The State of HAB Monitoring – Session Three : Innovations in Nutrient Monitoring Technology

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[00:00:16] Max Herzog: My name is Max Herzog. I'm Deputy Director of Programs and Partnerships with Cleveland Water Alliance.and it's my great pleasure to welcome you today to our 3rd and final, edition of this mini series on the state of Cleveland. Harmful algal bloom monitoring.today's conversation is convened by Cleveland Water Alliance, a non profit economic development agency focused on, water technology, innovation, and economic development, and the Great Lakes HABS collaborative, coalition of researchers and agencies focused on, communicating the science around HABS.

[00:00:53] Meet my little Great Lakes commission. We'll talk more about those orgs in just a second. Today's session is focused on innovations and nutrient monitoring technologies. So we're really fortunate to have some folks from government, from research, and a number of folks from the private sector to talk about the state of nutrient monitoring technologies and programs and where things are headed.

[00:01:15],a little bit of background about the organization's convening this and why we're putting the session together. The HABS collaborative was started in 2015 to bridge the communication gap between scientists and decision makers regarding HABS research, through conference sessions, newsletters, publications and webinars, the collaborative works to improve communication through a common agenda, which is addressing science and management needs for the region.

[00:01:40],so really excited, and grateful to the HABS collaborative and the Great Lakes Commission for supporting this series.my organization, Cleveland Water Alliance was founded in 2014. To accelerate the Great Lakes region's water economy by generating innovative solutions to global freshwater issues.

[00:01:57],we enable the development of technologies that address HABS and other water resource challenges through our testbeds, innovation challenges, mentorship, and other sort of tech development and commercialization programming. So we're really excited to be able to bring sort of the technology side of things to the table for this series.

[00:02:16] I do want to note just a quick bit of housekeeping before we dive into the session.we do encourage you to share your questions via the Q& A, function at the bottom of your screen, sort of the toolbar.that is distinct from the chat, so please do share things in the Q& A. It lets our panelists, respond and mark which questions they've answered, if they have time during the discussion, and that is where we will go to first at the end of the discussion to pull questions from the audience for our panelists.

[00:02:48] With that, it's my great pleasure to introduce our moderator for today. Katie Stamler is a water quality scientist and source water protection project manager with the Essex Region Conservation Authority. Katie, thanks for being here and I'll hand it over to you now.

[00:03:02] Katie Stammler: Thanks, Max. I'm really excited to be here with this great group of panelists and I just wanted to provide a small amount of background before we dive in.

[00:03:12] I think that probably many people on the call here are familiar with harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie and why nutrient monitoring has become such a big topic in recent history. But nutrient monitoring and analysis has a very long history in our seeking to acquire knowledge going back even to Dave Schindler and others looking at nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.

[00:03:41],trying to determine what the limiting agents are for algal growth. And just how far we've come with those technologies from doing lab analysis. And we know that even within a laboratory setting, those analysis methods have changed and become more refined. We've been able to lower detection limits.

[00:04:01] We've introduced things like automated samplers that allow us to  sample during the course of a rain event as we've learned that the bulk of nutrients move during rain events. So we want to try to capture those nutrient concentrations when we're near the top end of a hydrograph. Which is very difficult for, individuals to do when water is flowing very quickly.

[00:04:23] And we know at least here in the Essex region that tends to happen at midnight on Saturday nights, usually over the Christmas holidays. So the advent of that automated sampling has really been a game changer for people that do this type of work. And then in more recent history, we have the Great Lakes water quality agreement that has new nutrient loading targets, particularly for priority tributaries into Lake Erie, but we also know that these types of harmful algal blooms are happening globally.

[00:04:53],and some of that due to eutrophication and some due to other types of, disturbances. So we need to have these different and new advancing technologies that will help us get into those remote locations, help us get more reliable data on the timescale that we need it. So I'm really excited to have with us here today, individuals that are working on that forefront.

[00:05:17] Of developing our new types of technologies that'll lead us into the future. So I'd like to introduce our panelists.so we have Colm Lynch with us, who is the CEO of Aquamatronics, Vince Kelly, who is the founder and director of GreenEyes. E. J. Neafcy, who is the U. S. Director and Chief Water Scientist of LG Sonic, although I hear he's also a Canadian, so I'm not the only one here.

[00:05:42],and Nate Manning, who is the Interim Director of National, of National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg University. So very excited to have these folks with us and really excited about the conversation that we're going to have. So to begin, I'd like to ask, I'd like to discuss the current challenges that exist in watershed monitoring agencies in obtaining the quality of data that we need, and the role of your agency and the technology that you've developed that's going to help us solve those challenges.

