AUSTIN, Texas — The city of Austin is launching the final phase of a five-year program to fight harmful cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in Lady Bird Lake.
On Monday, crews will begin spraying a special lanthanum-modified clay mixture on the lake.
The lanthanum molecule binds to phosphorus, which serves as a nutrient of the toxic blue-green algae. After it’s bound into a mineral, the phosphorus becomes unavailable for the algae to consume, essentially robbing it of one of its primary food sources…