By Aman Azhar for Inside Climate News.
Broadcast version by Will Walkey for Virginia News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

A severe algae bloom clogged equipment at one of the treatment facilities providing drinking water in the Washington region, forcing officials to declare a boil-water advisory on the night of July 3-as thousands of visitors arrived to celebrate Independence Day.

The advisory was lifted the morning of July 4. But the incident was an ominous sign of how warming water temperatures caused by climate change can disrupt essential civic services.

The algal blooms caused a drop in water supply at the Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant on the Maryland-D.C. border. All water treatment operations were switched to the McMillan Treatment Plant in Northwest D.C. to ensure adequate supply of water, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) said in its July 3 advisory.

The disruption in water supplies affected the entire District of Columbia and parts of Arlington, Virginia, including the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and Reagan National Airport. Among the blooms' impact: increased turbidity, a measure of cloudiness in water.

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) operates the treatment plants located in D.C. and supplied by the Washington Aqueduct, which collects, treats and pumps drinking water for nearly 1 million customers in Washington, Arlington County and other areas in northern Virginia.

The algae intruded at a time when demand for water was particularly high due to the influx of visitors and possible firefighting activities related to the annual fireworks display on the National Mall.

"DC Water issued a precautionary boil water advisory to protect public health and safety due to a sharp reduction in the volume of water being supplied by the Army Corps of Engineers' Washington Aqueduct and due to the Aqueduct expressing concerns that they might be unable to comply with strict U.S. EPA water quality standards while simultaneously attempting to increase water supply volumes to levels adequate to meet DC Water's customer demands," said Sherri Lewis, senior manager of communications at DC Water, in emailed remarks. "The combined output of treated water from both of the Aqueduct's plants was insufficient to meet DC Water's water consumption demands."

Lewis said the week of the July 4th holiday has historically been one of DC Water's highest water demand days of the year.

Affected customers scrambled to stock up on bottled water supplies after the advisory was announced, quickly emptying out aisles in supermarkets and local stores.

"We had floating algae mats along the top of our sedimentation basin at our Dalecarlia Treatment Plant, which then washed into the filter building, clogging filters in the process," said Cynthia Mitchell, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The sedimentation portion of the water filtration process removes suspended particulates in water. In emailed comments to Inside Climate News, Mitchell said the situation at Dalecarlia led to a decrease in supply, while the McMillan Treatment Plant continued to operate under normal conditions.

"Our recent algae bloom was not a cyanobacterial harmful algae bloom-we had green algae which does not pose a risk to human health," Mitchell added.

The Environmental Protection Agency warns that "blooms of red tides, blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria can result in severe impacts on water quality, human health, aquatic ecosystems, and the economy."

In the case of the July 3 event, it was the sheer amount of algae that caused problems. The region's record-high temperatures are driving growth, and climate change is expected to worsen the situation, Mitchell said.

"Washington Aqueduct staff that have served for decades, including General Manager Rudy Chow with 40 years of experience in the water utility industry, agree the severity of algae blooms this summer is unprecedented," Mitchell said.

DC Water's Lewis said several other utilities that use the Potomac River as one of their water supply sources, such as Fairfax Water in Virginia and the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission in Maryland, encountered and successfully treated these same algal blooms.

Nitrogen, key fuel for algae, flows into water bodies from sewage overflows and runoff. Bill Dennison, a professor and vice president at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said the Potomac River has historically had high levels of pollution from sewage but now agriculture and stormwater runoff is the biggest source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

"Generally, both cyanobacteria and green algae form in the Potomac River," Dennison said. "Fortunately, green algae don't tend to be as toxic as cyanobacteria. But they're not a pleasant addition to the environment and can clog the waterways ... and produce bad taste in drinking water."

Climate change contributes a one-two punch. More rain instead of snow in the winter leads to extra pollution runoff earlier in the season, Dennison said. And warming temperatures allow algae to bloom earlier in the summer than before.

DC Water officials said they are reviewing their actions and communications to the public about the July 3 event to determine what can be improved.

Lewis said that unlike the majority of other public water utilities, DC Water does not have a second source of water and is fully dependent on the Aqueduct to supply its needs. "It is also extremely unusual for a water utility serving a large metropolitan city not to also have direct responsibility for water supply and water treatment. DC Water will be reviewing the Aqueduct's actions to determine if any changes are necessary to ensure proper notification steps are taken in a timely manner," she said.

While greater D.C. avoided major calamity with this algae bloom, other cities haven't been as lucky. In 2014, the water supply of Toledo, Ohio, had to be shut down because of a harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie, and the toxin associated with that algae could not be destroyed by boiling. Half a million people could not use water supplies for days. Agricultural runoff was later declared the cause of the ordeal.


