(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Welcome to "Almanac North".

I'm Maarja Hewitt.

Today we are presenting a core conversation focused on the state of water.

We'll be joined by experts in several areas of water management, restoration, research, and preservation, as well as visiting several places in our area that work with water.

All of that is in store tonight on "Almanac North".

But first, Minnesotans and Wisconsinites know mosquitoes all too well.

With the wet start to summer we've had, it's felt almost impossible to keep them at bay.

Known for spreading diseases like Zika, dengue, malaria, and West Nile, Mosquitoes are responsible for over a million deaths annually, and their range is expanding due to global warming.

How do mosquitoes select who to bite and who to spare?

How can you make yourself a less appealing target?

Mosquitoes use multiple cues to locate humans, including carbon dioxide, body odors, and heat.

Recent research by Diego Giraldo and Stephanie Rankin-Turner at Johns Hopkins has identified human odor profiles that attract certain mosquitoes.

They discover that mosquitoes are particularly drawn to carboxylic acids and other compounds produced by skin microbes.

Studies also show that personal care products can influence mosquito attraction.

Surprisingly, some soaps, even those containing repellents like limine, can increase mosquito attraction depending on the individual's body chemistry.

Researchers are exploring personalized repellents by analyzing these chemical interactions.

Future repellents may involve manipulating the skin microbiome to reduce attractiveness to mosquitoes.

Understanding mosquito behavior and human scent profiles remains crucial for developing better repellents.

Effective current strategies to repel mosquitoes include using traditional repellents like DEET.

Natural repellents like lemon eucalyptus oil can also work, but they're much less effective and must be reapplied more often.

Wearing long sleeves and light colored clothing also helps.

Well, now we are moving to the larger discussion today, water.

With thousands of bodies of water in our region, including Lake Superior, water in abundance can lead to people taking it for granted.

We're going to examine water and how we interact with it tonight through preservation, restoration, management, and recreation.

Now we're joined today by educator, biologist, and water enthusiast, Amy Schrank.

Amy, welcome to "Almanac North".

- Thanks very much.

I'm glad to be here.

- We're happy to have you, and maybe we could start with a little background on your academic background - Sure.

- And your interest in aquatic ecology and water research and how that all began.

- Yeah, sure.

So I did in my undergrad and master's at the University of Michigan, biology and Spanish, and then water ecology, basically, for my master's.

And then I moved out west to Wyoming where I did my PhD in zoology and physiology, working on cutthroat trout in streams.

The reason I'm into water is really because of my mom and my grandma.

I went fishing with my grandma as a kid, caught turtles with my grandma as a kid, and I lived in Miami in middle school.

My mom would take us, not to the beach, but to tidal flats and we'd find horseshoe crabs and all kinds of stuff.

So that did it for me when I was young.

- Yeah, you had a good personal connection to water.

Totally.

Good personal connection.

- Like so many of us, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- So now you work at the Sea Grant.

So tell us about the Sea Grant, what it is, and what kind of projects they do.

- Okay, sure.

So Minnesota Sea Grant is part of a federal program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, So NOAA, National Sea Grant is under NOAA.

Every coastal state has a Sea Grant program.

We're coastal because of Lake Superior, so it includes marine states and also the Great Lake States.

Sea Grant in the state is a partnership with the federal program and university.

So we are all university employees as Sea Grant folks, but some of our funding comes from National Sea Grant and we get the benefit of that big community of Sea Grant across the nation as well as the university.

- You know, and I've always heard of Sea Grant 'cause I've always heard about it in Duluth.

So headquartered in at UMD, but all over the state and St. Paul as well.

- Correct.

Correct.

So most of us are in Duluth, but I'm in St. Paul.

There's a number of us in St. Paul and we work on water across the state.

So we work in Lake Superior, but also lakes and streams throughout the state of Minnesota.

- Which the state of Minnesota has a lot of those.

- It has a lot of those.

It has a lot of those.

So our basic mission is to bring water science to communities, whether that's the public and lake associations, water resources managers, the DNR, Pollution Control agency.

So we are embedded with a lot of folks and listen to water needs and then provide that information or research.

- So what's an example of that?

Like, a community's maybe trying to learn something about the quality of their water and they would come to you to try and find an answer?

- They would try to find an answer, or more normally, what we do is we really connect with communities and say, what do you need?

How can we help?

We learn about that by going to different lake associations and listening to them.

We go to water managers and listen to them.

People then come to us and say, "Hey, we need to know about this."

If there's no research out there, we'll fund research to find out the answer.

If there's research out there, we provide extension and outreach to get that information to communities.

So, for example, we are currently funding some research on algal blooms and a way to rapidly assess if, when algae is blooming in a lake, there are toxins present, because those can be dangerous to humans or animals.

And so that's what our researchers are doing.

