(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

What's happening to water quality in freshwater lakes is not just a local or a regional issue.

It's a global one.

Researchers from numerous institutions are investing in how lakes are reacting around the world.

We're joined by a couple of people that do that for a living, Dr. George Bullerjahn from Bowling Green State University and Dr. Michael McKay from the University of Windsor.

And you guys know full well, because you've been to a lake halfway around the world that's dramatically different than Lake Erie, which is one that you study continuously.

And yet, the problems are still, when we talk about algae, there are similarities.

- Yeah, well, this past summer, and for next summer, we'll do a similar trip.

We went to Lake Victoria, which is in east central Africa at the equator.

And that has the same kinds of harmful algal blooms that we see in Lake Erie.

And so, we have funding to take a cohort of graduate students over to the lake to study the blooms that happen there.

And they work with a cohort of Kenyon students, and it was a great educational and cultural and scientific experience.

And so, we got a lot of samples.

The big thing being is that they have similar harmful algal blooms, so, with these toxic cyanobacteria, but, of course, Lake Victoria, being on the equator, doesn't freeze like Erie does and goes to these seasonal cycles.

- Yeah, well, and it is interesting because you would think, as I said, two dramatically different environments and yet a lot of similarities.

That's what you found out.

When you went in '18, was it a surprise when you saw that the first time or not?

Or did you expect to see some form of this, but maybe not something so similar to what we have here?

- I, you know, I think after the water crisis in Toledo in 2014, and we convened a conference at BGSU, invited participants from around the world, recognizing that these harmful algal blooms are a global phenomenon.

So, the, finding blooms in Lake Victoria, not a surprise.

- [Steve] Not a big surprise.

Okay.

- You know, algal blooms, algae are very simple organisms.

They're essentially, you know, micro plants of very simple requirements.

They need sunlight.

They need carbon dioxide.

They need nutrients.

And whether the nutrients are coming from agricultural activity, as they're coming, you know, as happens in western Lake Erie, or they're coming from other sources, they're still, you know, at their basis, nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus, and those will promote blooms.

And that's what we see around the world.

- Yeah, now, you talk about the environment around the two lakes.

Is it, is the area around Lake Victoria similar in terms of what's feeding it, or - - In terms of, well, in terms of land use, it's a little bit different.

The, it's less agricultural, although there is quite a bit of agriculture, but it looks to me and looks to us that the main source of nutrients are point sources and waste water.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

- That it would be a bigger issue there than it is here, but still, those are nutrients and those will drive the blooms.

And so, our, it was a wonderful experience.

We had two four day trips out on the lake on this research vessel who's pictured here.

And we sampled, I think, 18 sites on the two trips.

And we saw blooms in parts of the, and not only did we sample on the lake, this, we were also looking at satellite images, and I led one cruise.

Mike led the other one.

And the one that was more engaged with the remote sensing was Mike's trip.

But we really covered the bloom from the huge spatial scales from satellites all the way down to single cells.

And we're doing, looking at the molecular biology of the bloom, and we're studying those samples right now.

- Yeah, and one of the things, when you talk about where you were sampling, Lake Victoria is one of the largest freshwater lakes.

It's basically akin to Lake Superior.

- Yeah.

- Which is the largest of the Great Lakes.

So, we're talking something that's a lot larger than Lake Erie, but as you said, the point source, which we've tried to get a handle on here and probably have done a little better job than we used to, but that's what's feeding Lake Victoria, then, for the most part.

- I, yeah.

It seemed to us that was the larger of the contributors.

You know, we had, in the 1960s and '70s, prolific algal blooms in Lake Erie, and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the bi-national agreement between the US and Canada was meant to start targeting these issues that affect both nations.

One of the first things that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement targeted were point sources, targeting our wastewater treatment plants, targeting phosphorous use in detergents, and Lake Victoria suffers the same challenges.

It's, you have three nations, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania surrounding the lake.

And so, you've got three nations having their own interests, but also having to try to work together.

- Sure.

- To fight common problems in the lake.

Now, the area of Lake Victoria that we we focused on was solely in Kenyan territory.

It was actually a large embayment, which, but it was, so, on the the larger scale, it's a small portion of the entire lake.

