River green but not with envy

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - Jim Brinkman is used to catching fish in the Great Miami, but right now one stretch of the river looks like the only thing you'd catch from it would be a disease.

"Very odd," Brinkman says of the new look. "I've seen lakes and stuff like that before but the whole side of the river, that's kind of nuts."

A small section of the Great Miami River near the Helena Street Bridge is now greener than the grass running alongside it, something 17-year Ohio Division of Wildlife veteran Trent Weaver never thought he'd witness.

"We're looking at an event that I haven't seen in my career," Weaver says.

Weaver tells 2 NEWS the layer of green in the river is algae, but thankfully not the toxic kind that in the past has choked off local lakes, like Grand Lake St. Marys.

"It looks like a great big algae bloom but it's not," Weaver says. "It's a bunch of little algae blooms from the banks of the river miles and miles up river."

Weaver says you can blame the dry summer for the algae field of dreams now playing on the Great Miami.

The river's water level is simply too low and it can't get over the Steel Dam.

"The water is just backing up," Weaver says. "It's catching all the small parts of algae and it's stacking up in here."

Weaver says you could try to treat the river but that could put the fish in danger, so right now the plan is to hope for a good rain to clear things up.

In the meantime you can get a look at a rare site.   Just know the green river is far from the envy of fishermen.

"Fishing ain't been good since it's been so low but you just have to keep hitting it," Brinkman says.