyanobacteria blooms and irrigation but have not heard back.

While there is not currently toxic monitoring in the state of Oregon, researchers at Oregon State University have recently developed a new way to monitor the dangers associated with algae and cyanobacteria blooms.

“We don’t know this combination of factors, temperature, ph…lead to this sort of large dosing of water with this toxin,” said Halsey.

Associate professor Kimberly Halsey said this new research will help better predict when and where these toxic blooms will pop up.

“It’s a very very unpredictable dynamic system,” Halsey said. “That’s why I think that new novel approaches to be able to ideally predict the onset of a really high toxic event. That would be really valuable I think to protecting the public.”

Halsey says the new research suggests the link between toxic blooms and canals, such as the A Canal, were not concerning.

“We actually hypothesized that some of the canals may have become actually concentrating the toxin in a sense but we didn’t find that,” Halsey said. “We found that it tended to be quite patchy and again unpredictable.”

OSU researchers say more work still needs to be done on how this new system will apply to lakes other than Upper Klamath, but the research is a good step in the right direction.

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