Cayuga Lake has struggled with harmful algal blooms or HABs in recent years, but in 2021 unseasonably warm temperatures and heavy rainfall may have extended their prevalence late into the year.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing an investment of $65 million into fighting algal blooms that have created an increasing number of problems across the state in recent years. The Cuomo administration will target 12 priority lakes in four different regions that are vulnerable to harmful algal blooms. They are all different, and lessons learned form studying each lake would be applied to other similar lakes going forward. Greg Boyer of SUNY ESF in Syracuse has been studying algal blooms for years. He says this approach works because not all algal blooms are created equally. “It’s not going to be one size fits all,” Boyer said.