By Jaz Gomez
Nearly four years after a toxic algal bloom killed thousands of fish in Lake Merritt in August of 2022, Oakland has received almost $1 million in federal funding to improve the lake’s water quality — but city officials have not yet decided exactly how to spend it.
“Saturday afternoon, it was that rusty brown color all over, and the fish were definitely unhappy,” said Alfredo Sanchez, the Lake Merritt Institute’s Lake Supervisor. “Then the next morning, on Sunday, the entire lake was silver with all the dead fish. It was so heartbreaking.”
At an Aug. 4, 2026, stakeholder meeting, city officials said they are moving forward with 8 water-quality management actions, working with the specialized environmental company LakeTech to study and sustain aquatic life.
The City of Oakland discussed eight management actions consisting of a hypolimnetic oxygenation system, aeration mixing fountains, nutrient reductions and decreased algae biomass, dredging, macro algae removal, tidal gate operations, constructed wetlands, and emergency measures or rapid response actions.
Currently the city is implementing and testing the hypolimnetic oxygenation system and aeration mixing fountains. The results of the testing are still being developed.
A previous investigation attributed the 2022 die-off to a bloom of the algae Heterosigma akashiwo, which caused dissolved-oxygen levels to fall and suffocate aquatic life.
Since then, community members, local organizations, and governmental agencies have been working together to prevent another mass fish die-off. However subsequently there have been two smaller-scale die-off events that occurred on June 4 and 7, 2025.
“[Those] events were very different from the August 2022 event, where it wasn’t a lake-wide, low dissolved-oxygen event,” said water resource control engineer Gerardo Martinez. “The events were localized near the docks and the bird islands, and they were linked to brief episodes. We were able to see a bounce back after these events, thanks to all the monitoring stations.”
Discussions expanded upon how the San Francisco Estuary Institute, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (the Water Board), and a technical advisory committee (TAC) will help interpret the lake conditions based on future data gathered by LakeTech.
This collaboration helps the City of Oakland take action that aligns with the goals of the San Francisco Bay Basin Plan’s water quality objectives, which is required to ensure federal funding.
“If we decide that this [monitoring] is the best way to spend some of this million dollars, then that’s what we will do,” said Terri Fashing, a representative from the City of Oakland’s Watershed and Stormwater Management Division.
Katie Noonan, an Oakland environmental advocate and community water monitor, asked whether the new funding could support volunteer sampling and youth education.
Fashing did not directly address whether this would be included in the distributed funding from the almost $1M Healthy Lake Initiative. However, Fashing did say the city would seek input from community groups and determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency and Water Board would agree.
Fashing said the city and its contractor, LakeTech, are preparing a final report on two management actions. The hypolimnetic oxygenation system failed, she said, while officials have not yet determined whether a separate oxygen generator was effective.
The hypolimnetic oxygenation system was meant to help solve brief low dissolved oxygen levels. However, it was used in the salty Lake Merritt waters when it was intended for fresh water, leading to its failure.
The Water Board has also issued Oakland a permit to apply an algaecide during an emergency bloom. This is one of the eight management actions.
“This is going to be very experimental, to see whether this could be effective, but it was something that Lake Tech encouraged us to be prepared to do and we collaborated with a Water Board on thinking this out,” said Fashing.
About 35 people attended the meeting in person, roughly two-thirds of them representing community organizations. Among them was Richard Bailey, founder of the Lake Merritt Institute, who brought an affordable low-tech aquarium bubbler as an example of the oxygenation approach he supports. He held it up for the room to see each time he spoke.
“You can’t dredge the lake for a million, you don’t have the money,” said Bailey. “But you could put in a lake wide bubbler system. You wouldn’t even need to upgrade the electricity. Put them on a timer, so they’d only come out when the oxygen’s low. Put them in a steel box, so nobody could steal them.”
As officials wait for technical recommendations before spending the new federal money, Bailey left the meeting with his aquarium bubbler–a small, inexpensive proposal beside the city’s still-unsettled plans for Lake Merritt.
About the Author
Jaz Gomez is a student reporter at UC Berkeley majoring in Society and Environment, minoring in Journalism.
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