Between April 23 and April 30, bloom events were recorded from the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays watersheds with the mahogany tide dinoflagellates Prorocentrum minimum, Karlodinium micrum and a cyanophyte (blue-green alga) Lyngbya. Several bloom events were in association with fish kill sites investigated by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). Routine water quality monitoring of the Coastal Bays by Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) also produced samples with low to moderate concentrations of the potentially toxic dinoflagellate Dinophysis acuminata. Warming temperatures and much needed rains have arrived this spring. Runoff from the recent storm events, however, will deliver a nutrient pulse to the Bays and their tributaries that will likely feed additional algal blooms throughout the spring season.

Lyngbya
Westinghouse Bay - On April 22, a fish kill investigation was conducted by MDE and found 10,000 gizzard shad, white perch, bluegill and carp in Westinghouse Bay (Anne Arundel County). Fish were dead for several days. A water sample from the site found a bloom of the blue-green algae, Lyngbya, in progress.