Once they figure out that method, we can work to bring that to communities and managers so they can actually effectively use that and solve problems.

- Yeah, what specific projects have you led or participated in that have led to an impact?

- Good question, so there are two that I can think of sort of right away that we're working on right now.

So we lead a project that's looking at how invasive hybrid cattails affect lakes in Minnesota.

So it's a project that's funded through the Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center, and the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.

Cattails have been in Minnesota for a long time.

There is a invasive type that's a combination between a European cattail and one we have in Minnesota.

They grow like crazy.

They grow along a lot of our lake shores, and we're trying to determine how we can manage them.

They've been here since the '40s.

People don't always know they're an invasive species, but they can take over.

They really suppress native plants.

And when you have a lot of cattail, you have low oxygen in the water and this can impact fish communities.

So we're looking at ways to remove cattail at a small scale, restore lake shores, so let native plants grow back and try to increase habitat for fishes in that way.

So I think that'll have an effect on water quality right away, increasing oxygen, providing better habitat for fishes.

So that's one example.

- Those cattail, do they look different?

Like, would someone without a scientific background be able to tell?

- Not necessarily.

So there are some differences, and I talk about this a lot and I can show pictures of the differences, but it looks like your regular everyday cattail.

They grow differently.

They kind of grow in this big monoculture, but it's hard to tell if you don't know what you're looking for.

So they're kind of a sneaky invader in that way.

- What would you say is the current state of water quality in Minnesota?

That's a very broad question.

- It's a broad question.

No, it's a really good question.

So a really good source of information for that is Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

So, you know, according to MPCA, Pollution Control Agency, about 75% of lakes in our state meet water quality standards.

So that's pretty good, but it's really variable depending on where you are.

So if you're in the north or northeastern part of Minnesota, it's forested, there's a lot of wetlands, like more than 95% of those lakes have good water quality.

But in the central part of the state, when you have shallow lakes that have urban watersheds or agricultural watersheds, it's shallow, the sediment and water is in contact, you end up with a lot of nutrient runoff or salt runoff, and those can be more polluted.

And then in the southern and southwestern part of the state, I think only about 14, 15% of lakes meet water quality standards, primarily because it's so heavily agricultural wetlands have been drained.

There's a lot of drainage tile.

So you have a lot of nitrogen pollution in those places.

So it really depends on where you are.

- Sure.

In addition to the agricultural impact and contributing to water pollution, what are kind of the contributing factors for the state of Minnesota?

- Yeah, good question.

And there are a couple really big ones, phosphorus and nitrogen.

So nutrients are important.

They're naturally quite low in lake systems.

Phosphorus comes from humans.

It can be from agricultural runoff, it can be from poorly managed septic systems.

It can be when we have huge rain events and sewage overflows, both phosphorus and nitrogen.

Nitrogen's a lot from fertilizer cause algal blooms, sometimes those can be harmful algal blooms.

Those are unpleasant for humans and also not great for food web.

So nutrients are a big one.

I would say another one that has been increasing in the last 20 years is chloride or salt.

It snows, we put salt on the road.

So when you have increasing urbanization, you get a lot of salt and you can't get it out once it's there.

So it's a tough one to deal with.

- What are some of the most successful water preservation initiatives currently underway in the state?

- Okay, I can give you a couple of examples.

And preservation is the key.

It's really hard to deal with a lake once it's already polluted.

So Minnesota Sea Grant has a project where we're looking at codes in ordinances in cities.

It sounds super boring, but actually, one of the ways you can benefit water quality is by putting in green infrastructure.

Green infrastructure basically tries to keep water on the land so it can percolate into the soil.

So, for example, a rain garden, or if you see a parking lot and inside that parking lot, there's a little island with trees and plants, that can help water infiltrate.

Sometimes a city ordinance will say, "Well, in a parking lot you have to have a curb all the way around a parking island."

If you have a curb all the way around, water can't get in.

So you're really defeating the purpose.

So looking at ordinances in city government and helping city governments do this can pave the way for green infrastructure and increasingly keep water on land to keep the pollutants out of our lakes and streams.

So that's one.

The other quick one is street sweeping.

So we partner with U of M Extension Water Resources Center.

It's like hugely helpful So we do a lot of training and PCA.

- So street sweeping, getting-- (speakers drowning each other out) - Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, because if they get into the water, they decay, you end up with phosphorus, algal blooms, et cetera.

- So that's something that I can do, people watching.

- Absolutely.

- That's a simple way to help.

- It's a simple way to help.

So keeping that stuff out of your drain.

The other really good way to help if you live near a lake is not to mow your lawn all the way to the edge, because if you have plants near the edge, they'll uptake vegetation and all of that, whatever it is, nutrient pollution will get into the water.

- Oh, yeah.

Good to know.

Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining us.

It was a pleasure speaking with you.

- Thanks for having me.

