A talk with limnologist Steve Di Linardo on how climate change is affecting the ecosystem of the lakes around the tri-state area

For my first interview piece, I interviewed a man named Steve Di Linardo.  Steve is what is known in the science world as a limnologist.  This is someone who studies lakes, rivers, reservoirs, streams, estuaries, wetlands, and ponds.  Steve has a company that works on small to medium sized lakes.  His company usually works with private lakes, such as the one that my family and I live on called North Lake.   Lake associations often contact Steve to solve issues with the health of the lake, and he typically provides a proposal for his work that is bid against other similar companies.  When they get to the lake they ask clients questions such as: what are your goals for the lake, what are the issues you have, and how would you like to solve them?   After this, his company creates a proposal with solutions for these problems, a management plan, details for any necessary permits, and the cost associated with solving these problems.  Steve said he usually likes to use more naturalistic methods instead of using chemicals to keep costs down and reduce the impact on the lake's ecosystem.  

One of the big things I wanted to focus on in this interview was how climate change is affecting the lake my family and I live as well as other lakes in our area that Steve studies. The results I got from Steve were quite worrisome. One of the questions I asked him was if climate change has had a big impact on the lake's ecosystem and his answer was a definite yes. The first thing he brought up in terms of the things climate change is affecting the lake was the water temperature. Steve brought up a data set from New York City that has been recording air temperature and according to the data he mentioned we have consistently exceeded the mean over the past 20 years,  leading to warmer air temperature. But in terms of the impacts of this on the lakes, it just allows more time for things to grow in the lake, so this just allows more time for things such as algae and potentially invasive plant species to grow and thrive in the lake. The most concerning thing he pointed out though relating to climate change's impact on the lake's ecosystem was precipitation. The most alarming fact he stated relating to this is that we are getting storms with rain totals that we would generally see once a decade almost every year now. An example he stated to support this was the fact was that 2021 was a super dry season for the lake but then we got 2 hurricanes that ended up hitting us that dropped 11 inches of rain and 8 inches of rain. According to Steve these are considered 100-year events. According to Steve, the biggest problem with these storms is that they are washing things such as nutrients, pathogens, silt, and sediment. This is leading to the increased bacterial growth in the lake which causes it to become unsafe for use.  

This bacteria growth and alarmingly high precipitation rates and water temperatures are not only confined to one small area though. This will continue to happen all around the country and the world, especially in climates that aren't used to it, (ex. North Lake). The good thing about this though is that the effects of this bacteria growth and invasive plant growth are short term. When I was talking to Steve that was one of the questions I brought up, he thinks it's the way you look at it in terms of the effects on the lake in the short term. But if you look at the grand scheme of things we are getting more and more of these big rain events that are causing bacteria, silt, sediment, and other harmful chemicals to wash into the lake more often. Also when events such as these big storms happen and the bacteria growth becomes more prominent it leads to people such as Steve having to use chemical treatments. These kill off wildlife and make the lake unsafe for use. At this point from the looks of it, these treatments will likely have to keep getting used more frequently because of these extreme rain events. This could potentially lead to lakes being completely unsafe for use in the future for entire summers more and more often as these events become more frequent. So as long as climate change and the environment calm down we should have nice clean lakes to swim in during the summer for years to come. 

Sources: Di Lonardo , S. S., & Weir, J. D. (2022). (rep.). Water Quality Report North Lake 2022. Armonk , New York: M.S Biology.