[00:06:13] And we're going to start with Nate from Heidelberg University.

[00:06:20] Nathan Manning: Thanks.yeah, so, you know, the sort of monitoring that we do at Heidelberg, right, is a high frequency in the sense that it's a daily, up to 3 times a day. You know, sample, and for the big rivers, things like the Maumee River or, you know, the Sandusky, that's generally fine to capture, you know, a lot of sort of the nutrient dynamics, but for the smaller, flashier, systems, you know, I think that, having, you know, the automated high frequency, sort of sampling that, you know, you know, the other panelists here, their companies are looking to provide, I think is really, really important, to understand sort of the dynamics of how these nutrients move through these systems, right?

[00:07:21] From the small, from, you know, from the field into the creeks, into the smaller streams, into the rivers, and ultimately into the lake.

[00:07:32] Katie Stammler: Awesome. Thank you, Nate.Vince, could you speak to us about your technology?

[00:07:38] Vincent Kelly:,yeah, thanks, Katie. And thanks, Max, for inviting, me and GreenEyes, to be a part of the webinar.  I'm the, founder and director of GreenEyes, and I've been working with autonomous nutrient monitoring since graduate school a couple of decades ago now.

[00:07:58],and it's great to see, it really finally taking hold in the industry. We've got more players, there's more options for users. The need is as great as it has ever been for a continuous autonomous nutrient monitoring. Habs and loading estimates and everything, so I don't think I need to convince anyone anyone of that.

[00:08:19]so,  The new lab that Green Eyes offers has been available since 2015. It's a wet chemical sensor. so it uses the methods that are very similar to those used in a laboratory where we're mixing chemicals, forming a color, measuring the intensity of that color with a colorimeter. The instrent, calibrates, in situ before every analysis.

[00:08:48] So we can adjust, so we build effects of temperature and other things into the calibration.the reagents need to be replaced every four to eight weeks, depending upon sample frequency and exactly what things you're looking at.Greenhouse currently offers units for nitrate plus nitrite, soluble reactive phosphorus.

[00:09:13] Ammonia, ammoni, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus. And we've been at this for a while, and I, I feel pretty good about where we've brought the new lab in terms of its accuracy. We produce very linear calibration curves in the laboratory. The reliability is certainly better.and where we're focusing on now is trying to make the whole operation easier for folks in the field who tend to be busy with lots of things to do other than just, set up, set up the nutrient monitors.

[00:09:47] And so where we are personally is is streamlining the methods with better documentation Easier methods, and under normal circumstances, the data quality is pretty good. Reliability has gotten, gotten pretty good. I will share with the group something  that has come out. We've had an opportunity this year to deploy 2 new labs.

[00:10:14] Very close together on small flashy streams. And 1 of the challenges that we learned is that. Where we mount our pump so just in case I didn't explain that the new lab lives in a dry sampling shed or an enclosure adjacent to the stream and green eyes either supplies a pumping system or we rely on an existing pumping system at a station.

[00:10:41] We found that in these small flashy streams, we have to be very careful where we mount the pp. And it turns out if we're too close to the sediment, we could get additional phosphorus, we can even see denitrification occurring in the sediments. And this was, we discovered this really because we had two instruments relatively close together.

[00:11:00] And when the stream level got very low, we saw the measured concentrations diverging some. So we've worked so hard for so many years on making the new lab be. a reliable, accurate instrument. And probably we haven't focused enough time on sample delivery, which has taken over as the number one failure point in these systems, is getting a robust sample to the instrument.

[00:11:28],and, and so that's where, where we're, we're going nowadays. But I think with GreenEyes, some of the other patent lists and other instrumentation that's coming out there, it's really come a long way in terms of accuracy and reliability. My take, I was a little early for my take home message, but I have to beat this dr all the time.

[00:11:51] And that asks users to always collect hand samples for comparison. So this, this gives you more confidence in the autonomous data allows us to correct the data. And I'm beating this dr because it's so often that folks are not collecting hand samples or that the process to get the hand samples analyzed is months.

[00:12:13] And it's just, Taking longer than it seemed than it really needs. So, and this is another area where green eyes is going to try to help and focus. But those are my 2 cents right now. Thank you. Katie

[00:12:25] Katie Stammler: amazing. Thank you. Vince. And I appreciate that perspective of making sure that the users actually have a good sense of how to use it when we're.

