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TAXPAYERS are facing a £1.2 million bill to clean up a toxic loch in order to stage a single event at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.
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http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/12m-to-make-toxic-loch-safe-for-2014-x.20600852
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Sport
"£1.2m to make toxic loch safe for 2014" (triathlon)
(5 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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There's a triathlon in Strathclyde park every year and I think they've had problems with water quality before. The article also mentions people using the loch for kayaking and so on, so to describe it as a clean up "for one Commonweath Games event" isn't quite accurate.
What is interesting it that it sounds like a temporary solution. I wonder what it is about the loch that makes it so vulnerable to these algae?
Posted 11 years ago # -
" I wonder what it is about the loch that makes it so vulnerable to these algae?"
Don't know about this one, but I think it's usually nitrates (fertiliser) from agriculture.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Apparently "most" lakes in the UK have similar issues! (According to the spokeperson anyhow).
Run-off of fertlisers from fields. Maybe, due to the relative lack of intensive agriculture (poor soil) not such a huge problem in the Highlands as in the Lowlands and much of England.
600 grand a day for the triathlon swimming without vomiting virus. I hope they get good weather!
Posted 11 years ago # -
There's nothing particularly unique about Strathclyde Loch, most freshwater bodies in residential / intensive agricultural areas are vulnerable to algal blooming through eutrophication (which is there being too much nutrients in the water, resulting in overgrowth of algae or bacteria and the risk of blooming).
The sources of such nutrients are usually agricultural runoff or secondary-treated sewage overflowing as a result of heavy rains. Which we seem to be getting a lot of recently.
I think the real difference is that few such bodies of water have quite so many open-water activities like swimming or rowing or canoeing where participants are at pretty high risk from ingesting the water and thereby the contencts of the loch.
Posted 11 years ago #
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