No toxins were detected in the recent water samples tested from Padden Creek and Lake Padden, Whatcom County Health and Community Services said on Tuesday, March 7.
When reports of green water in the creek flooded into the Whatcom County Health and Community Services Department last week, several local agencies around the county responded.
City of Bellingham staff witnessed the flows, and community members sent emails and photos to the department.
Representatives from the county health department called the green water “unusual.”
Water in Padden Creek ran green on March 1. City staff suspect recent wind and rain had pushed an existing, non-toxic algal bloom from Lake Padden down the creek. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Scherrer)
“When we see that sort of thing, something that’s out of the ordinary, we want to investigate and find out what’s going on,” Tom Kunesh, environmental health supervisor at the county’s health department, said March 2.
Kunesh said Bellingham staff collected samples of water on March 1, and after in-house identification of the algae, sent it off to a lab in King County for further identification. Results should be available early next week.
“One of those [collected] samples was analyzed by somebody with experience identifying algae species under a microscope, and found a species that can produce toxins,” Kunesh said.
The presence of an algal bloom doesn’t mean it’s toxic.
“Lake Padden has been known in the past to have algal blooms that tend to be fairly difficult to miss: bright green, with stuff floating on the top of the water,” Kunesh said Thursday. “We have tested Lake Padden a number of times throughout the years and continue to do so on occasion as reports of algal blooms come in.”
The bright blooms have been evident along shorelines in the lake, located in a popular city park ringed by a trail, off and on for weeks.
Kunesh said the department has had water from the lake tested a few times since last fall, with the most recent test results returned in late February. Throughout the years of testing at Padden, results have never shown dangerous levels of detectable toxins.
Wendy Scherrer, who coordinates the Padden Creek Alliance, heard Padden Creek waters were running green on March 1, and went to see it herself. While there, she collected a sample of water from the creek. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Scherrer)
“It’s always below the EPA water content standard for human health,” Kunesh added. “We haven’t ever identified a time when toxin levels in Lake Padden have exceeded that level of health concern.”
Even so, Kunesh said, people should avoid contact with water that has visible algae blooms.
The bloom witnessed on Padden Creek could be the same bloom tested in late February, said Renee LaCroix, the assistant director of natural resources at the Bellingham Public Works Department.
“Recent wind and rain may have pushed the bloom from Lake Paden to the area downstream of I-5 in Padden Creek,” she said in a press release.
Padden Creek had cleared up “considerably” by Thursday, Kunesh said.
This story was updated at 2:02 p.m. Tuesday, March 7 with new information from the Whatcom County Health and Community Services Department.
