Known as ‘Kilroys,’ monitoring devices provide ‘new and eye opening information’

NEWS RELEASE

ORCA’s Kilroy systems deployed in canals that discharge into the Indian River Lagoon have provided scientists with some new and eye opening information. Significant algae blooms are occurring in the tributaries and canals. These algae blooms are then carried into the Indian River Lagoon where they die and contribute to the nutrients and muck found in the lagoon. The first event that ORCA scientists noticed occurred in the C24 Canal during a comprehensive study of that canal funded by Scott’s Miracle-Gro.

“The breakthrough has to do with the number and frequency of algae blooms that we are seeing in the canals.” said Dr. Edie Widder, ORCA’s CEO and Senior Scientist. She explains, “This was unexpected because the traditional view has been that watersheds carry nutrients off the land from agriculture and urban lawns, gardens and septic tanks and out of canals and tributaries into the lagoon where they fuel algae blooms. But what we are seeing is that significant blooms are occurring in the fresh water canals.”

Once ORCA scientists saw the blooms occurring in the C24 Canal, they started seeing similar patterns in the other canals and tributaries where state funding has paid for 25 additional Kilroys to be deployed. The concern is that efforts that focus on just nutrient loads entering the lagoon may miss a very important point. Because algae consume nutrients, the nutrient levels coming out of the canals may be low even as they are pumping in large blooms. Once these freshwater algae hit the brackish water in the lagoon they die and release their nutrients at the same time the dead cells settle out forming the layers of black mayonnaise – better known as muck – that is smothering the lagoon.

The 25 Kilroys deployed with state funding is the most comprehensive real-time, water-quality monitoring network in Florida. Warren Falls, ORCA’s managing director said, “The Kilroys are proving what we always believed would be true, that once we were able to monitor on this kind of scale we would learn all kinds of critical information that is needed to figure out how we’re going to clean up the lagoon.”