- Well, next up on "Almanac North", our team paid a visit to Superior to learn about the rehabilitation of Barker's Island and the impacts it has making on the city.

(gentle music) - Barker's Island Beach is the place where the most people in the Twin Ports access the water throughout the Twin Ports.

More than any other place, more people visit Barker's Island to get in the water.

I did not have the experience growing up that children do now, you know, being able to often walk to a beach where they can go swimming throughout the summer.

Water sort of belonged to industry in the town that I grew up in.

My understanding of it developed as I came to fall in love with wilderness and water and nature and experiencing the outdoors.

And when I came to understand that I lived in a beautiful place that had been compromised, I understood that because I had to travel to have beautiful outdoor experiences like going to the boundary waters, and it actually took a minute to understand that that was unacceptable.

It was just the standard.

Well, home was polluted, away was pristine and beautiful.

- The Barker's Island Beach water quality status pre-project was pretty poor.

There were a lot of beach advisories posted here, either warning people that there was high levels of E.coli found, or that the beach was above a level where it was considered a closure, a beach closure.

In the early 2010s, the city and the state, we kind of identified this as a problem spot for recreation based on E.coli testing and the city and the state, we listed it on our projects under the beach closings and body contact restrictions impairment.

We were able to advocate for some support, some Great Lakes restoration initiative support directly to the city to design and implement a restoration project here.

The piece of it that we're most interested in is the legacy contaminants.

It's a contaminant, or pollutant, or an activity that really generally no longer is a modern source.

Prior to kind of more robust regulation and clean water act protections, there was a lot of dredging and filling, pollution and contamination practices that industry and municipalities don't do anymore, and so that's the focus of the Area of Concern Program.

Our ability to address legacy contaminants, I think is really important and unique.

We underwent two years of bacteria monitoring in the St. Louis River to find where the causes and sources of the poor water quality were coming from.

And using that information, we then designed the project.

We focus on kinda legacy inputs and contaminants and conditions here.

And one of the reasons we were able to do a project on this beach was 'cause it had that human source.

The beaches and the water quality here in St. Louis is pretty good.

There's a lot more emphasis from municipalities to pretreat stormwater runoff.

We've made massive infrastructure upgrades in the cities for wastewater treatment.

And all of that goes into a cleaner, healthier river.

- A major restoration project is an impossible miracle.

It cannot be done.

And so it takes too many people, it takes too much money, way too much expertise, and more cooperation than is conceivably possible in politics.

The fact that it has been done is that much more remarkable.

- [Man] Restoration projects really are never a quick fix because you're trying to make sure you address a lot of different pieces of the puzzle and make sure it sticks.

- You know what?

10, 20 years ago, you could not swim here, or you probably shouldn't have.

And this is an ancient resource, but also kind of a new one and much more fragile than you think it is.

If we're teaching folks that, we're giving them the tools, not only to value this space that we have, but to protect it so that they always have it, and to go look for the places that are still dirty and to try and save them from making them even more dirty, but to take a shot at restoring those places too.

- What a great message about protecting and restoring our beach fronts for everyone to enjoy.

Now I'm joined by Deanna Erickson of the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Thank you for joining us, Deanna.

- Hello.

Glad to be here.

- So, Deanna, I'm gonna take a moment and let you say the reserve correctly, because you did coach me on it, but I know that a lot of people say it wrong.

So how do you say it?

- It's just hard to say.

So it's the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve.

That's what we are, but you can just call us the Reserve.

It's no big deal.

- I like that.

And so what is the Reserve and what do you do and what does your typical day look like?

- Yeah, so around the US, there's a system under the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration of 30 national estuaries, and we are one of them here on Lake Superior, one of only two right now in the Great Lakes.

What we do is we focus on the mouth of the St. Louis River Estuary.

And so we're doing research.

We have an education program that's working with kids and teachers and community members.

We're helping coastal decision makers, like people who are making decisions about land and water to have the best information they can.

We're conducting stewardship, we're taking care of the place.

And we do all of those in one little crowded office down on Barker's Island in Superior.

And we're part of University of Wisconsin Madison Division of Extension.

So our job is to take what we learn and share it with the community so we can understand where we live better.

- So we just spoke with Amy Schrank of the Sea Grant, and you are both funded by NOAA.

- So do you guys work together and kind of do some programs together?

- Yeah, we do.

We do Sea Grant and our coastal programs, we're all a place-based part of this federal entity.

The reserves are a little unique in that there's land that's part of the reserve.

There's over 16,000 acres on the Wisconsin side of the estuary that is included within the boundaries of the reserve.

So, yeah, that makes us a little bit special, but we're all friends.

- Yeah, so the reserve is a place you can visit and enjoy, right?

- Yeah.

And it's 16,000 acres you said?

So where is this?

This is in Superior.

- It's the public lands we know and love and they're part of the reserve as well.

