WALL LAKE, S.D. (KELO) — Minnehaha County Emergency Management recently discovered high levels of harmful algae blooms at Wall Lake.
Kevin Christenson of the South Dakota Association of Rural Water Systems says a harmful algal bloom like the one on Wall Lake forms when there’s too many nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous present on hot, sunny days, making it unsafe for swimming.
“If you end up swimming in it, you can get a rash on your skin, upset stomach. It’s a lot like flu-like symptoms,” Christenson said.
Algae can be even more dangerous for pets.
“Worst case scenario, if they eat a lot of the cyanotoxins, cyanobacteria, the worst case is they could die. Otherwise sick, vomiting, diarrhea, flu-like symptoms,” Christenson said.
There was plenty of algae present near the boat ramp Friday.
“Especially with the currents going that way, it’ll pack it all into that cove and it kind of just doesn’t really escape there very much because the water over there doesn’t really go as hard as, say, like out in the middle of the lake,” Taylor Madison said.
On Monday, algae was still present, but some of it has cleared up. In other parts of the lake, like near the beach, there’s not much algae at all.
“It will naturally go away once the nutrients have been depleted enough. Probably the best way to get rid of it is just controlling the nutrients that get pushed into the water body or the watershed itself,” Christenson said.
Christenson said on average, an algae bloom will last anywhere from one to two and a half weeks.
