DENIM SPIRIT: The heartbreak of green slime, HABs | Opinion

“Heartbreaking” is a phrase I don’t often use. It’s one of those words I hold like that special bottle or can of something in the back of your refrigerator just waiting for the right moment. It is a word that evokes the sorrow of grief before the long shadow of loss settles in, or before anger or rage arrive.

“It was heartbreaking” is undramatic and clean, yet captures that first moment of encounter with loss. Something dear has been taken away.

That first bicycle ride along the lake at the height of the harmful algal blooms, when that sickening color of slime green clung to the shore for two miles, was heartbreaking. Before rage rose toward the careless negligence by farm and vineyard owners, there was just heartbreak at the sight of such a violation. That intense green that does not belong in the clear water of Seneca Lake was like the shock of seeing a compound fracture followed swiftly by heartbreak for the injured.

Then, reason came crawling back to pick up the pieces, shock, sorrow, and rage left behind. It isn’t just the farms and vineyards, though they are truly a huge source of the phosphorus- and nitrate-infused fertilizer running off fields and vineyards and draining into the lake. It is also homeowners who want picture-perfect lawns and flowers, and so use fertilizers with phosphorus to grow their carpets of green. And, it is the owners of lake homes with poorly maintained septic systems that leak.

So now that the Spirit of the Lake has gotten our collective attention, and no one in their right mind can deny that HABs are a serious threat to the health of the lake and the quality of our drinking water, what can be done?

A great deal, and that is where hope is rooted.

The state can mandate as well as help fund the construction of berms, buffers, and ditches on farms and vineyards that redirect and limit runoff. The owners of such agribusinesses can be proactive, too, and reduce the use of fertilizer with phosphorus in it. There is a cost-benefit ratio of milk, cheese, and alcohol to clean water that isn’t being calculated yet. Collectively, we need to re-balance the relationship between the economy and the environment.

Homeowners, too, especially the ones with lakefront property, can invest in proper maintenance of their septic systems, as well as flat-out cancel their lawn service, or minimally require that any fertilizers or weed-control applications not contain phosphorus, nitrates, or toxins harmful to the lake. Whatever we put on our lawns and flowers ends up in the water table.

Then there is the reconnecting of the Keuka Outlet with surrounding wetlands that were separated back in the last century. Wetlands are a miraculous filter, and wherever we can promote their return and health, the fewer HABs we will see in the lake.

Hey, this isn’t rocket science. Even an ignorant writer like me can read the readily accessible and uncontroversial science and engineering that form the solutions to our problem. Yes, it means changing and restricting some behavior on businesses and property owners — maybe even reduced productivity, profit, and crabgrass free lawns — but modifying what we do is the cost of restoration and protection.

Continuing on as we are is even more costly.

Writer’s note: Sources for this column were Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association and the Paleontological Research Institution.

Cameron Miller of Geneva is an author and minister. His fiction and poetry are available through Amazon. Contact him through his website at subversivepreacher.org.