So if you've ever been out to Wisconsin Point and hung out on the beach and relaxed and had a great evening watching the sunset, you were in the Lake Superior Reserve, or maybe you went to the Superior Municipal Forest, that's a city property, or the Red River Breaks, which is wild.

Not many people go out there, but that's along the upper estuary near Oliver.

That's DNR, but it's part of the reserve.

And all of that was within the 1842 seated territory of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe.

And so we kind of have, we're part of many different organizations, even though we're our own thing, which just again means we have a lot of friends.

- Yeah, right.

So what are some of the like water quality issues that you see Lake Superior facing or the Reserve?

- Yeah, there's kinda two things to think about when we think about water quality.

There's the past and what happened to the estuary and what happened to the river.

And a lot of that wasn't great.

There's contaminants in the sediment that are mostly removed, but it's still a work in progress.

And so restoring from the past is one thing that's really important to the St. Louis River Estuary.

And then preparing for a future that's probably gonna look different from our past with warmer winters, more flooding, bigger storms.

We were all experiencing that.

And so those two things, the cleanup efforts and preparing for a different future.

That's kind of where we, our research goes in both directions.

- And you kind of have to do it simultaneously.

- We do, yeah.

So we have to think about, is this place restored?

This past, last week, we had a crew out planting almost 8,000 trees in the estuary.

That's to help prepare for those big floods as we lose ash trees to an invasive insect that eats them.

You know, so that's preparing for the future.

In the meanwhile, we have a project looking at, with the best kinds of plants that can both help sustain shorelines and help people have food and medicine plants to gather.

And that's preparing for better restoration and helping us understand how to restore land better.

- So that's some of your research going on.

What does your research look like?

You mentioned you have a tiny office on Barker's Island.

I mean, do you have a tiny but mighty team that goes out?

- Yes.

The mightiest team, yeah, we really do.

A neat thing about the reserves is we're all kind of set up the same.

So I'm the director, I'm talking to people and doing administrative things and helping support and guide this cool staff.

But we have an education coordinator and she is running the Lake Superior Estuarium, which is our public visitor center, and our teacher programs and programs for youth.

And then we have the coastal training program.

So Karina, she's out there helping decision makers prepare for climate change and working with them one-on-one.

We have a research coordinator, we have a monitoring coordinator.

We have Kirsten, our stewardship coordinator, and we have a whole bunch of students in the summer who are all working on research projects as well.

So, yeah, that's what's happening in that small office.

- And there's a lab - And there's some boats.

- And you have the estuarium, right?

So that's a place that the public can go and see things, learn, because it's an estuary museum?

- Yeah, and they should.

Yes.

- Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

- Yes, that's what they should do there.

So we're open Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays this summer, 10 to five.

It's free.

There's a kids' play area, there's activities going on.

You can just come down to Barker's Island, it's the big red building.

Come on in.

We'd love to see you.

It's fun.

- Yeah, you mentioned education earlier, your education coordinator.

What do some of your programs for educating look like and getting in the schools?

Like, what's your goal in doing that?

- Yeah, what research shows us is that teachers really need support that's individualized to their classroom.

And so in response to that, Luciana runs a program called Rivers to Lake.

And we have a cohort of teachers, they're just about to start.

We've got 16 teachers this year, and they're gonna go through a week long immersion, sometimes literally in the St. Louis River and Lake Superior, and learn all about this research I'm sharing with you and how to apply that and bring that into their classroom and take students outside to learn.

And then Luciana and Ryan, our education team, they're gonna help them for the rest of the year.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah, so they'll be in the classrooms twice a month.

We also work with Superior Rivers on the South Shore Watershed Association to extend the classrooms we can work with.

- Oh, that's cool.

- Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

It's fun to see kids getting outside and learning about the place they live in a way where they feel like they can have an impact.

- Looking ahead, what are some challenges you see facing the estuary, Lake Superior?

What are things that we're gonna have to combat?

- Yeah, we struggle with the impact of invasive species on these very rich biodiverse systems that make up estuaries.

So the wetlands are the place where fish and birds and all kinds of critters come to raise their young and to grow and to rest during migration.

And when invasive species come into that mix, we lose some of what they need to grow and thrive.

And that's one of the problems that we just run into from all different perspectives.

I think the other thing I would say, the impact of flooding and the emergence of harmful algae blooms, that's really new for us.

Algae normal, it's supposed to be in a system, it feeds plants and animals and insects, but sometimes we get too much of it and we're trying to understand why that's happening all of a sudden here.

We're just about to launch a buoy in Lake Superior.

It's in progress, a UMD student is working on it.

Shout out to Dean.

And that'll help us understand what's happening in those nearshore systems where we're starting to see that change.

That's one of many changes, but we are particularly interested in that one because it's new.

I think the other thing that's really important is we have to keep people connected.

