Reflections - Mystery in Neon Green Part Two

JW's Version of the Neon Green Mystery Map

The morning of August 12, Larissa, the Watershed Specialist from Mercer County Conservation District, arrived at Wells Wood first. Wearing masks, we perched on porch chairs with our knees almost touching and held her map between us.

“That’s not right.” I touched the blue road where Wells Wood should be. “We’re on the south side of the road.”

“Oh, that’s the creek. Blue is water. Roads are white. I don’t know why.” 

Blue for water made sense. White roads on a white background didn’t. Squinting, I willed my eyes to adjust. “Your green stars correctly mark each green water site.”

She circled her finger around an area between Deer Creek and Branch Roads. “The occurrence must have started somewhere here.”

An engine rumbled on West Creek Road then gravel crunched on the driveway. Dan from DEP had arrived. Larissa hustled off the porch to get her gear.

The two scientists slipped into thigh high boots.

“Which lab are you using?” Larissa asked Dan while tucking protective gloves into her windbreaker pocket. As an aside to me, she said, “The weather doesn’t require a jacket, but mosquitoes think I’m tasty.”

Dan shoved pint bottles into a plastic bag. “Bureau of Laboratories.”

“That’s the lab we use!”

They decided he could take the samples because he’d already called the courier.

I led them across the field and through the woods to the creek.

Wearing protective gloves, Larissa rinsed the bottles in clear creek water then Dan submerged them halfway into the isolated pool. Green water oozed inside.

9-8-20 Dan Taking a Sample of Green Deer Creek

While he screwed on lids and stowed the samples, Larissa studied rocks. “They have a green ring around their bottoms from where the water receded.”

On the way back to their trucks, I quizzed the scientists. “What caused this?”

“Nutrient loading,” Dan said as if that would mean something to me.

“Nutrient loading?” Once I start, a cascade of questions pours from my mouth.

“Lots of nutrients for algae or other organisms,” he said. “Nutrients could come from runoff, septic tanks, or ponds.”

“Why now?”

“You had compounding circumstances—water heating up this time of year, nutrients available, and sunlight. Well,” Larissa cleared her throat, “not a lot of sunlight in the woods, but enough.”

Even though blooms rarely occur in freshwater streams, they agreed an algal bloom caused the green water, not a spill.

Larissa handed me several fliers about Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). “Like the flier says, ‘When in doubt, stay out.’”

“I’ll let you know when the results come back.” Dan stowed the samples in a portable chest and positioned a bag of ice over them. “Oh, and Spence’s report didn’t go through the computer. I filled one out for you.”

That explained why no one from DEP had called Monday though Spence had filled in an online form about neon green Deer Creek Saturday, August 8.

After two days of their concentrated calls and visits, I figured their follow up would come quickly.

It didn’t.

Five days later Dan called. “It was blue-green algae so I need to take more samples. I’ll be out early Thursday morning. The lab will do the toxicity tests and let us know.”

Thursday Dan crouched by the green pool, which had evaporated to a third the size that it was when Dan first saw it. “This is microcystis which can produce the toxin, microcystin.” He rinsed the bottles and collected samples. “Depending on the toxin level, the public health department will post warning signs.”

“Why does the blue-green algae look like a paint spill—not an explosion of plants?”

“Blue-green algae isn’t really algae. It’s a cyanobacteria, a single celled organism.”

I bit my lip to prevent myself from questioning Dan further.

Expecting speedy lab results, I called Kathy, our neighborhood’s equivalent of social media. “We still haven’t heard if the blue-green algae released any toxins.”

“Geeze,” Kathy’s voice came over the phone line. “They sure are taking their time.”

“Does everyone know? Did you tell the folks with the horses by the hard road?”

“Yeah. Frank and them know. Let me think.” Crickets chirping in our field filled Kathy’s pause. “I could call Charlie. He’s got that little white dog. He walks it up the road then sits on the bench by the crick.”

Spence distributed HABs fliers to neighbors including Ben at the egg farm. The half hour egg trip took an hour that day. Ben discussed the dry weather, his sons starting school, and great blue herons decimating area frogs. Then the conversation turned green. “The people that bought Bower’s drained the pond behind the barn.”

“They did?” Spence straightened to full height.

“You can see it from the road when you drive by. I saw a backhoe out there about two weeks ago.”

Spence drove by the empty pond then came home with the news.

“Nutrient loading!” I emailed the scientists, but they'd already left the office for the weekend.

Tuesday, after a brief morning rain shower, I escorted Spence while he drove his tractor. Flashers blinked, and the car speedometer registered zero miles per hour all the way up Route 173 hill.

Once he parked the tractor at the shop and explained the tire problem to Darryl, our neighbor and tractor mechanic, Spence slid onto the passenger seat beside me. “Do you want to see Bower’s empty pond?”

