First samples collected in water project
The first water samples were collected Saturday for the “What’s in the Water” project, which will study any non-point source pollution coming from Fort Myers Beach and going into the Gulf of Mexico and Estero Bay.
Mound House Education Coordinator Penny Jarrett said the dry season baseline data water quality testing, which took place Saturday, May 18, went remarkably well. Approximately 50 volunteers, as well as Vester Marine & Environmental Science Research Field Station Director Dr. Michael Parsons and his Florida Gulf Coast University students donated their time by scooping up water in vials at 44 sites on the bay and gulf side of Fort Myers Beach, as well as manned the drop off locations.
“People were really wonderfully cooperative,” she said adding that 46 sites were to be tested. “We got samples back from 44 (sites). People dropped them off at one of the three drop off locations.”
By 11:30 a.m. Saturday all of the samples were brought to the Mound House.
“This is really the initial, baseline data of what the water is like at the dry season. We will repeat it again in September/October and every six months or so and identify where there are areas that need to be examined more thoroughly for potential greater nutrient levels,” Jarrett said.
The samples were taken on both the Estero Bay and Gulf of Mexico side at a mile apart across the entire island. She explained that folks collecting water from the gulf were instructed to go in waist deep before dipping their elbow below the water. The volunteers had to rinse the vial out three times before collecting a final sample, keeping it cool and bringing it back to a drop off location.
The bay side, which varied a bit depending on where they were accessing the water, also required the volunteer to get a sample beyond their elbow after rinsing the vial out three times.
The water had to be kept cool, Jarrett explained, so they could get a more accurate reading from the water at the time of collection.
Parsons spoke on Saturday and explained why two samples were collected on Saturday. He said one was taken, so it could be frozen to preserve the sample, at the main campus for further nutrient analysis. He said you have two reagents that react to color change.
The more intense the color, the more nutrients that are found. The analysis will include nitrate, phosphate and ammonium.
Ammonium and nitrate are nitrogen compounds, which is what the system reacts to in salt water. In fresh water the reaction is phosphate.
“When mixing fresh and salt water, at any given time phosphate can be driving the system, or nitrogen can be driving the system. What I mean by driving the system is controlling the algae blooms,” Parsons said.
Within the Gulf of Mexico nitrogen drives the system and phosphate drives the blooms in Lake Okeechobee.
Jarrett said this particular project is associated with the nutrients potentially from Fort Myers Beach, which is why they collected water samples during the low tide because that diminishes the impact from the Caloosahatchee and other rivers.
“It is a better indicator for what is occurring locally around Fort Myers Beach,” Jarrett said.
The second water sample went through a water quality analysis, triology, at the Mound House on Saturday. The CDOM, color dissolved organic matter, is an analysis that uses a very bright LED lamp and modules. The module, he explained, decides what colors go into the water sampling and what colors come out.
For example, Parsons said with CDOM the color looks clear brown because of leaf litter and plant matter that dissolves in the water. When testing for CDOM all colors are filtered out but blue.
“The more intense the blue, the more CDOM,” he said, adding that it indicates there is more fresh water in the sample.
When chlorophyll is found in the sample, red fluoresces out. When there is more chlorophyll it drives photosynthesis, which means more algae is in the water.
Turbidity was also measured by shining a light on the water and seeing what portion of light comes out the other end. In other words, it reads the cloudiness of the water.
“More salt, the more dense it becomes. More salt, more refraction,” Parsons said, adding that with more CDOM, indicating more fresh water, the lower the salinity the sample will read.
“This is just one snapshot. We want to do these kind of tests over time,” he said.
Jarrett said the community support and enthusiasm for the project has been really good.
“The hope is that people continue to volunteer and those that did would be assigned to the same sites and continue with testing and collection,” she said.
The “What’s in the Water” project came about after Jarrett read about an opportunity to apply for the Planet Stewardship Education Program, which is offered through NOAA. She applied for the project because she witnessed how the red tide impacted the beach last summer, the “lost summer.”
Since Jarrett is not a water quality scientist, but rather an environmental science educator, she met with Parsons to talk about the project. That conversation led to doing an island wide baseline data, one in the dry season and the other in the wet season.
The data from each water assessment will be analyzed and sites that show the highest level of nutrients will be identified as hot spots. The land around any “hot spots” will be looked at to see what kinds of recommendations could be given to modify the existing landscapes. The hope is that business owners, property owners and the Town of Fort Myers Beach would alter, or modify the landscape to be more native plants.
Florida Gulf Coast University donated its services by supplying the equipment, water sampling bottles, coolers and laboratory analysis, which is needed to complete the water quality testing.
Up to $2,500 will be received from NOAA to carry out the project, which includes student water quality education kits and native plants.