The statewide plan to address cyanobacteria is now available and has been posted on the NHDES website. In 2022,
legislation was enacted to require the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) to develop a plan that would prevent the increase of and help control cyanobacteria blooms in water bodies throughout the state. Recognizing that cyanobacteria blooms cannot be eliminated, the State included strategies to educate, monitor, and evaluate the potential causes of these blooms. This plan marks an important step for the state in outlining specific strategies and actions to address the threat of harmful algal blooms to our freshwater resources.
Four key strategies were identified as necessary to meet the State's goals to prevent the increase of and eventual control of cyanobacteria blooms in NH's waterbodies. The following is excerpted from the plan:
Develop policies and practices to prevent nutrient inputs. Significant efforts must be made to reduce nutrient inputs into the state's surface waters. Control of nutrient loading to surface waters, in particular phosphorus, is best accomplished through state and local policy implementation, stormwater control and watershed and lake management.
Advance outreach and education efforts for individual assessment and action. Respondents to a public outreach survey identified increasing education and training tools as important to making informed decisions about the use of the state’s surface waters with respect to cyanobacteria bloom presence. Such efforts are important to increase general awareness of the public and specific segments of the workforce who have direct contact with the state’s surface waters for recreation and as a drinking water source.
Enhance monitoring to track frequency, location and duration. Enhancement of cyanobacteria monitoring is needed to track blooms and clearly communicate current conditions to the public. Cyanobacteria blooms vary widely in their duration, severity and distribution.
Establish policies and procedures specific to surface waters used for public drinking water supplies. There are over 560,000 service points in New Hampshire that provide water to the public that originates from surface waters. To date NHDES is aware of nine surface water sources where cyanobacteria blooms have occurred.
Each strategy has a list of priority actions associated with it, which can be found in Appendix C. Appendix B lists ideas and suggestions shared by the Cyanobacteria Advisory Committee, and Appendix D. lists a summary of supplemental actions.
It is worth taking the time to review the plan, its strategies, priorities, and recommended actions. Cyanobacteria blooms are not going away in the near future, and as noted in the Executive Summary, 'the efforts identified in the plan require policy changes, financial investments, partnerships, research, and education.'
LWA was pleased to participate in the Cyanobacteria Advisory Committee, and will continue in our efforts to reduce nutrient loading to the surface waters in the Winnipesaukee watershed, as well as implementing other strategies identified in the plan.
Read the Plan Here.