“Definitely!”

He chuckled, directed me to Deer Creek Road, and coached. “Keep going . . . a little farther . . . at the top of that rise.”

Slowing the car, I glanced at the former cow pasture. Behind the barn, a shallow, depressed oval stretched eighty by thirty feet. No water. No green. Just mud from the earlier shower. Pond water had flowed downhill to a feeder stream which emptied into Deer Creek.

Larissa’s circling finger had included Bower’s old pond.

Dan called that afternoon. “The second test showed the same kind of blue-green algae. There’s no word yet if it is toxic or not. I don’t know what’s taking so long.”

The next morning, August 26, eighteen days after Spence and I had discovered the green water, we joined Larissa and Dan beside the now half gallon-size green puddle.

While Dan bent to rinse the bottle in clear water, I asked, “Did the clear part of Deer Creek have blue-green algae?”

“Yes, the normal amount found in streams.” He returned to the green water. “Not enough to be concerned about.”

Larissa walked over the rocks and pointed. “Here’s a smear of algae that looks like neon green paint.”

I picked up the rock for a better view of the postage stamp-size smear.

“Wash your hands real well when you get back.” Larissa used her calm voice, but her eyes flashed concern. “Don’t touch your face. Use COVID-19 precautions.”

Replacing the rock on the island between the main stream and green pool, I fought the urge to scratch my nose.

Leopard Frog 

A leopard frog poked its head out of the clear water.

We traipsed back to the house.

“I can’t go on private property,” Larissa said to Dan’s back while he stowed the samples in his truck. “When I follow you to Bower’s farm to look for evidence, I have to stay on state game land.”

Dan nodded, and they drove off to investigate Bower’s empty pond.

I waited, not patiently, for a call. In the meanwhile, remnants of hurricanes Marco and Laura saturated Wells Wood and flushed the contents of the tiny green pool downstream.

Dan finally sent an email Wednesday morning, September 2. After studying his message, loaded with science terms and containing two tables and seven spreadsheets, I yelled, “Yikes!” Our little green pool had elevated Microcystin level—yellow warning on the first test and red danger on the second. When he called to follow up that afternoon, I asked about toxins in other parts of the creek. Kathy would want to know.

“They found the normal level of toxins for the creek. The toxins probably came and went.” His scientific voice changed to whimsical. “I wish I could have taken samples when the creek was green.”

After waiting a whole week, I had to satisfy my curiosity. “What did you discover about Bower’s pond?”

“The time, place, and draining of the pond fit with the occurrence. After all the work I put into this, someone else will follow up on the pond. They need to find out what it was used for and what the nutrient might be.”

“When Mr. Bower had cows, they drank from the pond.”

Dan sighed. “Cows poop all over. Runoff would have filled the pond. With the dry weather, the nutrients would have been concentrated.”

I didn’t mention the pheasants, that the Game Commission stocked for hunters, strolled from the game land to Mr. Bower’s barn. They added more poop to the old cow manure.

Dan came for more samples on September 8, exactly one month after the start of the neon green mystery. Chatting about his kayaking at Presque Isle and my apple picking over the holiday weekend, we walked to the creek one last time.

“I’ve never seen the creek so high.” He pulled bottles from his plastic bag.

The creek wasn’t high. It only rose a quarter of the way up the bank and left a rock island in the middle.

Dan dipped a bottle. “ Hmmm. These minnows are feisty fellas.” He emptied it and dipped it again. “They’re challenging me.”

9-8-20 Dan Taking the Final Sample 

Minnows darted in the pool because rains had flushed the toxins away. They would be diluted to insignificant through creeks then rivers on their way to the Gulf of Mexico. 

I received a final email from Dan a week later. It said what the minnows had already told me. The former green pool didn’t contain any blue green algae.

Spence took copies of DEP’s follow-up report to the township meeting.

I called Kathy.

The neon green mystery was over for now. With warmer, drier summers and abandoned dairy farms in the neighborhood, Dan said, “I’m glad you watch the creek on your walks.”

Lab Tests for Wells Wood’s Green Pool

Date	Cyanobacteria (Microcystis) Density Natural Units/Milliliter	Response Level	Toxin (Microcystin) Concentration Nanograms/milliliters	Response Level
8-12-20	28,000 nu/mL	Advisory (Yellow)	14.8 ng/mL	Advisory (Yellow)
8-20-20	18,000 nu/mL	Advisory (Yellow)	39.9 ng/mL	Avoid Contact (Red)
8-26-20	290 nu/mL	Watch	below threshold	—
9-8-20	0.89 nu/mL	—	not tested	—

Thresholds for Response Levels 

Response Level	Cyanobacteria (Microcystis) Density Natural Units/Milliliter	Toxin (Microcystin) Concentration Nanograms/Milliliters
Advisory (Yellow)	300 nu/mL	8.0 ng/mL
Avoid Contact (Red)	100,000nu/mL	20 ng/mL

 Reflections - Mystery in Neon Green

Green Water Downstream from Creek Road Bridge

Saturday morning, August 8, I took a deep yoga breath to motivate myself for the steep climb up Creek Road hill, glanced over the concrete barrier on the bridge, and coughed out all the air. I squeezed my eyes shut and told myself I hadn’t seen what I saw.

