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June 2023
Planning for extreme heat and harmful algal blooms in Lake County
Tracking California and Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians recently launched a new program Climate Health Adaptation and Resilience Mobilizing (CHARM) in Lake County to establish the first county-wide coordinated action plan to address the impact of extreme heat events and harmful algal blooms (HABs).

Clear Lake in Lake County is California's largest freshwater lake, providing drinking water to over 60% of the county's residents, and driving the local economy through recreation and tourism. The lake is also an important cultural and natural resource for seven local Native American Tribes, including the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
Severe heat events increase the chance of illness and death, especially among vulnerable populations. A warming climate may also be related to the local increase in HABs, which produce a toxin called microcystin that can affect the water supply and impact community health. "We know HABs are increasing in Lake County, and we’re concerned that more people will be at risk.” says Paul English, Principal Investigator of CHARM.

“Within the Tribal community and seemingly throughout Lake County, people of this area are not fully prepared to face increasing heat waves and HABs. While it’s critical to continue monitoring these issues, we know there needs to be a plan in place to protect the sensitive populations from these impacts. There’s a lot to do – for example there aren’t any established cooling centers in the area. This project will help build resiliency for our communities,” explains Sarah Ryan, Environmental Director at Big Valley and Co-Investigator for the CHARM project.

To guide the project and the development of the action plan, the CHARM project is establishing a working group of representatives from local Tribes, county government, and community-based organizations that are engaged in emergency response.

“This project is an opportunity to begin addressing these critical issues in a collaborative way, and I’m honored to participate in this effort on behalf of the Lake County community,” says Terre Logsdon, Chief Climate Resiliency Officer for the County of Lake.

The two-year project will also include an information-gathering phase, including data analysis, review of other emergency response plans, and collecting input from local residents about their knowledge, beliefs, and experiences related to extreme heat and HABs in Lake County. Results will be used by the working group to develop the action plan.

The CHARM project is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Climate and Health Initiative.

For more information about the project, please contact: info@trackingcalifornia.org or visit www.CHARMLakeCounty.org.
New publications on tap water contaminants and sickle cell research
We compared microcystins in tap water from 18 public water systems and 46 households with private intakes or nearshore wells (self-supplied water systems or SSWS) from Clear Lake, California during a major cyanobacterial bloom in 2021. Concentrations for microcystins were below the US EPA health advisory (0.3 ug/L) for public water systems with Clear Lake intakes and for self-supplied water systems drawing from wells. However, for SSWS with intakes drawing from Clear Lake, 24 of 79 samples collected were at or above the health advisory. Furthermore, microscopy showed that 20 of 28 tap samples taken post-treatment contained cyanobacteria or algal cells.

"We found that drinking water from private homes supplied by Clear Lake has been contaminated with microcystin during harmful algal blooms," said Dr. English, Principal Investigator of the Cal-WATCH project that explored this issue.

Read Microcystins at the tap: A closer look at unregulated drinking water contaminants here.
We used data from Sickle Cell Disease Collection programs in California and Georgia (2016-2018) to compare case definitions from single-source administrative databases with a surveillance case definition to identify people with SCD. The surveillance case definition, which included newborn screening, discharge databases, state Medicaid programs, vital records, and clinic data, identified twice as many people with SCD as the single-source administrative database definition of the same period.

Read Case Ascertainment of Sickle Cell Disease Using Surveillance Administrative Database Case Definitions here.
Tracking California, formerly the California Environmental Health Tracking Program, is a program of the Public Health Institute in partnership with the California Department of Public Health. Tracking California is part of a national initiative coordinated by the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program
This publication was supported by the Cooperative Agreement Number NUE1EH001489, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.