Checking on the health of the Indian River Lagoon is happening in real time. Retta Rohm, education coordinator and research assistant at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association (ORCA), will tell people about its Kilroy Monitoring Network.
“We have quite a few monitoring projects,” she said. “We do real-time water-quality testing.”
Rohm will be the speaker at the Manatee Observation and Education Center’s Lunch and Learn Lecture Series this Friday, July 13, from noon to 1 p.m. The center is at 480 N. Indian River Drive, Fort Pierce. Admission to the center is $1.
The center’s Lunch and Learn Lecture Series is a twice-monthly bagged lunch event. The center doesn’t serve food, so attendees are welcomed to take their own.
The association’s Kilroy Monitoring Network includes 12 sensor suites placed along part of the 156-mile Indian River Lagoon. The semi-autonomous marine sensors monitor things such as water temperature, level, flow speed and direction, along with salinity, dissolved oxygen levels, phosphates and nitrates, and other things. ORCA created the system.
With that consistent information flow, researchers are doing things such as making pollution maps.
“ORCA is a nonprofit,” Rohm said. “We’re the nation’s first technology-based conservation organization.”
Data from the Kilroy Monitoring Network is available online. Rohm will discuss looking up the information at the lecture. “We’re definitely just trying to do more to involve the community to improve the health of the Indian River Lagoon,” Rohm said.
Oceanographer and marine biologist Edith “Edie” Widder co-founded ORCA in 2005 after a career at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The founding aim is to reverse environmental degradation done to marine ecosystems by collecting the needed data to form good plans. Among other things, ORCA has been a go-to organization for the press when writing about the Indian River Lagoon.
“We have the rainier and hotter season that fuel the algae blooms, Rohm said.
And that generates calls from the press and worried public to ORCA. More of that might be on tap for coming months.
“It’s not looking great for this summer,” Rohm said.
She said there are some smaller algae blooms along the St. Lucie River that could grow. For many, that conjures up memories from two years ago when blue-green algae made its way to the ocean from Lake Okeechobee.
To see real-time information from the Kilroy Monitoring Network, visit www.teamorca.org.