When I opened my eyes, the creek had the same horrifying appearance. Neon green. Not algae on the banks or covering a few rocks. Solid green stretched as far as I could see from bank to bank, upstream and down.

Two weeks earlier Spence and I had walked in clear, sparkling Deer Creek. Shucks, the day before, we’d gazed at the creek from North Road bridge. Schools of minnows had swum in transparent water over the sand and rocky bottom. 

Over the past four and a half decades, I’d seen Deer Creek rise, flow mud brown, and pour over the floodplain because of a rainstorm. I’d never seen it turn neon green. “It looks like pea soup. Is it an algal bloom?”

Spence leaned against the barrier. “Maybe. But farmers aren’t fertilizing fields now. It looks more like spilled paint or dye.”

He had a point. Algae is a plant, and this didn’t conform to plant shapes. I sniffed and caught a whiff of fresh cut grass. The creek looked like pulverized spoiled grass, but that would have a different smell. “No one would dye the creek green for St. Patrick’s Day in August. Would they?”

The question hung unanswered while, crunching gravel under our feet, we hiked up the hill. I panted. Spence breathed silently as if he was strolling from the sofa to the refrigerator, his favorite exercise.

When we returned to the bridge on our way home, Spence asked, “Did you bring your camera?”

“No, but . . . ” I whipped a cell phone out of my pocket and took several photos. The green didn’t flow. Maybe water under the surface did. “Where did the yuck come from? I hope our creek isn’t green.”

Alas, the creek by Wells Wood was green. I took more photos, and, because we’d already walked for more than an hour, giant stepped to the house for car keys. “I’m driving to the bridge on Route 173. Want to come?”

Spence plopped onto the passenger seat and adjusted his tractor cap. When I pulled onto the road, he grabbed the ceiling handle. “You’re raising dust, you know.”

I did know. I drive faster than Spence, and I wanted to solve the mystery before lunch. I stopped on the flattened weeds where fisherfolk park and hustled to the bridge.

Green water. I took photos upstream and down. Something big had happened to cause that much green. Not a mere gallon of paint.

Spence, walking at a more sedate pace, joined me. “We can check the headwaters.”

Zooming up and down Sunol Road’s roller coaster like hills, I slowed at intersections to look for the Deer Creek Road sign.

“It’s at a T. You can’t miss it. And if you drive slower,” Spence pushed his feet against the floor as if braking, “I can look for ponds.”

I slowed.

We passed fields of tasseling corn, and he spied a few algae covered ponds.

Parking on the berm, I rushed, like a beagle on the trail of a groundhog, to the bridge barrier. Translucent murky brown water—normal for the spring-fed marshy headwaters of Deer Creek—surrounded plants growing out of the silty bottom. Drab olive algae. No neon green. I took pictures. “The problem has to be somewhere between here and Route 173.” My stomach growled. 

Headwaters of Deer Creek by Bridge on Deer Creek Road

“We can check the feeder that runs behind Ben and Donna’s.” Spence bought eggs from them. They lived about three miles further south on Deer Creek Road.

I pushed the gas pedal harder and climbed to the crest of a hill.

“That’s Bower’s old place.” Spence pointed to a house on his side of the road then the barn on mine.

“Mmmm.” I focused on the degrading tar and chip road and headed for the feeder. “Didn’t you buy straw from him?”

“After he stopped raising cows.” Spence held the sides of his seat. “Game land pheasants wandered into his barn.”

Instead of driving all the way to Ben and Donna’s, we checked Sheakleyville Road where the stream ran behind a Mennonite church. The narrow bridge over the feeder came at a right angle curve so I rolled slowly across. 

Spence looked out the window. “Clear. Turn left at Lower.”

I passed two Mennonite farms, stopped on the bridge between Lower and Bortz Roads, and rolled down the window. “Green!” Slamming the door, I focused the phone camera on the mysterious water.

Spence stayed in the car and chuckled. “You’re a pip.”

Not fair, since he suggested taking photos, but he had pegged my drunk-on-clue-collecting behavior correctly.

My stomach, growling louder and longer, convinced me to suspend the hunt.

While I sipped chicken and barley soup, Spence tapped computer keys to file an online report with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). “They’ll call us Monday.”

Monday the green water decreased in density. It concentrated in the deep creek pools.

DEP didn’t call.

