NEWS RELEASE
from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality

Listed below are the results of this week's toxic algae tests.

For the first time in months, no lake tested in either Sarpy or Cass County had a result indicating that it poses a serious risk to human health; as a result no lake tested in Sarpy or Cass is currently under a Health Alert or Health Advisory.

Note, the lakes that were on the Health Alert list last week that continued to test above the 15 ppb microcystin criteria include , Swan Lake #5A near Tobias, Pawnee Reservoir near Emerald, Iron Horse Trail near DuBois and Wedgewood Lake in Lincoln. WagonTrain Lake near Emerald, which was on the list last week, tested very close to the criteria this week at 14.94. In addition, 2 of the 6 sites sampled on Carter lake exceeded the criteria. No new lakes were added to the alert list this week.. An additional 21 samples were analyzed on private lakes and ponds as follow-up samples for the UN-L Water Quality Extention Service per our existing protocal to conduct the additional microcystin toxin test on samples they have identified as having high biomass of toxic algae. This week we performed 46 tests for the Microsystin toxins (not including dilutions) on 32 different waterbodies. Next week we will continue to sample all locations where the values exceeded 2 ppb and will continue to collect a sample from the Salt Valley Reservoirs that are on our weekly bacteria sampling network. Additionally, we will collect samples from the 6 locations on Carter Lake as a joint investigation with Iowa.