Survey start of algal-bloom education

A survey aimed at gauging the public's level of knowledge of harmful algal blooms will begin today, as part of a larger project to address the issue of the blooms in Beaver Creek Park.

Montana State University Northern Professor Terri Hildebrand and Co-Principal Researcher Erica McKeon-Hanson, also a member of the Hill County Board of Health, are leading the project, with the former focused on studying the issue itself and the latter focused on the survey and community engagement aspects of the project.

Hildebrand said the study isn't quite complete yet, but the survey is something they can do even before the last of the data is analyzed.

Paper surveys are available at the Beaver Creek Park Office, the Hill County Courthouse's Treasurer's Office, Gary and Leo's Fresh Foods, North 40, Montana State Universit-Northern's Student Union, Bing N Bob's, Stromberg's Sinclair, Rad's Deli & Pizza, Finley's Grocery, McNair Furniture, Jitterbugs, and Rocky Boy Indian Reservation's Department of Natural Resources at the Rocky Boy Agency.

McKeon-Hanson, who has worked in community-based participatory research like this for two decades said they need as much engagement with this survey as possible if they're going to get a clear picture of the public's knowledge.

She said the intention is to use the results of the survey to create an effective community education plan in order to increase awareness and knowledge of the issue.

She said she deliberately has no expectations for what the result of the study will be, because she doesn't want to make assumptions about the public's knowledge. She said the purpose of the project is not to tell anyone what to do, but to engage the community in finding a solution.

To that end, McKeon-Hanson said, she is looking to put together a community advisory board when the results of the survey, which she said will only take a few minutes to fill out, have been analyzed.

Blooms and their effects

Hildebrand, who works on the data gathering side of the project, said toxic algal blooms can be very dangerous to humans and their pets.

A lot of algae is non-toxic she said, and no one should want to get rid of all of it, because it is a very important part of the ecosystem.

But, she said, blooms, where algae populate rapidly in a given area, are caused by an excess of nutrients in the water, specifically nitrogen and phosphorous and if the algae is toxic it can become dangerous.

"You want algae in your water," she said. "... but based on what's happening on the land surrounding the water you can get an overload of nutrients and algae can be toxic and get out of control."

Toxic algae, which are mostly blue in coloration, as opposed to the green variety which are mostly harmless, produce neurotoxins that can cause severe rash on contact with skin, and illness or even death if ingested.

She said this is a serious risk for pets, and she knows dogs have died due to toxins they consumed on Beaver Creek Park.

Hildebrand said the algae itself is usually very easy to spot, and it's unlikely that anyone would chose to swim in it, but because water systems are so dynamic the algae can move dramatically while the toxins it produces don't, which is the real danger for people and pets.

"The wind will come along and the next day you won't see anything," she said, "... the toxin is still there, but you can't see it."

She said the amount of human deaths as a result of toxic algal blooms in the U.S. is relatively low, but worldwide deaths are higher, especially in poorer nations.

She said because many countries lack the funds necessary to maintain sufficient public health infrastructure, education, and effective water regulation, a lot of people in the world have to just take a chance on their water, and hope it's not contaminated.

"That's all they have," she said. "They need to drink."

Economic impacts

Hildebrand said these blooms have an adverse effect on human and pet health, but they also have significant impacts on economies Montana, Hill County included, rely on, especially cattle.

She said a rancher she met with recently lost 18 head of cattle this season because they drank water with toxins in it.

She said even cattle that don't die immediately can suffer severe liver damage that leads to slow deaths later and even those that don't suffer that grim end will likely see less weight gain and general health problems.

She said algal blooms and the nutrient overloads that cause them can also have negative effects on cold-water fisheries, and while fish tend to flee concentrations of theses toxins it has been found to build up in their muscles if over-exposed.

Hildebrand said there is no evidence that this buildup can affect humans who eat the fish later, but it's difficult to imagine that this doesn't affect fish health.

"I don't know how it couldn't, I mean it's killing cattle," she said.