- [Steve] Right.

- But to us, it looked like it could have been as big as Lake St. Clair.

It was a massive, massive embayment.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So, it's, I think it was 40 miles by 10 miles.

- [Steve] Ah, wow.

- So, fairly.

- Yeah, and Lake Erie, the shallowest of the Great Lakes.

- Yeah.

- Lake Victoria is significantly deeper than Lake Erie.

Does that, not really, or - - Not where we where.

- Not where you were, okay.

- So, the, I, - - Yeah, so there is some similarities - - Yeah, where the - - At that part of the environment, okay, yeah.

- Of course, climate wise, it's very different.

- Yeah.

- But, and land use very different, but where it is similar, you're dealing with a shallow area with a resonance time, which can kind of hold onto the nutrients and promote these blooms.

And warm water, of course, you know, is, these blooms happen in these warmer - - [Steve] Sure.

- Warmer areas, so, in some respects, it's, that's similar to western Lake Erie, which is shallower, receives the bulk of the nutrients into Lake Erie.

This is a, this is sort of a more of enclosed part of Lake Victoria.

- Yeah, and I know when you were, what's interesting is, you talk about being at the equator, and I know there's a video of you, and you're dressed like it's winter time out there.

So, what was that about?

Was that just a storm that kicked up out there, or?

- [George] It was, we had one day that was rainy and rough.

- [Steve] Okay.

- But you have to understand, it's not that hot.

We're on the equator, but it's 3,700 feet in altitude.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

So, that - - So, it's actually sort of a, like a late spring, early summer kind of climate, everything.

- [Steve] Environment, not the tropical.

- Yeah.

- [Steve] Desert.

- [Mike] It was warmer here - - [Steve] Than it was there.

- In Northwest Ohio than it was in Kenya.

- Yeah, it was very uncomfortable.

Those two weeks, I was calling my wife.

I was very uncomfortable here, and we went to the equator to cool off.

- Which is not what you would think.

Yeah, 'cause I say the video, you're bundled up like you're at the Arctic, like you're down at the - - Well, it's raining.

- So, the polar - - It's a cold rain.

It wasn't a cold day, necessarily.

It was cold rain.

- It didn't snow while you were there.

- No.

No.

- Okay, now that would've been interesting to see, too.

So, yeah, when you, and, obviously, you guys were there in 2018.

Did you find anything different this time in terms of things improved, gotten worse, about the same, the way they're dealing with it there versus the way they were when you were there in 2018?

Any significant changes there?

- I, you know, I think, and so, one of the issues you find in Lake Victoria are invasive plants, invasive species.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- In 2018, so they've had a history of problems with water hyacinth that chokes up the lake.

This year, there was very little evidence of water hyacinth in the lake.

2018, maybe a little bit more, but we've seen pictures of the lake where it really is choked up, and it restricts transport and commerce in the lake.

So, that's one thing that can change, you know, from year to year or decade to decade in Lake Victoria.

In terms, you know, the 2018 trip, it was a, we got a glimpse of the lake.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- Small area we surveyed, algal blooms were prolific.

This trip, we got to got to survey the entire gulf, and, you know, regions where there were expansive algal blooms, other regions where there was very little evidence of bloom, sort of just brownish water, lot of river input into this gulf and the river running through clay based soils.

You look at the most of these rivers, and looks like chocolate milk.

- [Steve] So, a lot of sediment is contributing to the - - A lot of sediment, yeah, moving into the gulf.

Regulations, you know, speaking with our colleagues in Kenya, there do not seem to be a lot in terms of regulatory oversight on what happens, at least in the gulf.

- Yeah, when we come back, we can talk of that 'cause obviously we're moving toward, or at least have changed the way we look at it regulatory approach to the lake.

Back in just a moment with Dr. George Bullerjahn from Bowling Green State University and Dr. Michael McKay from the University of Windsor.

We're talking about freshwater quality, not just in Lake Erie but around the world.

Back in just a moment on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal."

We're talking about freshwater lake water quality.

And, of course, we talk about Lake Erie a lot, but we have two researchers who have traveled to Africa to look at Lake Victoria and found some similarities and some comparisons, which, we would think Lake Victoria, not like Lake Erie, but there are some similarities.

