Saving the World's Waters

Guest: Ben Abbott, PhD, Assistant Professor, Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Brigham Young University To the US Geological Survey’s satellites snapping photos of Earth from 400 miles up, the US looks very green. But not all of that green is good. Lakes and ponds in every single state frequently turn lime green with toxic algae growing out of control. The EPA says algal blooms are a major environmental problem: they kill fish, poison humans who swim in it and threaten drinking water. Preventing them is not easy, though, because the primary cause of algal blooms is agriculture – which feeds us.  BYU ecosystem ecologist Ben Abbott offers a way to anticipate where algal blooms will become a problem.