We have to keep people connected to the estuary and feeling responsible for it and respectful of it and appreciative of it.

And a lot of our programs are around that too.

- That's great advice.

Deanna, thank you so much for joining us.

- Yeah, thank you.

- Our team ventured out once again to learn more about ballast water treatment and how organisms that are transported into our waterways and ships can impact our water.

- This is the Montreal Pier Ballast Water Treatment Testing facility.

It's part of a larger program where we incubate treatment technologies to help try to remove unwanted organisms, aquatic organisms from ships' ballast water.

This facility was designed to kind of mimic a boat and have all of the infrastructure that you have inside of a boat with its ballast water, its ballast tanks and stuff, but we had the ability to stretch it out on land so we could produce good science.

So these tanks here are really small compared to what you would see in an actual ballast tank on a ship, specifically the Lakers.

So those vessels that are locked within the Great Lakes that don't travel outside of the seaway.

But here we can have our mock ballast tanks and we can run a series of experiments with them.

The pipes and stuff that you see here before you are designed to control flows and diagrams.

The whole goal here at this testing facility is to have companies bring technology that's in the proof of concept, or could even be fully developed.

We are a third party tester.

We have no stake in that technology.

What we want to do is run it through the paces of scientific rigor and collect the data from it, and then ultimately give the data back to the customer.

And then if it works well for them, it meets some standards and stuff, then the system could be installed on a ship and used to prevent the spread of those organisms, movement around the lakes.

We'll head up the steps here.

Just out by those two boats out there, there would be a pump that brings in our harbor water, which is rich with zooplankton and life.

The water comes through the black pipe and it hits this Y here, half of it's split, and it will go inside to that building where there is a treatment system installed.

That water will be treated and then it comes back out and it'll be retained in one or two of these tanks for a given period of time.

As the water flows through right below us, the chemist and the biologist will come out and grab their water quality samples and then go into the laboratory space and start counting up the organisms and see what who's alive, who's dead kind of thing.

We also have controls, so the water that doesn't go into there, half of it will just flow along this outer track and go into the opposite tanks and sit there, and then we just check for background mortalities and things like this.

So we're really documenting the effect from that treatment system.

All of the design is developed with the ship or the end user in mind and the treatment system.

So it really depends on their needs and what they want, and how it'll be installed and operated on a ship.

All of this is to help understand that the movement of organisms within the lakes and then potentially prevent and protect our aquatic habitats.

The classic example is the zebra mussel.

So we believe that the villagers were brought in by some ballast water discharge and the spread over years has been catastrophic.

The Duluth Superior Harbor, we received the largest amount of ballast water from any of these ships compared to any other port on the Great Lakes region.

And that is because we export a ton of cargo out, right?

Bulk cargo out.

So most of these ships come in with this water in their tanks and have to discharge that water.

It could be the source for the next organism.

So this is the current technology that we're working on.

They are large filters that would be installed on a ship.

We have from three different companies that have three different slightly designed systems, right?

So it's kind of like a proof of concept testing for that company.

They get all the data.

Because this is funded with public money, that data does become available and then the shipping industry knows if the filter will or will not work.

So there's no secrets here.

The project team consists of mainly three federal agencies, two branches of the EPA, one branch of the USDOT.

We have a couple universities, Superior, as well as University Minnesota Duluth, engineering firm, AMI engineers located here in Superior.

It takes a village, right?

It really does take a village, and specifically this problem of trying to understand the movement and the spread of aquatic invasive species.

The environmental and economic impact has been documented.

Now we're driving for a solution, and that solution is really steeped in the biology, chemistry, policy, engineering, the industry side of it, as well as stakeholders.

We all have access to water and it's our right to protect and preserve and use that water as we see fit as a community, as a region.

So it takes all that input to get us moving in the right direction.

- Next up, we have Dr. Chan Lan Chun from the UMD Civil Engineering Department and Natural Resources Research Institute in studio with us.

Welcome to "Almanac North".

- Thank you for having me.

- We're happy to have you here.

Dr. Chan Lan Chun.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your work in environmental engineering, specifically relating to water?

- Yes, I'm teaching and then conducting the research in the area of the environmental engineering, particularly for the water quality.

So my researching group kind of focus on understanding sources and fate and then toxicity of the chemical and then biological contaminant in the natural water.

And then build the environment like the wastewater treatment plant and then the stormwater drains.

So based on our understanding and then characterization, we are also developing the more noble and improve the actual remediation technology or the mitigation strategies.

- Oh, okay.

So you're researching the cause and then also coming up with - Solutions.

- A fix.

Yes.

- Yes.

- So what are the biggest challenges facing water quality in Minnesota?

- Oh, this is the big question.

If I choose the top three challenges in the Minnesota now, I think nutrient pollution and then legacy and the emerging contaminant and climate change.

