Examination of Cyanobacteria Distributions within Lakes around the Town of Wallkill

Abstract

Cyanobacteria blooms have been an increasing threat to freshwater waterbodies throughout the world, causing harm to organisms, impacting recreational lakes and drinking water supplies and destroying biodiversity throughout New York State ("Cuomo Unveils 12th Proposal of 2018," 2018). To alleviate these HABs, Governor of New York State Andrew G. Cuomo dedicated a $65-million-dollar proposal to decrease the concentration of algal blooms throughout the state. The public can help experts engaged in the plan just by knowing what HABs look and their impact on the environment by using educational materials from the internet and quantifying the Jar Float Test. This study compared the effectiveness of the Jar Float Test technique against the interpreting historical aerial photography freely available on Google Earth Pro by sampling and analyzing lakes throughout the City of Middletown and the Town of Wallkill. The outbreak of algal blooms within the study area was shown to be caused by an increase of precipitation. Although the historical imagery analysis is useful to determine HABs, there were many limitations. As a result, it is more effective for people to do a Jar Float Test or analyzing samples under a microscope to determine if a lake is experiencing a cyanobacteria bloom.