‘Algae Buster’ Squad Idle as Clear Lake Lives Up to Name

Clear Lake, which in the past has been anything but clear, is finally starting to live up to its name.

The green slime that arrives each year about this time, giving off a terrible odor when it dies and sending tourists home, may not show up this year, according to Lake County officials.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the new county “algae buster” squad is idle.

The team is headed by “algae-skimmer” inventor Ed Headrick, better known for his invention of the Frisbee and Disc Golf. The squad has been poised to vacuum up the dead plants and to sink the live ones. But the lake has been clearer this fall than it has been in years.

Can’t Disprove Skimmer

“After all this 2 1/2-year effort, there’s a good possibility we aren’t going to have the opportunity to prove or disprove the algae skimmer,” County Supervisor Walt Wilcox said. “I’m really hoping for a heavy bloom of algae.

“The tourist season is almost over, and I’d rather prove or disprove it now before the next tourist season.”

Hank Porter, flood control district director, told Wilcox and the other supervisors that dead algae could still take over the lake this year, although he is not expecting it.

“I don’t think we’ve scared Mother Nature into retreat,” he said.

Live algae is rising to the surface of California’s largest lake and in some spots the lake looks like “pea soup,” Porter said.

“But it’s healthy. It’s a living plant.”

Natural Cycle

Thus far the algae isn’t dying and giving off that noxious odor. Instead, it seems to be coming up and going down in a natural cycle this year.

No one knows exactly why the blue-green plant life acts as it does. Porter said one theory is that the lake has been clearer this year because it did not get as much runoff from creeks.

Intense rainfall and runoff deposit more nutrients into the lake, helping algae to spawn. The slimy plants swim to the lake’s top for sun and air, get trapped and die. Or so the theory goes.

With no dead algae to clear off the lake, Porter has not had to dispatch the skimming crew.

In the meantime, Headrick and his crew have been practicing preventive algae-busting.

For the last few weeks, they’ve been riding the lake on a boat equipped with three high-powered hoses that water the algae as if it were grass.

They sink the slime.