Lake Okeechobee blue-green algae levels rising

Summer means high air and water temperature, rainy afternoons, and blue-green algae.

Blue-green algae are something we’re used to this time of year, but a 300-square-mile-wide bloom on Lake Okeechobee?

“I see blue-green algae — big windrows, I would call it– of algae that had floated up from lower down on the water column,” says FGCU algae expert Barry Rosen.

Satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show how blue-green algae developed and moved.

The algae cover has grown from no detectable cyanobacteria to 300 square miles of it. The scary part for Southwest Florida is that it’s in Clewiston. Blue-green algae inching closer to the Caloosahatchee. The mission for water managers is to keep lowering Lake Okeechobee’s levels before the rainy season is in full swing.