The 3 Hidden Root Causes Killing American Lakes
Lakes Around the
US Are Dying and No One’s Telling You Why
Millions are spent fighting symptoms, yet what’s really killing our lakes is ignored. Because it’s easier to just treat the symptoms than tackle those root causes – until it’s too late.
I can’t tell you how many lakes I’ve visited, and as soon as the lake comes into view you see a swamp of invasive weeds, green murky water, coves so full of muck and weeds that people can’t even get their boats out onto the lake. And the last thing they want to do is go into the water themselves and feel black slimy muck oozing over their feet.
The whole American Lake Lifestyle is under threat because of three root causes – and most people, even the professionals, are missing them.
Stick with me, because at the end, I’ll bust the three most common myths about lake management.
But first – root causes:
Let’s start with the most misunderstood one:
Hypoxia. Simply put, it’s low oxygen, starting at the bottom of your lake.
And a lake without oxygen?
Well It suffocates. And then it dies.
Here’s what happens:
Algae blooms in warm, nutrient-rich water. It grows rapidly, then dies just as fast, sinks, and begins to decay.
Weeds do the same, though it’s an annual cycle – they grow, die, and sink to the bottom.
As all that organic material breaks down, it uses up the oxygen in the lower layers of the lake, sucking oxygen out of the water faster than it can be replaced, especially deeper down.
When oxygen levels drop too low, the entire food chain begins to unravel.
That’s important because tiny animals called zooplankton, which feed on algae and help keep the water clear, can’t survive without oxygen.
They die off and disappear.
Without them, algae can grow unchecked.
Fish feed on zooplankton, so they suffer too.
On top of that, they become all cramped into the upper portions of the water because without oxygen down there, that’s the only water that still has enough oxygen for them to survive.
Here’s a bathymetric scan of a lake that is about forty feet deep. As you can see from the sonar scan, all the fish are clustered up here. So it was no surprise when we measured dissolved oxygen levels to find that the lake was hypoxic below 15 feet. I’ll come back to this a little later.
Even if every bit of nutrient runoff from outside the lake stopped tomorrow, your lake couldn’t heal and restore itself.
Why?
Because the real threat is already in the lake.
Decades, of dead algae, weeds, leaves, and debris have been settling to the bottom and decomposing into a thick layer of muck. By the time you notice it on the shoreline – its way thicker in the deeper parts.
That muck is loaded with nutrients. That sediment nutrient stockpile is like compost at the bottom of your lake.
And when oxygen levels drop, it starts to release those nutrients back into the water.
That release acts like fertilizer for the next generation of algae and weed growth.
The cycle starts again.
Algae blooms. Weeds grow. They die. They sink. And the muck grows even thicker.
It’s an endless feedback loop and it doesn’t stop just because the surface looks clear for a few weeks.
Using algaecides or herbicides to kill the growth might seem like a quick solution, but every time you kill plants with chemicals, you’re adding more dead material to the muck layer below.
It’s like mopping up the floor from an overflowing sink without turning off the faucet.
Worse – every time you use algaecides or herbicides, It’s like opening that faucet a little more.
You’re not solving the problem.
You’re feeding it.
This is the most dangerous and the stealthiest, so it’s the easiest to miss.
Because it starts with a subtle shift in the microscopic balance at the very foundation level of your lake’s food chain.
Healthy lakes have a variety of phytoplankton, including beneficial algae that support zooplankton, small fish, and the entire aquatic ecosystem and food web.
But when oxygen drops and nutrients surge, this balance breaks.
And that’s when cyanobacteria, also known as toxic blue-green algae, make their move.
Cyanobacteria are opportunistic.
They have several competitive advantages:
They dive to the bottom to absorb nutrients from sediment, then float back to the surface to soak up sunlight.
They outcompete the good algae, which can’t move vertically like that.
Eventually, they thrive so much from their secret nutrient stash at the bottom of the lake that they form thick surface scum that looks like green paint or pea soup.
And they release toxins, which are extremely dangerous to wildlife, pets, and people.
