A recent Associated Press investigation discovered that the billions of dollars the federal government has spent on the problem over the past eight years or so appear to have been poorly focused and relied too much on voluntary cooperation from those responsible for the chemical runoff that leads to the explosion of algae.
Part of the problem is the way we describe things. The algae blooms in Utah Lake, Lake Erie and other major lakes are caused in large measure by an excess of “nutrients” that flow from lawns, industrial sources and, mostly, farms.
It can be hard to grasp that nutrients can be a bad thing.