And when we left that last segment, Dr. McKay, you talked a little about regulatory that they're not quite as approaching it the way we have, at least in the last few years.

And that gets into the environment, too, about the kind of, you talking about how they treat the lake in terms of transportation and things like that, because it, water flows in and out of that lake just like it does Lake Erie, but.

- Right, well, one thing that they had done that has, I think, led to some improvements is the bay where we were studying has a fairly long residence time.

So, any way you can improve how the water flushes in and out and moves in and out is a good thing.

And so, what they had done is there was one of the channels into the bay had previously been blocked by a causeway they used to access an island in the bay, and they replaced that with a bridge.

And I think there are now measurable improvements in water quality and the less hyacinth, maybe mitigation of the blooms to some degree, just because the water is less stagnant, and the water is exchanging - - [Steve] It's exchanging.

- With the main lake a little better.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- So, you know, they, the Kenyans are really mindful of water quality and different measures they can take to improve it, but they're just not as far along as we are with our relations with Canada.

- Right.

Right.

And, obviously, too, and Lake Victoria's bordered by more than one country, much like the Great Lakes are, but here we deal with two countries, not probably what?

Four or five or six over there, by the time you look at the way that is.

Does that ever come up?

You were working in Kenyan portion of the lake, but is that more of an issue there, the cooperation, or maybe not as the lack thereof compared to what we have between the US and Canada now?

- I mean, they have some bodies, multinational bodies, that do provide some oversight, but probably not as coordinated as we see here.

We have the International Joint Commission that oversees the Boundary Waters between Canada and the US.

And then we have tight cooperation between the state and provincial agencies, the two federal agencies.

I, we do, we did see some cooperation between different agencies.

We actually had a Ugandan student join us on one of the lakes of the surveys.

And our Kenyan colleagues were calling for a larger, you know, joint survey of the entire lake.

The resources required for these types of missions, you know, they simply don't have the resources to be able to do this.

We see one research vessel that the Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute owns.

Uganda has a vessel.

Tanzania has a vessel.

The vessels are not going out frequently to conduct surveys like this.

And so, you know, it's just been a lack of, for a better way of putting it, boots on the ground.

- [Steve] Ah, yeah.

- To - - [Steve] Sure.

- To monitor the state of the lake.

And that's part of the reason why we we're promoting the use of remote sensing satellites, because then, you know, if you can validate those methods, you don't need to have boots on the ground all the time.

You can have satellites taking in information.

- [Steve] Right, and doing that.

- For you, exactly.

- Yeah, I mean, satellites, you may have to subscribe for a service, and that's a nominal fee.

The, for a four day cruise was $14,000 on this vessel.

So, it's operating a ship is not cheap.

- [Steve] Not inexpensive.

- Not cheap, yeah.

- The other thing we're trying to promote is the use of autonomous sensors.

So, again, after the water crisis in Toledo, we saw a big push to place water quality sensors and buoys around the water intakes in, for Ohio municipalities.

We've been seeing that advance over the past five years, five or six years in western Lake Erie.

At this point, there's next to nothing in terms of instrumentation in Lake Victoria.

I think having those assets available would be very helpful.

- And the technology is getting cheaper and cheaper.

- And I know when we talked the last time you were on, you were prepping, I think to get, you know, your summer research or the spring and summer research.

And it was difficult to get equipment, get parts for equipment to refurbish things.

- Yeah.

- And get things prepared.

Has that kind of leveled off a little bit now the supply chain's not quite as?

- It's a little bit - - Messed up as it was?

- It's a little bit better.

So, I think that those concerns are easing a bit.

So, we have everything that's, everything that we're in charge of for the smart lake concept is out in the lake, deployed and operating, so.

- Ah, that's good.

That's good to hear, because I know you were concerned that you were getting, like I say, you were getting everything ready to go out to deploy.

And it's like, oh, we're still waiting on a few things that.

- Yeah, we had to borrow.

We had to borrow some stuff from Stone Lab, Ohio State Stone Lab in order to get a buoy out, but we paid 'em back.

