Hold your nose. Keep your dog inside. And whatever you do, don’t drink the water!
These days, Lake Champlain in Vermont looks more like a pot of pea soup than a lake. That’s thanks to cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. The algae bloom every August. They smell so bad they burn the throat and can be toxic both to people and to dogs.
Cyanobacteria aren’t all bad. God made them for a reason. They can help provide fertilizer for rice and bean crops. But the people who live on Lake Champlain will tell you: This creepy-crawly doesn’t belong in their neighborhood!
