A dog's death: A blue-green algae mystery
Steve Orr
Soraya would have turned six earlier this month. Erica Cook and Marty Camacho had raised her from a pup. They doted on her. They called Soraya “baby girl.”
Camacho remembers the day Soraya died as the most traumatic day of his life.
Soraya spent her last afternoon splashing in the water and walking on the sand at Durand-Eastman beach. Then, without warning, she fell over and lapsed into a coma.
That was four months ago. As summer waned into autumn and autumn into winter, Soraya’s death has remained, officially, unexplained.
The case is a veterinary and environmental detective story.
Cook and Camacho believe they know what happened: Their beloved dog was exposed to a potent, fast-acting neurotoxin while swimming in Lake Ontario or wandering the beach that hot Sunday afternoon in late August. The poison came from blue-green algae.
But just days ago they learned that what may have been their last, best hope of solving the case scientifically has come up empty. Experts have been unable to find proof that algal toxin killed their dog.
It remains a mystery that may never be solved.
Even so, Soraya’s puzzling death has revealed a hole in local safety planning and raised the possibility that other dogs and even people could be exposed to harm at Durand-Eastman Park.
The ruckus raised by Soraya’s death and citizen complaints this summer about a lack of warnings about toxic blooms, have nudged Monroe County officials off the dime.
Monroe officials say they now are doing what many other counties are already doing — alerting the public to harmful algal blooms in local waterways.
The veterinarian who treated Soraya diagnosed an algal poison known as anatoxin-a as the likely cause of her death. A prominent blue-green algae expert who ran a series of sophisticated tests in the case said it is difficult to construct a scenario in which dog met toxin — but he nonetheless concurs.
“My gut feeling is this actually was an algal intoxication,” said Gregory Boyer, a chemistry professor at the State College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse who works with countless government agencies, groups and individuals on algal bloom issues.
If that is right, then Soraya — a pit bull whose name means “princess” in Persian — will be remembered as the first dog known to have died from blue-green algae toxin in Monroe County.
But proving it has been difficult.
Tests in Boyer’s lab failed to verify that the dog was exposed to algal toxin. Anatoxin-a, it turns out, is almost impossible to detect in such cases.
No one reported a blue-green algae bloom at the beach that Sunday afternoon. In fact, such blooms are unheard-of in that part of Lake Ontario.
Camacho and Cook, however, are convinced that something happened at the beach — something no one had anticipated — that lead to algal toxin killing their dog.
“We lost our baby girl. We don’t want money out of it or anything. But it wasn’t our fault,” Camacho said. “We just want someone to take responsibility. If taking responsibility is changing the system to give more advance warnings, that would be some consolation.”
A patchwork warning system
Blue-green algae, more properly known as cyanobacteria, live naturally in many bodies of water. At times it proliferates, or blooms, and releases toxins that are dangerous to humans, pets and wildlife. It is a different organism entirely from the nuisance algae that often piles up on local Lake Ontario beaches.
Exposure to algal toxin can cause skin rashes, blisters, gastrointestinal upsets, sore throats, headaches and sometimes more serious symptoms in people. Dogs, livestock and wildlife can be sickened or killed.
Blooms have now been documented in more than 340 New York state lakes, ponds, streams and reservoirs in recent years. But they’ve been inrare in Monroe County.
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That changed late this summer, when the state Department of Environmental Conservation reported four blooms in local waters. Two of them were in the Town of Greece, at Cranberry and Buck ponds.
Robert Massey, whose yard backs up to Cranberry Pond and whose dogs often swim there, had no idea that algal toxin had been found there until he read a blog at DemocratandChroncle.com in early September, a month after the blooms had been discovered.
He was perturbed there had been no warning. "If there is a potential for my pet to perish as a result of contact with toxic water or any of the other pets from the hundreds of residents on Cranberry Pond, how are we alerted of this potential hazard?" Massey wrote in one of several emails that he sent to Monroe County and DEC officials.
A system to notify the public of blooms exists, but it's patchwork.
The DEC collects reports of algae outbreaks and often has water tested for toxin. It publishes an online list of all blooms and updates it weekly. It also emails alerts to local governments and lake associations that have signed up for that service.
In some locations like Conesus Lake, Owasco Lake and Sodus Bay, there are established programs to pass these warnings on to the public. Lake residents' associations email their members, county agencies post Web notices and issue news releases, and town officials put up signs at beaches.
Toxin in drinking water sets off alarms
Some unprepared communities react quickly. When Buffalo's first-ever blue-green algal bloom was discovered this fall in a small lake at heavily used Delaware Park, warning signs were manufactured and erected within 24 hours.
But Monroe County did nothing of that sort. When Massey contacted county officials with his concerns about Cranberry Pond, they told him they saw no need to alert anyone because neither public drinking water nor a public beach was affected.
County officials took the same hands-off approach when another toxic bloom was found at a heavily-used Rochester park, in a picturesque lake frequented by hikers, dog walkers and anglers.
'What's wrong, baby girl?'
Cook, Camacho and their dog played in the water and walked the sand that afternoon on the eastern end of the mile-long Durand-Eastman beach. It’s one of the most popular beaches in the Rochester area and, because there are no lifeguards enforcing rules, boats anchor near shore and people bring their dogs.
As they headed for their car to leave, Soraya was, Cook recalled, “as healthy as can be.”
But suddenly she began to walk, disoriented, in a tight circle. Camacho went right over.
“I said ‘What’s wrong, baby girl?’ and she just fell into my arms,” he recalled. “I freaked out. It was like she was in a coma,” he said.
They raced to a veterinary emergency room. Soraya was placed on life support but never revived.
The veterinarian who treated Soraya, Dr. Tom Linnenbrink, quizzed the couple about their dog’s recent activities. He noted she'd been swimming. He noted she'd been circling, which can be a sign of neurological disorder. He concluded her symptoms fit exposure to anatoxin-a.
That toxin can cause convulsions, coma and paralysis and has been implicated in the deaths of livestock, dogs, wildlife and at least one person in this country.
Dogs are particularly susceptible in that their fur gets coated with algae when they swim through a bloom. They can swallow large quantities of toxin when they lick themselves clean, Boyer said. A 2013 study, which reviewed data collected in New York and other states, documented nearly 400 instances of algal toxin poisoning dogs.
The vet saved samples of fluid from Soraya's stomach, and they were sent to Boyer's lab in Syracuse. He also received water samples from Durand Lake that were collected about 10 days after Soraya died.
He found low levels of both anatoxin-a and another algal toxin that affects the liver in the water from the lake. He found no trace of any toxin in the fluid from Soraya. That was not surprising; anatoxin-a is especially elusive because it breaks down quickly and leaves no trace behind.
Boyer wrote a preliminary report in early October stating that while her symptoms fit with anatoxin-a poisoning, Soraya hadn't gone swimming in Durand Lake. Thus, he wrote, it was hard to see how she could have been laid low by the toxin.
That's when Cook told Boyer that she and Camacho had discovered something that DEC officials had overlooked.
They'd found a smoking gun: A large conduit that carries overflow water from Durand Lake under Lake Shore Boulevard and straight to the beach where they’d walked and swum with Soraya.
'So frustrating'
Intrigued, Boyer recruited a relative who lives in the Rochester area to collect samples from Durand Lake, from the conduit, and from the shallow stream that carries seepage from the pipe into Lake Ontario. He also undertook more sophisticated tests of Soraya's gastric juices.
His studies are the most extensive he's ever done of a canine death. Boyer has not sent out a final report on his findings, but he will.
“We’re running out of things to try. We’re pretty close to done with this one,” Boyer said.
His conclusion is Soraya showed symptoms "consistent with an algal intoxication." But he found no evidence in her stomach fluid to support that conclusion. He found no trace of algal toxin in the conduit, or the seepage that crosses Durand Eastman beach.
At the time they were collected, about 10 days after Soraya's death, the levels of toxin in Durand Lake were not high enough to have killed her.
But algal toxin comes and goes; dissipated by tides or wind. It is possible the anatoxin-a concentration had been much higher the day Soraya, Cook and Comacho were at the beach, and that a slug of water filled with poison flowed through the conduit at just the wrong time.
Conceivable, yes, but just barely, Boyer said.
"Based at the levels we’ve seen, the dog coming in contact with the outflow or seepage is the most plausible scenario," Boyer said. "I don’t think it’s very plausible. It’s really hard to believe that you would have enough concentration that a dog playing in a shallow seepage like that — or a kid playing in a shallow seepage like that — would get enough (to be sickened)."
So that is where things stand: Possible, conceivable, not very plausible.
"I am a little surprised at the end result, but all I can do is take him at his word," Erica Cook said. "The fact that he, as a scientist, is saying it is blue-green algae but he can’t prove it — it’s so frustrating."
The DEC, whose blue-green algae experts have been following the case, is has closed the book on Soraya. A spokesman said recently there is simply no evidence there was any toxin present on the day she died.
In an October email, Monroe County officials echoed the DEC’s sentiments about the case, and pointed out that neither people nor dogs are supposed to be swimming at unofficial beaches. That statement repeated what they'd told Massey — that they only get involved with blue-green algae if drinking water or designated beaches are threatened.
But in a follow-up email sent after a reporter noted how other counties issue alerts of algae blooms, Monroe officials said they would come up with a plan.
"The county has initiated internal discussions about a proper response to these often temporary and fleeting toxic blue-green algae blooms (signage, news advisories, website notification)," a spokesman said in an email.
Asked in mid-December if the plan was done, spokesman Brett Walsh said it was still being devised.
Given the history, Boyer said he thinks it would be prudent for the the county to have the the water in Durand Lake, and neighboring Eastman Lake checked for toxin every week or two during summer and fall. "We would happily analyze them for free," he said.
For their part, Cook and Camacho remain convinced that blue-green algae killed their dog. They're not satisfied with the outcome, and there is a sense, talking to them, that they feel they’ve let Soraya down.
They muse about whether some sort of system — weekly toxin sampling, warning signs, public education — might have saved their dog. They very much want for those things to be put in place so other dog owners, or parents, never have to unravel a mystery as they did.
“We feel there’s unfinished business when it comes to her. We feel we wouldn’t be doing right by her if we let it go,” Camacho said. “We want to get the word out. Something's got to change. We don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”