Clear Lake Turns… Green?

Sarah Williamson (Host, EarthxNews): A California lake has turned green, and photos showing the emerald waters are now visible from space!

Satellite images taken by NASA suggests that Clear Lake, north of Napa Valley and San Francisco, may be infested with a type of blue-green algae strong enough to poison humans and animals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). County officials say that, overall, algae is essential to the freshwater lake’s health and aquatic ecosystem, but this bloom can cause skin irritation and gastrointestinal issues, plus deplete water’s oxygen levels—creating dead zones that kill fish and other aquatic life.

Clear Lake’s waters once closely resembled its name, but it started becoming noticeably murkier in the 1920s due to agriculture and mining activities in the area. Officials report the number of blooms in the lake has increased in recent years and expect that the potential for blooms will increase in the coming decades.