Quebec's famous lakes infected with toxic blue-green algae*

MONTREAL, July 24 (AFP) Jul 25, 2007

Unsightly and potentially toxic, blue-green algae has infested Quebec's
prized lakes, fed by fertilizers that keep summer home lawns plush and
green and local residents and authorities fretting.

With its half-a-million lakes, Quebec is nirvana to fishermen and
boaters fleeing inner city stress for the peace and calm of summer
cabins and mansions on the shores of cool lakes.

But this summmer, a pall has fallen over this idyllic paradise and over
the surface of many lakes in the form of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria.

Besides turning the lake surface a putrid shade of green, the pond scum
or bloom, as cyanobacteria is also called, can be toxic, causing skin
irritation on contact and liver or nervous system problems when swallowed.

The Quebec government has posted warnings on the Internet for 72 lakes
and rivers people should not drink from -- three times the number from
last year.

"For two weeks, they've been providing us with water for drinking and
cooking. At the beginning of the summer it was bottled, but since last
week it comes in tanker trucks," said Cowansville Mayor Arthur Fauteux,
whose 12,500 citizens live some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of
Montreal.

Most of the polluted lakes in Quebec are resort areas where decades of
growing human activity has battered ecosystems to the point of fragility.

"They've built houses and cut down trees to get better views of the
lakes, they've replaced natural vegetation with lawns that need
fertilizing. There are many factors that over the years have wrought a
change in the quality of the lake waters," Department of Environment
biologist Marc Simoneau told AFP.

Blue-green algae chiefly get their nourishment from phosphorous, which
is rarely found in water but becomes abundant in the presence of
fertilizer that washes off lawns and farms.

The bloom is a headache for the tourist industry and to owners of lake
shore real estate who fear property values will fall with the rising
pollution.

"You can be sure people think about that. That's one of the incentives
that leads to a change in behavior and the reforestation of lake
shores," said O'Donnell Bedard, mayor of Lac-St-Joseph, a town 30
minutes from Quebec.

The lake the town is named after became fodder for blue-green algae last
year. The bloom forced local authorities to start thinking green: they
banned fertilizers and offered 480 dollar grants to people to reforest
the lake shore.

"Quebec is no more polluted than other regions around the world," David
Bird, a cyanobacteria specialist with the University of Quebec,
Montreal, told AFP.

"These precautions are the result of global awareness to the real danger
of toxic cyanobacteria after all those people died in Caruaru, in Brazil."

In 1996, some 50 people at a blood dialysis center in Brazil died after
getting injections of cyanobacteria contaminated water in their veins.