| Sodus Bay, the scenic sailing, fishing and vacation destination in Wayne County, has suffered outbreaks of potentially dangerous cyanobacteria for the last several weeks, causing the closure Wednesday of two swimming beaches and prompting a huddle by local officials this morning to figure out how to better warn the public. “I would advise everybody to stay out of the water until we get a better understanding of this,” Sodus Point village mayor Michael Sullivan said Thursday. Cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, can release toxins harmful to people and animals. The bacteria have proliferated wildly this month in Sodus Bay, located about 40 miles east of Rochester on the shore of Lake Ontario. Long-time residents say they’ve been stunned to watch as parts of the bay shoreline were covered by floating pea-green patches of bacteria that generate a frothy white substance and turn an unnatural iridescent turquoise. “It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” said Charlie Hallagan, who has a bayside home. No human illnesses have been reported, but Sullivan said there was an anecdotal report of a dog that took sick and had to be put down after swimming in the bay, and a dead goose has been bobbing in algae-riddled water the last several days, awaiting pickup by authorities. In one stretch at the southern end of the bay, hundreds of dead fish floated Thursday afternoon in water tinted an opaque chalky green. Sullivan called that section “a disaster area.” Shoreline residents complain that officials haven’t explained what was happening to their bay. The state Department of Health has collected samples, but residents say they have no idea whether the water’s been judged unsafe. “We haven’t heard anything about testing,” said Dr. Joseph Justino, who spends summers with his wife, June, in a bayside home. “No one from the county, no one from the town — nobody’s been down here. No one wants to take responsibility.” Read the original, three-part feature via Algae outbreak infests Sodus Bay | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle. | 