Spence reported the creek anomaly at the township meeting that night. Before he finished, a rude, former supervisor interrupted. “I saw the green water! Never seen anything like that in my whole life. It’s by my house at Bortz and upstream at Branch.”

Tuesday morning we checked the creek, a daily routine added to our exercise walk. The main channel ran clear. The neon green intrusion stayed in side pools. DEP hadn’t called by the time we got home so I called the Mercer County Conservation District.

While I left a message on the Watershed Department’s voicemail, Spence looked up from his computer. “You should call the DEP. I already made a report to them.”

I had the same luck calling DEP and wondered if the experts would care about our discovery.

That afternoon, Sean Smith, Water Quality Specialist Supervisor at DEP in Meadville, called and listened to Spence explain the green water. Then Sean said, “It might be algae that came from someone’s pond that breached or a beaver dam that broke. It could also be caused by a dye. That happens sometimes. I’ll send a person out to look at the creek.”

Before the DEP person arrived, Larissa, the Watershed Specialist from Mercer County Conservation District called me. “Your voicemail piqued my interest.”

While we talked, she pulled up a map on her computer and marked the places Spence and I spotted green water. “Got it. Where was the next bridge?” When she finished her map she said, “That sounds like blue-green algae, but that forms in slow moving bodies of water like ponds or lakes not in running water. Do you know if someone drained their pond?”

I didn’t.

“Send me pictures that show the green best, and stay out of the water. Keep your pets out of the water. Blue-green algae can produce toxins.”

When I hung up, gravel crunched in the driveway. Dan, a Water Pollution Specialist from DEP had arrived wearing a black mask. We walked down hill to the mostly clear creek and onto a rocky island the creek left when it lowered.

“This was completely green Saturday.” I flung my arm out indicating the creek but also to balance on the slippery rocks. They had a residue of the green ringing them. In a side pool, I spotted some neon green in funky star shapes. “Over here!”

Green Water Shapes by Wells Wood 

“It’s probably blue-green algae, but I’m not an algal specialist. They can tell under the microscope at the lab. If it is blue-green algae, then they’ll test to see if it released toxins.” Needing permission for taking water samples, Dan took photos and pushed send on his phone. No cell service. No permission. “I’ll check the creek at some bridges and see if I can send the photos from there.”

Back in the log house, I sent Larissa the green creek photos from Saturday, and Dan called. He must have found cell service. “I sent the photos to my supervisor, but I missed the deadline for the courier.” [I would later learn that the courier drove water samples to a lab in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.]

“Is it okay to wade in the creek since it’s clear?” I didn’t have any plans for a creek walk, but the water did entice me.

“Stay out of the water,” he said in a calm voice. “Toxins could still be there.”

Downstream our friends Tom and Kathy had a menagerie of farm animals. Their cows probably couldn’t get out of the field and cross the road to Deer Creek, but the dogs and cats might stray. I dialed Kathy as soon as Dan hung up.

“Noooooo. The cows can’t get to the crick.” Kathy’s belly laugh came through the phone line. “ I keep the dogs tied up outside. But thanks for telling me. I’ll warn my Amish neighbors.”

The next day Spence drove to Cleveland leaving me at Wells Wood to monitor developments in the green mystery.

First Kathy called. “Well, is it that blue-green stuff?”

When I explained Dan hadn’t taken a sample, she said, “Geeze. Take one yourself. Any swimming pool company will test it for you.”

While I looked up swimming pool companies near me and made a list of phone numbers to call once they opened at 10 a.m., an email came from Larissa. “If you get a response from those water samples, please let me know.”

“Dan didn’t take a water sample yesterday,” I emailed. “Meanwhile, the green is fading away. A neighbor suggested I take a sample to a swimming pool company. What do you think? Should I try to do that today?” 

The phone rang, and Dan’s voice came through the line. “Could you check if there’s any green water left in the creek?”

I hung up, stuffed my feet into boots, and slid through the dew on the grassy path halfway to the creek before remembering—you’re alone dummy. Wear a bear bell. Sheesh. Dan was waiting for my call so I slapped my thighs and kept tramping. I didn’t see any bears, but a doe bounded through the trees with her white tail up.

Walking along the sandy path, an obstacle course of exposed tree roots, I studied the creek bed. Clear water filled half. Away from the lazy main current and behind a mossy log, a two by four foot, shallow depression against the bank had trapped neon green water.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” Dan said when I called back.

After hitting send on an email updating Larissa, the phone rang again. “It’s Larissa. May I come out to get a sample today? I can be there in half an hour . . . Oh. You just sent me an email.”

We arranged for her to arrive about the same time as Dan so that she could talk with him. 

I couldn’t complain about the attention I had attracted from the young environmental experts.

End of Part One

Deer Creek Clearing Upstream from Bridge on Route 173