Date: 8/2/25 8:46 am From: Wayne Hoffman (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: Re: Mattamuskeet
Thanks, Derb -
You do valuable work.
There is a very basic ecology lesson here that way too many people who should know better routinely ignore: The amount of plant biomass and growth in a shallow lake is controlled by nutrient input. Lakes with algae bloom problems have excess nutrient entering them. The excess nutrients can be excess fertilizer applied to lawns or agricultural crops upstream, can be inadequately treated sewage (in NC very often from confined livestock operations), and in urban ponds can even be excess dog fecal matter. Lakes with large waterfowl populations get substantial inputs from bird droppings. In general, algae blooms occur after larger aquatic plants (cattails, reeds, waterlilies, even duckweed) are suppressed because people do not want their lakes to be weedy. Lakes with healthy aquatic "weed" populations can handle a lot of nutrient input, but kill or remove those plants, and the nutrients grow algae instead. I have personal experience with two lakes where herbivorous fish (grass carp) were introduced to eat aquatic weeds, and both developed algae problems within a few years. Installing air bubblers (popular in urban settings) can prevent lakes from becoming anoxic, but does not treat the nutrient problem.
Using algicides just treats a symptom, and at best gives short-term relief. Not much better than treating cancer with aspirin.
Actually dealing with the problem either involves intercepting the nutrient inflow before it gets to the lake, or removing it after it gets there. Encouraging aquatic "weed" growth, then harvesting and removing biomass can be very successful, but is usually labor-intensive and expensive. Treatment with chemicals such as alum can bind excess nutrients and cause them to precipitate to the lake sediments, but is not without environmental side effects, and probably cannot be done often enough to do much good in a large lake with large nutrient influxes.
Wayne Hoffman Wilmington
From: "Derb Carter" <carolinabirds...> To: "Carolinabirds" <carolinabirds...> Sent: Saturday, August 2, 2025 11:03:24 AM Subject: Mattamuskeet
I tried to post this a week ago when the court filed its decision but had some tech issues now resolved and did not realize it was not posted:
There was some discussion a few months ago about the proposal to apply a toxic algaecide to Lake Mattamuskeet that includes a warning that it is toxic to birds. The lake has water quality problems that need to be addressed, and a plan has been developed that will hopefully provide a long-term solution, and restore the submerged grasses and the status of the Refuge as a premier area for waterfowl. We represented Defenders of Wildlife and Sierra Club in filing a lawsuit challenging the plan to apply the toxic algaecide to several areas of the lake. The company agreed to defer application until the case was decided. Today, the federal court ruled that in approving application of the toxic algaecide to a Wildlife Refuge that was established as an inviolate bird sanctuary, the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Wildlife Refuge Act which requires all activities be compatible with the purposes of the refuge, and the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the Service to take a hard look at actions it proposes to take that have a significant effect on the environment. We are hopeful that now attention and resources can be refocused on long tern solutions to the water quality problems in the lake.
