Lakes again under threat from algae

Officials from the local fishery department release fry into Caohu Lake in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province on Wednesday. It is hoped the more than 1.6 million young fish will help rid the adjoining Taihu Lake of its carpet of algae. Xinhua

Large-scale algae outbreaks are once again posing a threat to the drinking water supplies from Taihu and Chaohu lakes.

As the temperature has continued to rise over the past three days, the blue-green algae has gathered at the western end of Taihui Lake, which sits on the border of East China's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, just 11 km from Gonghu water plant, the main water source for Wuxi, Jiangsu.

And as the mercury climbs above 30 C, the thick blanket of foul-smelling algae in the 2,400-sq-km freshwater lake - the country's third largest - will expand rapidly, experts from the Wuxi agriculture and forestry bureau said.