It happens almost every summer at Eagle Mountain Lake in Texas.
The water smells funny, and part of it turns phosphorescent green. Dead fish, starved of oxygen, float to the surface belly up. Suddenly, the lake doesn’t look so inviting any more. Welcome to an Eagle Mountain Lake dead zone.
The lake does not have the huge algae blooms that routinely plague the Gulf of Mexico. Often, the lake’s dead zone covers only secluded coves or deep pools near the dam and poses no public health threat. Still, officials are increasingly worried about the amount of contamination flowing into the lake from urban and rural runoff and the impact it may eventually have on one of Dallas-Fort Worth region’s major water supplies.
Read the full story at star-telegram.com.