She said algal blooms will ultimately affect any animal drinking from the water body they are in, but potential solutions exist, at least for cattle.

She said water tanks constructed at a higher elevation for cattle can minimize the exposure to these toxins, and restricting animals to designated areas for drinking can also help.

However, she said, these solutions may not be practical for Beaver Creek Park just due to the shape of its water bodies and the space people would have to work with in setting these kinds of things up.

Ultimately, Hildebrand said, Montana relies heavily on recreation for much of it's economy and if these blooms get bad enough the Department of Environmental Quality can close entire water bodies, costing businesses and governments a great deal of money in revenue.

"DEQ will close the lake," she said. "You'll lose your camping, you'll lose your recreation, you'll lose your fishing. So it can have an economic impact."

She said Lake Eerie saw a shut down like that which resulted in billions of lost dollars.

Nutrient overloads

Hildebrand said while it's obvious that the cause of the blooms is an excess of nutrients, the cause of that overload isn't entirely clear.

She said a common culprit for that kind of overload is agricultural runoff, including from manure or fertilizer, which is responsible for the ecological degradation of many streams, rivers, and other bodies of water in the U.S.

"Less than 50 percent of the nutrients actually make it into the ground, the rest runs off," she said.

Hildebrand said manure especially tends to contain a great deal of ammonia, which can destabilize ecosystems and contribute to blooms.

She also said climate change is almost certainly a contributing factor, with blooms becoming much larger the hotter it is.

She said Beaver Creek Park has been seeing problematic algal blooms since 2016, and with climate change continuing, the problem may well get worse as time goes on.

Community buy-in

Hildebrand said one of the most troubling findings of her studies so far is that the water coming into Beaver Creek Park is in much worse condition than the water already there, with the overload of nutrients being much higher.

"The standard is 0.11 micrograms per liter, that's what you should be at during the growing season, we have phosphorus that is coming in at 0.6, 0.7, so six or seven times higher than what it should be," she said.

She said the highest it ever got in the creek was about 0.3 micrograms per liter, which is not good, but considerably less problematic than water coming onto the park.

She said this is one of the fascinating aspects of water chemistry and its dynamics, but it's also very frustrating because it complicates any attempt to solve the problem.

"Beaver Creek Park can do everything they can to make things better," she said, "but unless you get buy-in from everybody, there is only so much that you can do."

Ultimately, she said, she's a scientist and her job is to collect, analyze, and present data, not to tell people how to do things, but if the problem is to be addresses it will require considerable participation.

A long time coming

Hildebrand, with the help of students, set up sites across Beaver Creek Park to collect water for analysis back in 2019 and the samples they obtained over a year of monthly collection was originally being studies for E-Colli and iron concentration.

She said studying water chemistry requires at least a year's worth of samples to create a baseline for study because measures like PH, temperature, flow, and sediment vary considerably based on the season.

"We have a really good profile of that creek," she said.

However, McKeon-Hanson mentioned the health department's concern about harmful algal blooms, Hildebrand found a new application for these sites.

She said Montana IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence provided a grant for the algal bloom research using machines designed to analyze algal blooms by looking at chlorophyl concentrations in the water, and another of toxin analysis.

She said data from Bear Paw Lake still needs to be analyzed and the full report won't be complete until May.

The survey thet starts today was worked on by McKeon-Hanson and a pair of students, Zephanhia Linton, and Tallem Oats who have been helping set up distribution methods for the survey, drop-boxes where they can be returned after completion and putting up posters around town with QR codes so people can get the survey through their phones.

"It's been very fun," Linton said.

Oats said being able to engage with the community by working on a project like this has been very rewarding.

She said she was able to get in touch with places on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation to get distribution sites and drop boxes set up.

The students said they didn't know much about the issue beyond the fact that its severity prevented them from swimming on the park, and learning about it through this has been fascinating.

Hildebrand and McKeon-Hanson said working with the students has been great, and they've actively improved the project.

"It's been awesome," McKeon-Hanson said. "They have great ideas."