Water district officials tour Cape’s Ecological Laboratories
Water Management groups from all over Florida are coming to visit Ecological Laboratories in Cape Coral for what officials there say is a breakthrough in algae and nutrient runoff elimination.
“It’s a product that the goal is to use for a month regularly, then a handful of follow-up maintenance doses afterwards, and then hopefully you never have to use it again since it’s so effective,” Doug Dent, vice president of sales for Ecological Labs.
The primary product, with others soon to follow, is MICROBE-LIFT. This product is a microbe that competes with algae bloom in water sources, closed and open, for the nutrient rich sources in the water that cause rapid algal growth, which Floridans have been made acutely aware of over the last year, officials said.
It also can reduce, and in some cases removes entirely, the nitrate-rich soil buildups, or “muck,” at the bottom of these bodies of water.
International studies as far away as Malaysia and China are being conducted and representatives of water districts and community planning associations are curious as to how effective the product is and whether it can address issues here at home..
“Having a fix-all is fine, but there are tons of culture changes people and governments have to make to ensure we don’t get so insanely out of hand like things have been as of late. We love the business, but a lot of the causes are institutional, both municipally and industrially,” Dent said.
Having done a number or multi-year studies all across the United States and abroad, the product works, and they’re developing alternatives to the nitrate rich fertilizer issue as well, officials said.
Quantum is one of those products.
Its goal is to remove the first step of the algae problem to ensure the subsequent steps are both easier and less of a financial burden in the long run.