The emerald green Lake LaVerne, dyed as an April Fool’s Day prank Monday, has been dyed again, this time by a 1980 Iowa State ag-business graduate.

Roger Underwood, the founder of Becker-Underwood, an Ames company that sells environmental dyes, volunteered to dye the lake a bright blue after hearing about the prank from an ISU intern.

“[The university] asked me to change the lake back to its original color. I asked them ‘why would you want to do that?'” Underwood said.

Instead, the lake will be an idealistic blue-green color, he said. Underwood said the 20 biodegradable bags of blue dye will keep Lake LaVerne blue for six to seven weeks.

“Perfect for Veishea,” he said.

Becker-Underwood’s dyes are used all over the world to enhance or change the colors of grass and water. The company has dyed ponds blue for the Master’s Golf Tournament in Augusta, and has been enhancing the green color of the Super Bowl field since 1991.

“We color all kinds of things. We colored the grass green for the movies Field of Dreams and Dances with Wolves,” Underwood said. Becker-Underwood also shipped its dyes overseas for Richard Gere’s movie First Knight.

Because the movie takes place in three seasons, “we shipped brown, green and white dyes over to England,” Underwood said.

After the concerns that the dye would harm the swans on Lake LaVerne were resolved, the swans were released back onto the lake.

“We released the swans after we found out the dye wouldn’t dye the feathers,” said Pat Schlarbaum, a member of the wildlife diversity program for the Department of Natural Resources. “I’m relieved the dyes are non-toxic and am appreciative to the fact that an ISU alumni has been able to address the problem [of the lake being dyed green],” Schlarbaum said. He said the re-dying of the lake “was very interesting — a learning experience.”