So nutrient pollution like nitrogen and the phosphorus from the agriculture runoff and maybe open stormwater cause or promoting harmful algae growth, which occasionally produce the toxin to us and then the wildlife, and then also it ruined our drinking water source.

It kind of making the smells and the taste.

So that's kind of one.

And then second I would say we are dealing with the actually bores, legacy, and then emerging contaminant.

So they are open like persistent in the environment and then can cause the bio accumulation into the actually aquatic organism like fishes.

And it has the potential long distance to transport, which means that like we can get the contaminant from the other country, or we can actually, those contaminant can go to the another place like a pristine environment as well too.

And then I think if I give the example, like mercury is one of the example for the legacy contaminant.

And then forever chemical like fluoride, the compound known as the PFAS and they even water salt are the emerging contaminant.

So I think a third one is I would say climate change, and then climate change actually jeopardizing bores water quantity and then the quality, so like more kind of rain event can transport the actual land based nutrient and then pollution to our water system, also warmer water can increasing the waterborne illness, or again I can say is promoting the harmful algae growth.

- I think you mentioned the PFAS?

- Yes.

- Can you explain a little bit more about that and its impact?

- So, PFAS's case is the, it is a manmade compound, and then it is very stable compound.

It was very useful for many different kind of applications.

And then we haven't been using the for a long time, and then it usually kind of stay very low concentration.

So I wouldn't say this new compound, so when we talk about the emerging compound, it's not the new compound.

It has been there in the environment, but now we can detect it.

We did the advance of the analytical technology and the instrumentation, and then we also found those low concentration of the forever chemical can cause the maybe toxic to the human.

And then there are lots of those studies going on.

And it is everywhere, like your clothes, our fans, you know?

Cooking.

So it's everywhere.

So it is very difficult to kind of study (indistinct).

- Yeah, how do microorganisms play a role in maintaining water quality?

- Wow, I love that question.

So microorganism contributing to maintaining the overall ecosystem balance in the aquatic system, including the water quality.

I mean, you may heard about we have the gut microbes can kind of maintaining our overall physical health.

So it is very similar.

First of all, the microorganism can breaking down the organic matter and then facilitate the nutrient cycle in the system.

And then we are using this natural phenomena for treating our wastewater.

So in our wastewater treatment, actually we are mimicking that process to clean the water or managing the actual stormwater as well too.

And then we are harnessing actually this microorganisms power in the soil and then groundwater remediation as well too.

- So what are these microorganisms?

- They are mixture.

It's not just kinda one organism, and then they do well when they are together.

So, for example, like a sulfate treatment which I'm working on, that project's case is the microorganism actually converted the sulfate to the another form, and then we can capture that one with the other chemical treatment.

So we can remove the sulfate out of it.

Or some of the microorganism can metabolize the organic contaminant to like a pesticide and it became actually carbon dioxide in the water.

So complete remineralization as well too.

- Are there any projects you're working on currently that you can share about, or ones in the past that have made a big impact?

- I think I would like to share the sulfate project.

So sulfate is kind of a common ion in our water, but generally it is very low concentration in the freshwater system.

So it is a lot present a high concentration in the seawater, but it's not common for the freshwater system.

And then sulfate is not itself toxic, but it can change the form into the toxic form.

And then recently, I'm saying maybe the recent decades, the sulfate concentration has been increased regionally and then globally.

So we kind of think this is the biogeochemical stressor can affect the wildlife and then the plant, like the white rice, and then even infrastructure as well too.

- So how is the sulfate getting into the water?

- So usually anthroponotic activity.

So it used to come from the atmospheric deposition, but now we have the like maybe industry activity, or even our natural kind of switch has it because our detergent may have the sulfate, or when we making the drinking water, sometimes sulfate get in as well too.

So it's kind of naturally our population's growth and then the urbanization can increase actually sulfate.

And then climate change is another factor to increasing the sulfate, because the waterway changes and then there are more mineral is actually (indistinct) at the time sulfate come together as well too.

- So Dr. Chun, what are some things that folks at home, that I can do to help efforts in preserving and protecting our water?

- Wow, absolutely we can do that.

And then it is important to take the small step.

So I think one of the easy one is to pick up the yard clipping and then pet waste, so they can actually cut the actual nutrient to get into the water system.

So that's kind of one of the one.

And then second one is the, I would just say kind of dispose the hazardous waste in the proper way.

So when I say like maybe painting, some of the painting material, or the automobile fluid, or some of the chemical, it may including the like unused medicine as well too.

So if you can properly dispose and then they can actually save the water resource and then the quality.

- Good tips we can all do, right?

So looking ahead, what are some projects or things you hope to see in terms of water quality research?

- I think collaboration.

I think when it comes to the environmental issue, like the water quality, there is no (indistinct).

So we need conservation, prevention, actually remediation, and the restoration all together.

