Chris Staniforth has an enormous green swamp monster living in the creek behind his house.

Since it appeared two months ago at the Purdy water access about 11 km north of Hwy. 401 out Hwy. 38, the aquatic terror has driven animals away from the area and pestered Staniforth and his family with its noxious fumes and putrid smell.

“We couldn’t go outside, couldn’t open windows, couldn’t turn on our air conditioning,” said Staniforth. “The smell was just awful.”

Staniforth called the Cataraqui River Conservation Authority for help in doing away with the growing, globular monstrosity.

Watershed specialists were able to identify the threat. Fortunately, the culprit wasn’t something out of a science fiction novel but an enormous buildup of filamentous algae.

The algae is common in Canada’s waterways and often joins together to form long green threads, or filaments.

After a large chunk of loose land bottlenecked the creek in late May, the algae accumulated at an alarming rate. When filamentous algae decomposes, especially in large quantities, it produces a very unpleasant odour.

“The smell is worse than a couple of dead animals on the side of the road rotting for a month,” he said.

“It got to the point where even my dog wouldn’t go outside,” Staniforth said. “My neighbour thought something had died in her backyard.”

“We were trapped inside during the worst weeks of the heat wave in June.”

Seeing algae blooms float down the river is nothing new, said Staniforth, but the blockage has changed all that.

“We’ve been living here 13 years,” he said, “and this is the first time anything like this has happened.”

The late summer attack is part of a growing number of algae-related problems experienced around Kingston this summer.

An outbreak of blue-green algae in the Cataraqui River has released dangerous levels of the toxin microcystin into the water.

Filamentous algae is not toxic, but it has done more than enough to poison Staniforth’s summer.

“Normally there’s all kinds of canoeists and kayakers along the creek,” said Staniforth. “Dads used to bring their kids out for their first fishing trip, but there’s only been a few this year.”

The algae has also driven away most of the animal life in the area. Staniforth used to see deer, otters, swans and beavers along the banks of the creek, but he hasn’t seen any since the algae started to pile up.

“Hopefully, they come back in the fall,” he said.

Staniforth, who is a pensioner on disability, has appealed several times to the conservation authority for assistance, but to no avail.

“I called and they told me it was a natural phenomenon and there’s nothing they can do about it,” he said.

“There isn’t anyone who has the money to maintain open water through a blocked channel,” said Mara Shaw, the watershed management co-ordinator for the conservation authority. “It’s the same as with a beaver dam. It’s just an unfortunate situation.”

Shaw said that conservation officials had visited Staniforth’s creek and determined that the algae posed no threat to the area.

“Filamentous algae is not a health problem,” she said. “It looks different from blue-green algae, too.”

Filamentous algae forms big globs of green gunk, whereas blue-green algae looks more like a paint spill on top of the water.

Most algae is harmless and is a vital building block in marine ecosystems. Only a few species of certain types of algae produce dangerous chemicals, and then often in concentrations low enough not to affect humans.

Filamentous algae is more of a nuisance than anything else. It can clog outboard propellers and foul the air when it dies.

When decomposing in large quantities, the algae does risk depleting the oxygen level of the water and can cause widespread fish kills.

via A swamp thing – The Whig Standard – Ontario, CA.