New Hampshire has seen unprecedented numbers of cyanobacteria blooms in the past few years, fueled by increasingly hotter, wetter summers.
A plan to address that growing threat was first established in 2023. Since then, the state’s Department of Environmental Services has been able to restore more water bodies affected by the blooms. But the fund that pays for that work is running dry, even as the state remains on track for a higher than average number of blooms again this year.
Read more: How to tell if your favorite NH swimming spot is safe from cyanobacteria
“We've had about 52 or 53 reports of some level of bloom at this point, but only four of those were lake-wide,” said Amy Smagula, chief aquatic biologist at the department. That’s a result of more localized reporting about where blooms have been reported on a lake instead of listing the entire body of water.
In 2024, 66 blooms were reported. And in 2023, there were 69, setting a new record for the state.
The state provided $1 million to establish the cyanobacteria mitigation fund. While local projects to reduce blooms at Partridge Lake and Tucker Pond are being funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, those appropriations did not come with any promises of future funding.
“We could easily spend $500,000 to $1 million annually on our lakes in New Hampshire for restoration and rehabilitation,” Smagula said. She noted that blooms at Lake Winnipesaukee and Lake Waukewan, which also serve as drinking water supplies, still need to be addressed.
And the situation might get worse, as climate change advances.
Smagula said that warmer waters and more intense drought periods followed by extreme rain events, increase and accelerate blooms in New Hampshire lakes.
“You have these periods where you have a lot of buildup of material in the watershed because there's been no rain. And then when you have these high intensity storms flushing those watersheds right into the lake,” she explained. “All those nutrients are going to drive growth, probably in the form of algal growth.”
Earlier this year, a bill was introduced proposing the creation of a new license plate called “Love NH Lakes” that would cost car owners $30 per year. A portion of the money acquired through those sales would go to be placed on the cyanobacteria mitigation fund.
In a letter to the House Transportation Committee, DES Commissioner Robert Scott wrote that the Department was neutral on that proposal, but “supportive of the concept of creating a recurrent source of funds to address an important surface water quality issue that impacts recreation, business, and property values.”
While the bill passed the House, the Senate has referred it back to the Transportation Committee.
“We have no foreseeable additional funding going into that account,” Smagula said. “So I don't know that we're going to be able to help the other lakes that are having these issues.”