So collaboration among the like government and then the (indistinct), the NGOs, and academia, and then business all together is actually key for the fosters the resiliency and then sustainable actually water management in Minnesota.

- Dr. Chun, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks.

- Recently there was an elevated rate of cases of Legionnaires disease in Grand Rapids.

Legionnaires is a severe type of pneumonia caused by legionella bacteria, which are problematic if they grow in manmade water systems.

We paid them a visit to learn about how it happened and what is being done to treat the tainted water and prevent future contamination.

- We're a municipal utility in the City of Grand Rapids, Minnesota that provides electric water and wastewater utilities.

So with respect to legionella and Legionnaire's disease, back in 2023, the Department of Health investigated several cases that were increased numbers here in Grand Rapids.

And through their investigation, they discovered a commonality was the municipal water supply.

And so in December of 2023, Department of Health came up and did some testing in our water system, our distribution system, as well as two buildings that are connected to our water supply.

And so though the tests in our distribution, our water system, our water tower, our water treatment plant did not show detectable levels of legionella, those two buildings that were connected to our system did in the plumbing systems of those.

And so it was at that time in the end of January that we started working real closely with the Department of Health to remediate steps and investigate what was going on in our water system.

To date, there have been 22 cases within the city of Grand Rapids, either residents or people who have visited Grand Rapids, that's since April of 2023.

(gentle music) We do live in a small community, and so many of us know each other.

These are friends and family.

And so we talk quite often about those that have been exposed, had it, recovered from it, very severe pneumonia, bacterial infection in the lungs.

And so that coughing, shortness of breath, typical pneumonia-like symptoms, treated locally here, tested locally here by our healthcare providers.

If someone comes in with pneumonia-like symptoms, they automatically test them for Legionnaires and that legionella bacteria getting in early and getting on an antibiotic right away has really shortened the length of the illness.

Legionella bacteria is ubiquitous.

It's found in streams, rivers, lakes, soils, pretty much any aquatic environment.

It's also commonly detected in low levels in public water systems, typically that's not an issue until it's elevated.

And the way that that bacteria amplifies or elevates is when it becomes warm and stagnant.

And so after two months of testing and weekly testing of our system, we still have yet to detect it at levels within our distribution.

And that's because our system is cold, we have groundwater, and it's also constantly moving.

It's that shared responsibility when it goes from the utility side into a building, it often is warmed through water heaters and then it sits stagnant, especially in infrequently used bathrooms or areas.

And so that's when we're really looking at posing a risk.

We will begin disinfection June 24th, but we are not mandated to be disinfected.

Even today, after the public outreach, we are still not mandated to be disinfected.

The Minnesota Department of Health does not require groundwater systems, which is what we are.

We pull from five wells to be disinfected.

We are, however, one of two, I believe, left in the state of communities our size to be disinfected.

And so we are moving toward that, obviously, as a result and part of our remediation approach.

We have heard countless complaints, I guess, or frustrations of if this is not a distribution wide problem, why are we having to do a distribution wide chlorination or disinfection?

And again, we hear you, we have prided ourselves for decades on having undisinfected, unchlorinated water and it tastes great, smells great.

Unfortunately, at this case, the utility is only able to provide certain levels of protection, and disinfection is one of those.

There are best practices that customers can do in their homes and buildings to keep that water moving and keep it safe.

That information can be found on our website, www.grpuc.org.

And we've got an entire section on legionella and drinking water, as well as the chlorination.

So even after we chlorinate, we're asking our customers to continue doing the things that we've asked, keep that water temperature at 120 degrees or more.

Keep the faucets and shower heads cleaned on a regular basis.

That removes the surface area for bacteria to grow.

Keep those fixtures flushed, especially those bathrooms and areas that don't get frequently used.

And then maintain your water heaters according to the manufacturer's recommendations.

Things like humidifiers as well.

And then anything that requires a medical device that requires water, make sure that you're working with your healthcare provider on that information.

The need to do water management programs in large buildings and understanding and explaining that shared responsibility.

I feel that we were not up to speed on educating our customers of what is needed, whether it's a disinfected or on disinfected system.

The disinfection, if the water management program isn't being followed within the buildings, the disinfection will be used up and gone away and really is treated as if it's an infected system because you don't have any residual in those buildings.

And so that is something that I would encourage all of our fellow public utilities to do, is start that education early, even if you don't have an issue.

Working with your customers and have them understand that shared responsibility is the water, you know, we give it to you meeting all standards, but once you take it in into your building, there are certain things that need to be done to keep it safe and keep that water quality good.

- Earlier this year, Prove It First went to the capitol to urge our state legislators to consider the impact to our natural environment, including water, when determining whether expanded mining operations could be allowed in this state.

Let's hear from them now.

(indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter continues) - Prove It First is very simple.

Prove It First takes almost like a childlike question seriously.

