Phosphorus in Aquatic Ecosystems

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Sarah Egan

Dan Egan

Summer in recent years has often meant that blue-green algae blooms gradually start to dominate the once-shimmering waters of lakes Mendota and Monona. Along with being toxic to people, pets and wildlife, the algae depletes oxygen levels in the aquatic ecosystem, creating dead zones. Author Dan Egan (The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance), UW scientists Randy Jackson and Jake Vander Zanden, and journalist-comedian Charlie Berens convene for a panel discussion on what causes blooms, with the lake as a background. The panel will highlight how university research can help create healthier waters across the state and nation; it will also be recorded for Berens Cripescast podcast.

media release: Entertainer Charlie Berens and author Dan Egan will headline a panel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Memorial Union Terrace, on the shore of Lake Mendota, to discuss the lake and its blues—seasonal blue-green algae blooms—and the larger issues surrounding the use of phosphorus.

The event is scheduled for 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St., Madison, Wisconsin. It will also be video livestreamed at https://go.wisc.edu/terracecripescast as part of Berens’s Cripescast podcast series. The series focuses on Midwestern people and themes.

This spring, Egan published “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance,” which outlines the world’s mining, processing and use of phosphorus. It also explains the element’s paradox—phosphorus brings agricultural plenty but can lead to environmental devastation, such as the growth of a bacteria known as blue-green algae that chokes the oxygen from aquatic ecosystems and creates dead zones.

Berens and Egan will be joined by Jake Vander Zanden, an expert on freshwater lakes and director of UW-Madison’s Center for Limnology, and Randy Jackson from the Department of Agronomy at UW-Madison who will speak to successful agricultural systems using reduced inputs. The panel will highlight  the Wisconsin Idea, how the university’s research can inform policymaking and practices to reduce phosphorus input or reuse of the element, leading to healthier waters across the state and nation.

Berens is an Emmy-Award-winning journalist, comedian and New York Times best-selling author of “The Midwest Survival Guide.”

Egan wrote  the bestseller “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes,” which was the 2018 UW-Madison Go Big Read selection. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice.

A book signing will follow the panel.

In case of inclement weather, the event will take place in Shannon Hall of the Memorial Union. The event is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.