- But you look at the challenges that we have in that respect and amplify those - - Yeah.

- For folks in East Africa.

- Yeah.

- For example, they do own a water quality sensor at the laboratory.

It hasn't been functional for some time.

And, actually, it was sent back with another group from Cornell who was joined at the same time.

And we'll be returning that sensor when we go back in November.

- Ah, okay.

- So, we'll be having it fixed here in North America, because, again, don't have the parts.

- They don't have the resources or the, yeah.

- Exactly.

- And, yeah, and I guess Mike just mentioned it, but we will be going back in November to, there's an international conference where, about the blue economy, in which representatives from other countries that surround the African Great Lakes will be in attendance.

And so, that's one vehicle by which these different entities can discuss priorities, but we will also be there to present the initial data we generated from this cruise.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, and I, similar to what you've been doing on Lake Erie in Sandusky Bay, keep replicating and keep benchmarking and then build a database that you can then look back and say, yeah, here's what's happened over this, over time, and what are we seeing?

And that, you're kind of in more of the preliminary, now I say preliminary stages, but it's not as deep right now in terms of the amount of information you have over there.

- No, exactly.

I mean, you, really, to understand change and how it affects an area, you need to have a baseline, and we've been fortunate enough to develop a long term baseline for much of the North American Great Lakes.

You look back at studies in the African Great Lakes, and it just comes in pulses.

You'll get a program that might go for two or three years, and then nothing for a decade or more after that.

And, so, again, it's just snapshots, and you don't have a good feel for a longer term trend.

- Well, and that probably makes it difficult because you're now, you don't have those connecting pieces between that.

And you might look at that from 10 years and go, well, is that even valid?

I mean, it's a benchmark, but without being able to constantly go back and - - Yeah.

- And without factoring - - And touch it, yeah.

- Without factoring in, you know, newer technologies that come along since that maybe have, you know, increased our confidence in data we collect.

- Sure, sure, yeah.

Well, when we come back, we can talk a little bit, we've, about, a little more about Lake Victoria, but then you can talk to us, too, about what you have planned and what's happened in our lakes, Lake Erie and then Sandusky Bay, because I know that's a constant thing you've been working on, too.

- Yeah.

- Back in just a moment.

We're talking about fresh lake water quality on "The Journal" here with Dr. Michael McKay and Dr. George Bullerjahn.

Back in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

We're talking about freshwater lake quality.

And one of the things that we've talked about is, obviously, I have two researchers, Dr. George Bullerjahn, Dr. Michael McKay, who've gone to Lake Victoria to compare what goes on there near the equator, a large lake, much like Lake superior, and what goes on Lake Erie.

And one of the things you've mentioned, and we haven't probably put enough attention to it is that besides all of the technical aspects and the scientific aspects, you also took over a cadre of students from both your institutions to kind of more interact on a cultural level and kind of to see the perspective of people in another country dealing with this, as opposed to our view of what we do here in Lake Erie.

So, talk a little about the student experience, which was a big part of this.

- Well, we were funded to take a cohort of North American students.

We took nine, three of whom were from my lab, Kate, Katie and Ryan, who are just terrific.

And the goal, and how we did this is they worked side by side with a Kenyan cohort.

And so, not only did we have a huge team that was processing samples and generating data that we'll be looking at for, you know, months, if not a year now, it was a great cultural experience so that our students could see Lake Victoria through the eyes of their Kenyan colleagues.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And I think it was a tremendous experience that really taught our students, really, what it's like to live in Kenya and what the challenges they have and what the strengths of being in Kenya is, what the great things about being in Kenya is all about.

- Yeah, well, and I suppose, too, they, you know, again, and you talked about those a little bit, too, that they aren't necessarily blessed with all of the resources we have.

So, probably, from the students that came with you from North America, oh, they're able to make this work, doing it this way, whereas we have a piece of equipment or we have a more sophisticated piece of equipment, and yet they are able to make things work over there and do the studies, and maybe not to the level that we would be, think was possible, maybe.

- Yeah, we had a series of meetings with our students in preparation for the trip.

And you heard the term MacGyver quite a bit during those discussions.

You know, folks, you're not gonna have the resources you find in your laboratory, you know, at your university.