These blooms can kill fish and pets, contaminate drinking water, and force lake closures for weeks or even entire summers. Recreation stops. Property values drop. And the lake you once enjoyed becomes a public health hazard.
This isn’t just ugly.
It’s dangerous.
And unless you stop the underlying causes, hypoxia, nutrient recycling, and the phytoplankton imbalance, the cycle deepens, the noose tightens and your lake edges closer to collapse.
So let’s bust three common myths we hear all the time:
That’s something I’ve heard so often from fishermen, when the evidence is on display before their eyes on their fish-finders, but they don’t realize what they are seeing.
If you’re only catching fish near the surface and there’s none in deeper water.
It’s a red flag.
Fish are being pushed into the upper layers because there’s no oxygen below.
They’re not thriving.
They’re barely surviving.
It’s called hypoxia, a dead zone at the bottom of your lake and it’s the first stage of lake collapse.
You saw that in the sonar scan that I showed earlier – all the fish are clumped up near the surface where there is some oxygen in the water. I’ll come back to this at the end.
False.
Even if you blocked every bit of runoff from outside your lake, the problem would still remain.
Why?
Because the organic sediment inside your lake is a self-sustaining nutrient supply.
Years of decaying algae and weeds have created a thick layer of nutrient-rich muck on the bottom.
And that muck releases nutrients back into the lake, like compost feeding an endless cycle of weeds and algae.
Your lake is fertilizing itself. Over and over.
I can’t tell you how many lakes I’ve been to where they thought this – and then wham!
If your lake management plan includes any kind of algaecide, then scientific research shows that you are actually helping toxic cyanobacteria take over.
Why?
Because algaecides kill beneficial algae more effectively than they kill cyanobacteria.
And over time, cyanobacteria develop resistance to algaecides, they come back stronger, dominate the ecosystem, and release toxins that can shut down your entire lake.
And I’ve already explained what happens to all that dead algae – it dies, sinks, decomposes to cause more hypoxia and adds to the sediment nutrient stockpile that feed toxic cyanobacteria.
And don’t just take my word for it – the Government Accountability Office did a two year study into why American lakes just keeping getting worse year after year – and they said exactly the same thing – use the link below to find out more.
NO algae doesn’t mean NO problem.
It may mean the worst kind of problem is just around the corner.
Here’s the good news:
You can fix your lake, but only if you stop chasing symptoms and start tackling the root causes.
That means you have to do three things:
1. Eliminate Hypoxia, Completely.
Low oxygen levels must be eliminated from the entire lake, from top to bottom – not just the surface.
Our RADOR technology has been proven to fully oxygenate the water column, from top to bottom, creating a healthy, stable environment for fish and beneficial organisms.
2. Stop Nutrient Recycling at the Source.
Continuous oxygenation suppresses nutrient release from the muck.
And with biological enzyme augmentation, the organic sediment is broken down turning muck into manageable matter and safely removing it through bio-dredging.
3. Restore balance to the base of the food chain.
Cyanobacteria thrive when there is hypoxia and sediment nutrient recycling, throwing the whole aquatic ecosystem out of balance.
We restore that balance, biologically, by eliminating hypoxia and muck and supporting competition to cyanobacteria and the natural recovery of beneficial algae and zooplankton.
No harsh chemicals. No short-term symptomatic band-aids. Just science working with nature.
This isn’t a quick fix.
But it’s a long-term, permanent, self-sustaining recovery.
Here’s that sonar scan with all the fish clustered up near the surface because the lake was hypoxic below 15 feet. That was before we installed a RADOR system to reoxygenate the lake and begin restoring it. Here’s the same lake two years after we had installed a RODOR system. Look how many fish there are – and look how deep they are in the water!
We’ve restored lakes in over 40 states, from backyard ponds to drinking water reservoirs, each one overwhelmed by weeds, muck, and toxic blooms.
Not with surface treatments, but by fixing the root causes.
The result? They didn’t just get better. They stayed better.
It’s time to stop treating symptoms and start tackling the real problems.
You can download our free Simplify the Science e-book using the link below to learn more the science of lake restoration.
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Let’s stop the cycle and bring our lakes back to life.
