Final Seneca Lake HAB Totals for ’23 Tallied

Green, cloudy water with rocks visible beneath the surface, showing a harmful algal bloom in Canandaigua Lake.
A harmful algal bloom (HAB) is visible in the waters of Canandaigua Lake, an ongoing environmental concern for the region.

This week was the last official week of Harmful Algal Bloom monitoring on Seneca Lake and the Pure Waters Association reports two confirmed and three suspicious blooms reported. For the year, we had a total of 51 confirmed and 19 suspicious blooms. Looking at confirmed blooms on a monthly basis, we had seven in July, six in August, ten in September, and 28 in October.

For the season, volunteers submitted 695 shoreline reports.

The Association reports that overall, this was a typical year with respect to the total number of blooms. It’s not unusual to have most of the blooms in October, but what was not expected was to observe blooms in late July. This was the earliest that blooms have been reported since the Association started monitoring.

Even though the official monitoring season is done, if you see a bloom, please report it via email at [email protected]. Please include a couple of pictures and the location of the bloom.

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