What is EverBlue Lakes Bio Blast Treatment and does it have an affect down stream?

BioBlast is a combination of freeze-dried beneficial bacteria strains bonded to a sugar source as their initial “food”. The strains used in BioBlast are all non-pathogenic, non-genetically modified and naturally occurring bacteria that are native to North America.  Most are from the Bacillus family of bacteria. The strains have been reviewed and approved as part of the DEEP Permit Process for the product. The bacteria in the product are both soil and water bacteria found in soils and water bodies, naturally, just about everywhere.

Our process is designed to “wake-up” these bacteria and get them working right before we put them into the lake. The mode in which the product works is that the bacteria “go where the food is”. Since most of the “food” in the lake is at the bottom, the treatment tends to “eat its way” through the water column on its way to the bottom.The product will out compete Cyanobacteria for the nutrients in the water colomn therefore reducing the amount of nutrients present in the watercolomn and eliminating or reducing Cyanobactiera blooms from forming. 

Obviously, we want as much of the product to stay in the lake as possible and treat the largest volume of lake water we can. This is why we deliver more than 75% of the treatment into the deep-water areas of the lake, especially right over the aerators.  We do not treat at all within 500 to 1000 feet of the outlet.  While we cannot guarantee that no treatment is leaving the lake, our process and the permit requirements were set in place so as to prevent and minimize sending product out of the lake.

A typical 2 to 3-day treatment utilizes approximately 135 lbs. of the BioBlast powder which develops into approximately 70,000 gallons of treatment.  70,000 gallons of treatment is .21-acre feet of volume. There is more than 5600-acre feet of water in Lake Pocotopaug. A 70,000-gallon treatment is .00004% of the volume of the lake or four ten thousandths of one percent. All of this was part of the review done by DEEP as part of their permit process. DEEP did not express significant concern about potential negative downstream impacts either about the quantity of BioBlast that might leave the lake when applied according to permit or about any potential negative downstream impacts from the treatment.

EverBlue Lakes has been delivering BioBlast into lakes since 2017.  They have applied close to 10 million gallons of treatment to lakes throughout the Midwest and Northeast.  There has not been one reported negative human or wildlife impact from this process since they began delivering it into lakes under the appropriate Regulatory Process and Oversite in each State.