NEW RICHLAND — Steve Hagen has lived on St. Olaf Lake near New Richland full time since 2015 and has never seen the likes of what appeared on it in the last week or so.
“It really took off last weekend,” he said, referring to a cyanobacteria bloom on the lake. St. Olaf Lake appears muddy with a reddish undertone, and the water is harmful to people and pets.
Hagen said signs were going up Friday to warn people about not touching or drinking the water.
“I think it’s best to stay away until we get the lake straightened back out, once it clears itself out,” he said. “Hopefully it doesn’t take all summer. We do go out on the lake a lot. We’ve got boats. I guess we’ll have to find something different to do this year.”
Craig Soupir of the Department of Natural Resouces — who has been in contact with Hagen and others involved with the St. Olaf Lake bacteria issues — said there “isn’t anything we can do right now to treat it.”
He is the Waterville Area Fisheries and Hatchery supervisor and fielded Hagen’s calls for information earlier this week.
The cyanobacteria bloom first presented itself during the winter. The pink tint to the water appeared when those ice fishing on St. Olaf Lake drilled holes to fish. Then they saw it.
“That’s always a bit of a shock to them,” said Mark Edlund, a senior scientist with the Science Museum in St. Paul who works from the St. Croix Watershed Research Station. “We see this happen when an angler will drill an ice hold and the water will come up red. They start taking pictures and things like that. We know what it is. It’s cyanobacteria.”
Typically, wintertime cyanobacteria will disappear by spring. But not this year. Not on St. Olaf Lake, Edlund said. In this case, the unusually warm winter led to the bloom’s persistence.
“We don’t normally see it dragging on this late in the year,” Edlund said. “Usually we see it in the winter and then maybe it persists for a few weeks after the ice is out. But having it hang into late May like this is a strange phenomenon. That lake does not look happy right now.”
The messaging for the public is “when in doubt, stay out,” he said.
If someone ingests the St. Olaf Lake water, they could find their skin is affected. Their skin might itch, their liver could be affected and sometimes a person’s nervous system can be affected, Endlund said.
And every year, a few dogs die from lake water poisoning, he said. “Usually humans, when they see water like this, don’t go drinking it, but a dog might not know better, unfortunately.”
To be clear, experts say you can go boating and fishing on St. Olaf Lake, but they advise avoiding swimming or letting your kids or dog play in the water. Fish caught there are safe to eat if they’re washed and cleaned well. Avoid eating the organs, Soupir said, and you should be safe.
“It is our little beast,” Endlund said of St. Olaf Lake. “It’s got all the signs of being this bacteria.”
“We’re just trying to get the word out to everybody,” Hagen said, “to not go into the water. Stay clear of the lake for now, so nobody ends up getting sick from it.”