Aman Azhar wrote this article for Inside Climate News.


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Three environmental nonprofits filed suit Wednesday against the California Air Resources Board to oppose the expansion of a program allowing oil and gas companies to offset their pollution by buying credits from huge farms producing natural gas from animal waste.

Last month, the state amended the low carbon fuel standard to expand credits favoring biogas, arguing it removes methane from the waste stream and creates renewable power.

Tyler Lobdell, staff attorney for the nonprofit co-plaintiff Food and Water Watch, said the program is actually a perverse incentive for factory farms to get bigger.

"The biggest operators, the biggest polluters, are the most rewarded," Lobdell pointed out. "That is the incentive structure here. Go out and be as big and as polluting as possible, and you will see the largest reward from our program."

The low carbon fuel standard is intended to reduce carbon pollution by incentivizing the transition to clean cars. The lawsuit argued the credit program prioritizes pollution-heavy practices over sustainable solutions.

Lobdell noted manure only produces methane when large quantities are liquefied at concentrated animal feeding operations. He suggested the state require factory farms to manage their manure in ways which do not rely on anaerobic environments emitting methane.

"The real solution to addressing pollution is to reduce the pollution, not to monetize it and lock it in for generations," Lobdell contended. "We should be requiring these facilities to more sustainably manage their waste. That would have climate benefits, that would also have benefits to local air quality and to local water quality."

The lawsuit asks the court to require the California Air Resources Board to disclose, analyze and mitigate the environmental impact caused by the change to the low-carbon fuel standard. The other two plaintiffs include the nonprofits Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Limpio, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.


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Business leaders, clean transportation advocates and other experts say new technologies are helping to accelerate the transition to clean trucks and sustainable freight across Pennsylvania. Members of the Clean Trucks Pennsylvania Coalition are calling on federal and state leaders to back programs that support the deployment of clean-power trucks across the Commonwealth.

Jordan Stutt, senior director, northeast region with CALSTART, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing clean transportation solutions, said the goal is to get gas and diesel-powered trucks off the road.

"We are going to take one of the busiest freight corridors in the country, I-95, and turn it into one of the first zero-emission freight corridors in the U.S. That investment and the jobs that it will bring underscore that this transition to clean trucks is all about opportunity," he said.

The coalition is urging Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and state and local leaders to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks Act. Advocates say the act would reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050.

Brooke Petry, field organizer with Moms Clean Air Force of Pennsylvania, said zero-emission trucks are the key to cleaning up the air Pennsylvania families breathe. When residents of South Philadelphia step outside in the morning, the air often has a distinct toxic smell, and she added that toxic air pollution doesn't harm everyone equally.

"Here in Philadelphia, children of color are hospitalized for asthma complications at five times the rate of their white peers. Reducing harmful diesel pollution from trucks is a key component to address climate justice in our city and beyond," she explained.

Erin Johnson, Registered Nurse with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, said diesel exhaust is responsible for multiple types of respiratory illnesses and cancers in the region.

"The trucks, buses, trains and port operations that keep goods and services moving through our region also contribute to deadly air pollution. Diesel exhaust contains more than 40 known cancer-causing organic substances. The good news is that we have solutions to this diesel pollution problem," she said.


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Members of the environmental nonprofit GreenLatinos are involved in a push to get more Latinos across Texas involved in the fight against methane gas. Texas is one of the largest producers of the hazardous chemical.

Rogelio Meixueiro, Texas community advocate with GreenLatinos, said a large part of the campaign is educating the community.

"They tell me all the problems that they're experiencing, and the moment I connect with them the fact that there's a fracking site less than a mile away, they start seeing how, 'yeah ever since we moved to this area, we started having breathing problems.' The one that hurts me the most is really the birth defects. Learning that Latino women are some of the most impacted with birth defects is heartening," he explained.

He added that meetings will be held across the state over the next six months, culminating with a final day of action in Austin before the state Legislature.

The organization is forming what they call the Latino Methane Table, to make sure everyone has a seat at the table. Meixueiro said elected officials are passing laws that directly impact the immigrant population, and they hope to give them a voice before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

"We're seeing how Latinos are constantly affected the most in the agriculture fields, construction. It's so hot, often we don't associate 'oh, methane' - the thing that we are getting out of the Permian - is actually the one that is creating some of the conditions," he explained.

He added the state has a history of being unfair to minorities.

"For Dallas and Fort Worth, what we're noticing is that there's a long history that is tied with redlining. And we notice how often the communities with the most amount of permits approved for fracking - fracking near day-care centers, fracking near homes - it's usually areas where particularly Latino and Black communities live," he continued.