Has this type of mining ever been done safely elsewhere?

In Prove It First, we require a company that wants to build a copper nickel sulfide mine in Minnesota to first show that there's one example of a mine that is operated elsewhere in the US without polluting before it's done here.

And so no proof, no mine.

Today's event will promote conversations with legislators.

First, our boundary waters champions will actually be speaking to the rotunda.

So we'll have more than a dozen legislators from all across Minnesota that will advocate for protecting the boundary waters at the rally, and they'll meet with their constituents there.

And then afterwards, we'll be meeting with legislators from all across the state.

So we'll have hundreds of individuals that'll meet with their elected officials and have a real conversation like we're having here and say why the boundary waters is important to me personally and should be to you as you're my representative or senator.

And so it's delivering that key message and having those conversations right here in this building today.

Well, this is where decisions are made, and we need to show the decision makers that constituents, average people from all across Minnesota, advocate for clean water and the boundary waters.

And our leaders need to know that.

The other piece of legislation that we're supporting this session is a 50 year clean water plan for Minnesota.

Right now, our state that has the boundary waters, Lake Superior, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, does not have a plan for protecting our water resources for the next half century.

And so we're supporting a bill that would provide funding to the University of Minnesota to develop a comprehensive, objective plan to protect our water resources for the next 50 years.

- Wow.

(gentle music) - We already have great legislation.

We have the Clean Water Act, and Minnesota has its own set of rules and we have the authority of the Clean Water Act.

We have the regulations in place, we just have to ensure that our agencies are empowered to do their jobs and are empowered to make decisions, empowered to hold companies accountable.

We want companies held accountable too, and so it's just a matter of enforcing what we have and working within that system, because at the end of the day, we want these products.

And so how do we do it in a way where we have a product, we have clean energy, we have stainless steel, we have all the things that come from metal, but we also have an environment that we wanna live in?

And those are tough conversations, but they're completely doable within the system that we have.

Copper-nickel mining is definitely different than iron mining.

Our ore is different.

So we talk about it's a sulfide-bearing ore.

So the sulfides present an additional challenge.

And one of those challenges is keeping the water potentially away from the ore to start with.

One of the big differences in the last 10 years has been the need to just overall minimize the use of water.

We live in a water rich state, so we've had for years the ability to use water without necessarily having to think about conservation.

And in the last 10 years, we've become a lot more conscious, where can we use less water and how can we really minimize that impact in the front so that we have less water to treat on the backside?

So we have permits that have been issued for projects and we're working through permitting on other projects.

We know that this mining creates a lot of concerns and we don't shy away from hearing people's concerns.

People wanna protect water.

And you have to respect that people want to protect this amazing resource that we have in Minnesota.

We have to have conversations and we have to have really nerdy conversations about regulations, really nerdy conversations about, like I said, material characterization and humidity cell testing, and engineering, and science, and all of those things, because we can do it well here.

And it is though, and it is complicated and it's not a soundbite.

It's sitting down with maps, it's sitting down with schematics, it's sitting down with regulators and saying, what is this company going to do to protect our water?

And that's not an hour long conversation.

That's not a casual conversation.

So we are addressing Prove It First by talking to people about what current regulations we already have and what engineering's been done in other places.

Because there are copper nickel mines operating throughout the entire world, and we can learn those lessons from them.

- The winter that we're having right now that feels more like a summer has heightened everyone's awareness that human-made impacts on the environment are real and they're here today, and that if we have human-made impacts on our clean water and the boundary waters through copper-nickel sulfate mining, that we will change our environment permanently and irrevocably.

So I think people are aware that boy, something is going on that humans have an effect on the environment and that we are stewards of this earth for the next generation.

We just borrow it for a few years and then we pass it on to the next generation.

- Finally, let's look ahead and see what you might be up to this weekend.

Saturday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM is Lumberjack Day at the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids.

Old time, fun games, and activities await at the Northwoods Logging Camp Number 1.

Kids can saw wood, pull logs, play musical stumps, and more.

This event is included in the regular site admission.

Range FanCon 2024 is going on Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia.

Celebrate your fandom and participate in cosplay competitions, meet special guests, and see what vendors, artists, and more have in store.

Tickets to Range FanCon 2024 are available online.

Also, Saturday and Sunday, the 52nd annual Park Point Art Fair is happening, rain or shine, free admission and parking at the end of Park Point.

This event features over 100 artists across the Midwest, live music, food trucks, family art activities and more.

The Park Point Art Fair is presented by the Park Point Community Club and their partners, including PBS North and 103.3 The North.

More information is available at parkpointartfair.org.

Well, that will do it for this week's show.

Make sure you go and enjoy your weekend.

For everyone here at "Almanac North", I'm Maarja Hewitt.

Thank you for joining us.

Good night.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (bright music) (air whooshing)