If you go out in western Lake Erie right now, you'll see us.
We turn the water green. The wakes of the boats -- normally a frothy white -- we turn them a frothy green.
We've been at it for billions of years, and the more you feed us (thank you farmers and the people of metro Detroit), the more we multiply in your warm slow moving waters. But when experts and reporters talk about us, they call us "toxic algae."
Algae? Seriously? Just because we look like plant-scum growing in the water doesn't mean that's what we are.
We are the only kind of bacteria that can release the microsystin toxin into water supplies.
Scientists are starting to call us by the right name. My scientist-friends talked with Rebecca Williams about it today for the Environment Report, thank goodness.
And now I'm trying to work on the reporters and hosts at Michigan Radio.
See for yourself:
http://youtu.be/PubDuWiUh84
