SolarBees & Algae

[<jleuolson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting article in the Burlington Free Press as many of us drive alongside St. Albans Bay during the summer.

 

Only 71 days until we open up camp on May 6.

 

Jack Olson

 

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Lake users eye algae-fighting machines

By Candace Page
Free Press Staff Writer

January 24, 2006
People who love St. Albans Bay are sick of looking at green, soupy water in the summer. They've waited -- in vain -- for decades of anti-pollution work to restore swimmable water to their arm of Lake Champlain. 

This year they want to try a new technology with the promise of immediate gratification: Giant, floating, solar-powered fountains called SolarBees that aerate lake water and prevent algae blooms. 

Three of the machines would float off the little-used town beach at the north end of the bay. Each machine would draw in lake water through a 36-inch diameter tube, pull the water to the surface and pour it out in a gentle, circle-shaped flow that spreads over 40 to 45 acres. 

SolarBees have proved their ability to keep water clean of algae blooms in small lakes and ponds, the North Dakota manufacturer says, though they are unproven on a lake as large as Champlain. 

"We've spent millions studying St. Albans Bay. It's time to change from study mode to action mode," St. Albans resident Peter Rath said last week.

"We have action plans to address pollution -- stream erosion, run-off from farms -- but while we do that work, we need to do something to address the symptoms, too, so we can use the bay," said Rath, a retired engineer and leader of the SolarBee project. 

Three more of the machines would be installed in Missisquoi Bay, on a stretch of near-shore water in Highgate.

On the Quebec shore of Missisquoi Bay, residents of Venise-en-Quebec have been seeking money to float another 22 SolarBees, according to Joel Bleth, president of Pump Systems Inc. of Dickinson, N.D., the manufacturer. 

St. Albans Area Watershed Association and the Friends of Missisquoi Bay will seek a state permit and grants to install the six machines. The summer experiment can happen only if fund-raising efforts are successful. They would be rented on a trial basis at $3,255 a month for all six, Rath said. 

The machines are 10 to 17 feet in diameter; their solar collectors float on the surface, making the SolarBees look a bit like giant water bugs
Stinking water 

St. Albans and Missisquoi bays are polluted by heavy loads of phosphorus, an ingredient of human and animal waste and of commercial fertilizer.

Although Vermont is trying to reduce the flow of phosphorus into rivers that feed the bays, researchers have identified another source: Much phosphorus has settled to the lake bottom and is released back into the water every summer. 

The phosphorus feeds the growth of all kinds of algae. When the weather turns hot, one algae type, blue-green, grows more quickly than other forms and flowers into massive blooms. Bay water becomes ugly to look at, bad to smell and dangerous to drink. 

Swimmers have deserted the once-popular town beach on St. Albans Bay.

"In summer when the water stinks so bad, no one goes near there," Rath said. 

SolarBees work by aerating the water -- adding oxygen to it -- which disrupts the ability of blue-green algae to compete effectively with other microscopic life, Bleth said. Each unit can keep clear about 40 acres -- the equivalent of nearly 40 football fields. 

His company's Web site shows before-and-after pictures of scummy water bodies apparently transformed into clear, swimmable water.

"I'm open-minded about it," said Eric Smeltzer, an environmental scientist at the state Department of Environmental Conservation who has studied both Lake Champlain bays. "It would be nice if there was a device that could provide even localized relief. I guess I have basic scientific skepticism until it's proven to work."
Foiled by wind? 

The biggest question, Smeltzer and others said, is whether a technology developed for wastewater treatment lagoons and small ponds can work on 800-acre St. Albans Bay and even-larger Missisquoi Bay. 

"The theory behind it is reasonable. Its application in something as large as St. Albans Bay -- that's an engineering problem," said Gregory Druschel, a University of Vermont geologist who has studied phosphorus issues in the bay. 

The SolarBees will cover only a small area of the two bays. Dense algae blooms could still appear in other stretches of water. What happens when the wind pushes those blooms into the SolarBees? 

"It will take a couple of weeks to clear that water," Bleth acknowledged.

Nevertheless, "We're hoping the quantity of six is enough to clean up an area and keep it clean, despite wind blowing in," he said. 

That cannot happen fast enough for Jerry Morong, chairman of the Watershed Association and an avid boater. He keeps his 26-foot sailboat moored in St. Albans Bay but often sails out as quickly as possible. 

"I wouldn't swim there. We take our boat over to Butler Island or the Heroes to go swimming," he said. He hopes the SolarBees will make the town beach and a nearby town dock attractive again and doesn't envision ever dotting the whole bay with them. 

"We've got to do some kind of intervention, and this is the least invasive and least expensive compared to dredging the bottom," he said. "To clean up the bay would be a big thing."
Contact Candace Page at 660-1865, 229-9141 or e-mail cpage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx