Jason Davis’ Waterfront Bar & Grill in Menomonie sits high above Lake Menomin and affords patrons a lovely view of the water. During the summer, however, the water is so polluted with blue-green algae—and the stink that comes with it—that nobody wants to be anywhere near it. Other establishments in Menomonie—the public library, downtown shops and restaurants, and the public beach—are negatively impacted by algae blooms, but Davis’ close proximity to the green water makes him especially vulnerable to losing customers.

“I’ve lost some business—two days last year due to the smell, people couldn’t sit outside… Luckily for me, it was on a Tuesday night where I do roughly $1,000 worth of sales. Whereas if it would’ve been a Friday night or a Wednesday night, I would’ve lost three or four thousand dollars worth of sales.”

Davis’ colorful descriptions of blue-green algae:

• “It’s like walking into a pig farm and shoving your head into a pile of manure. It literally smells exactly like pig manure.”
• “You can pick it up in a cup. People use it for art projects—it makes a neon pastel paint.”
• “People think it is dead fish.”
• “It looks like a putting green sometimes, it’s so bad.”
• “College students at UW-Stout can’t even open the windows in their dorm room because the smell is so putrid.”

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