The Iowa D-N-R’s Water Quality Bureau is adding testing for the bacteria that leads to blue-green algae blooms at county and city beaches. Spokesman Mark Moeller (Mole-er) says they already do testing for E. coli bacteria at local beaches and this will add the blue-green algae test used at state beaches.
Blue-green algae blooms can be toxic to people and pets. Moeller says cyanotoxin (Sy-no-tox-in) in the water can lead to the blooms.
Blooms can often happen after rains was nutrients in lakes, but Moeller says they are not always toxic.
Moeller says there will be 35 to 40 county and city park beaches are all over the state that get the additional testing.
The Legislature approved an extra 500-thousand dollars to make the city and county beach tests permanent.