You're gonna be working with people who are making due, you know, with limited resources and budgets.

And, again, take this opportunity to learn.

You can do things.

You can do a lot of things, maybe without having the creature comforts that we might have become expecting - - [Steve] Sure.

- In our areas.

One other asset that we had that was immensely helpful was Professor Kefa Otiso from BGSU, who was actually part of our team, as well.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- And, really, I think, you know, made things a lot easier for us in terms of, I mean, just basic things like paying for services.

You know, cash is not widely used in Kenya.

A lot of the transactions are done on mobile phones.

- [Steve] Really?

- And you need to have somebody who's got those accounts on their phone, so, just some basic things like that, having someone like Kefa along, I mean, was just immensely helpful.

- And, yeah, arranging lodging in different places, arranging, I mean, arranging road transport, because.

- [Steve] Yeah, all the logistical pieces.

- There are lots of logistic piece, logistical elements to this, and so.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And he also brought insights about land use, because, you know, he's from the, he's familiar with the area we visited, and, you know, again, we look at our region of northwest Ohio and looking at the agricultural contributions to blooms in Lake Erie, again, as George mentioned, the farming's not quite the same.

A lot of smaller sort of family owned farming operations there.

- [George] Right.

- But you do have some large tea plantations in the watershed, as well.

And, you know, Kefa providing those insights to us and identifying places to go sample.

So, it was really, I think, helped to make that experience much better for everyone.

- Well, and you make a good point, too.

The fact that everybody could learn from each other, that it wasn't, oh, we're coming over there to show you how to do this, or them saying, well, we don't do it that way here.

There was a lot of integration that of ideas and ways to get things done that maybe, as you said, a lot of MacGyver.

Now, I'm pretty sure you weren't using a lot of duct tape out there.

Maybe you were, I don't know.

- I use a lot of duct tape here.

- It was, so, red, green was along for me.

Okay, well, that's an interesting approach.

So, now, obviously, we've talked a lot about your trip, and it's very important.

You're gonna go back in November, and we'll talk with you when come back from that one, but what's going on right now, locally with Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie.

What kind of things have you been working on there over the past few months since we talked last?

- Well, Sandusky Bay has thrown us yet another curve ball.

We used to have a toxic cyanobacterium called Planktothrix, which dominated the bay, and it did until 2020, and then disappeared.

We're not sure why.

We have a couple ideas, but, you know, it's, there's been a dramatic change and an improvement in water quality.

This year, early on, there was a bloom of another toxic cyanobacterium called Aphanizomenon.

It's kind of a mouthful, but that bloomed.

We had a big bloom for about three weeks.

It went away and now the bay looks okay, you know.

It's greens and diatoms, green algae and diatoms, which are, you know, better algae than the toxic cyanobacteria.

So, you know, we're seeing things happening that we haven't seen, traditionally, in the prior two decades, but, and we're trying to explain why.

- Yeah, well, and that gets back to what you were saying.

If you have a constant monitoring and you can touch base on a regular basis versus once every eight or nine years.

- Yeah.

- You can see better a little better what's going on.

- And we do see differences in nutrient levels, which are likely a driver of some of the changes we're seeing, so.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So, what, we've just got a moment or two, so, what is the next step in Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie?

What's your plan for the next few months or over the next year?

What's the big goal or the big target?

- Well, I think, you know, George's group has been working there, you know?

- [Steve] Yeah.

- For a decade now almost.

And with some of the engineering that's been going on in Sandusky Bay, the restoration initiatives, you know, they have baselines established, and now it's following up to measure the effect of those engineering projects.

- And, I guess the final thing, I mean, we are make, we continue to make progress, I guess, is the good news.

- Right.

- There's still, as, I think we always say, there's always more to be done there, but we're, at least, we're moving in the right direction.

- Right.

- Compared to what we may have been doing 20, 30 years ago, so.

- Right.

- That's good to know.

Okay, well, Dr. Mike McKay, Dr. George Bullerjahn, thanks for coming on.

We'll have you back again after another one of your, you know, safaris or escapades over in your African queen approach.

So, yeah, you can check us out at wbgu.org, and you can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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