News

State environmental officials have determined that a mysterious sheen covering a central Ohio river is an algae bloom.

 

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that the sheen that spread on the Muskingum River is a diatom algae bloom. Officials say that type of algae doesn't create harmful toxins like the blooms that have threatened Lake Erie and Grand Lake St. Marys in western Ohio.

 

Officials say they don't know how the bloom got into the river or what caused it.

 

Bo Keck, Muskingum County's emergency-management director, tells The Columbus Dispatch that the substance on the river has a sheen that makes it look like oil. It's affecting the river in Muskingum and Coshocton counties.

 

The river is not a source of drinking water.