[00:12:32] Using new pieces of equipment and trying to figure out where to put it and how to use it. That's. Having that at the forefront is really important. I'm going to move over to Colm who's going to give us a different perspective as he's  not in the U. S. or Canada. So he's going to give us a more international perspective.

[00:12:50] Colm Lynch: Yeah, thanks, Katie.first of all, I'm very grateful to be,,participating in the, in this event.and I suppose to bring a different perspective on this in terms of an international perspective, on the formation of Harm for Malgay Blooms. And the first thing I'd like to say is that It really truly is a global problem.

[00:13:13] It's one that we're talking about in direct lakes, but one that we're experiencing across the globe. So we are a company based in Ireland, and, we'd like to pride ourself on high levels of water quality, but we do have harmful algae blooms forming in some of the lakes, which are pulling our drinking water from.

[00:13:32] So, we're experiencing the same challenges. Our company, Aquamonatrix, has about 25 years plus experience in water quality analysis. So, we're a bunch of chemists and really our background is that the whole focus on analysis and accuracy. And we developed, a suite of analyzers and the first ones to market are, nitrate and nitrite analyzer.

[00:13:57] And, a slightly different take on technology. We use iron chromatography coupled with UV LED detection to be highly selective and highly accurate.and our initial, kind of development of this product was to go into the environmental monitoring market and we worked with USEPA in the early stages of our product development.

[00:14:17] . One of the challenges just in terms of getting through to that environmental monitoring sector of course is funding. And so it's not a big market yet for our company because the wastewater industry has got a bigger butchers and a bigger pull in terms of where you deploy. But just looking at the products we have here on the screen.

[00:14:40],on the far right, we have a deployable, instrument, which can come with a solar panel and be left out for long periods of time, for collecting, data. And, you know, that picture on the right hand side is in Ireland, and on the bottom left hand side, by contrast, we've got one in Tasmania and just, of Australia.

[00:14:59] And, one of the cleanest water courses, I think you will ever see on the face of the planet and they pulled you grab and laugh, you know, to make sure that everything is okay, but they put a, instrument on a river and literally up and down the river testing the water quality and in real time, they found a huge variance between what their grab and lap results were taking versus the real time analysis.

[00:15:22] So. I think one of the key things and the challenges that say the agencies have in terms of, you know, getting the data is first of all, we need to benchmark to establish exactly how big the problem is where the problem is, because we can probably all room to kind of suggest where we think the source of nutrient influx is coming from, but probably need to baseline that in the first instance, and in some cases where you think you know exactly what the water quality is, where the sources are, you may be proven incorrect.

[00:15:51] So. And our technology is  pretty accurate. When I say pretty accurate, it is highly accurate. It's effectively a laboratory level accuracy in the field. And we have developed sensors that we can deploy in remote places to monitor water quality in the areas such as we're describing. And yeah, so that's just a very brief introduction to us.

[00:16:17] Katie Stammler: Amazing. Thank you, Colm. And we'll move over to E. J. Neafsey.

[00:16:22] EJ Neafsey: Thank you, Katie, and thank you for inviting us to participate. So at LG Sonic, our heritage is data driven ultrasonic algae control. So we use water quality parameters to really select which ultrasonic programs we use to push. harmful algal blooms out of the photo zone in the water and make the water cleaner and safer for everybody.

[00:16:40] But we always want to make su re that we're able to predict as far to the future as possible. And so we're always interested in looking at nutrient dynamics, which is really, you know, setting up, you know, what that nutrient budget is going to be that the algae can use to do business. And so we landed on orthophosphate as phosphorus for our primary target.

[00:17:00] for nutrient monitoring because that's the fraction that's really the most bioavailable to a lot of our target freshwater species. And so we decided to partner with Dublin City University in Ireland to develop a sensor lab on chip that's based on the yellow method. So it has the benefits of being a pretty standard colorimetric method.

[00:17:21] And the fact that it uses the yellow method means that the reagent is a lot more durable. It can be stored in a lot more realistic and pragmatic conditions such as, you know, storage sheds that, you know, might get to pretty high temperatures. And our customers can, can order a lot of reagent at a time so they don't have to worry about, you know, expiration within an unreasonably short period so they can get ahead on, on their, their materials.

[00:17:44] But, we've deployed it on a wide, vast variety of conditions from snow lined creeks in Ohio, all the way to estuaries in Ireland. And to get back toVince's point about the importance of grab samples, that is, it is critical. And we have done, you know, some, some cross checking with, with lab and, and bench, bench sampling.

[00:18:05] And, it's, it's really bang on within the range. So we are able to collect, at our standard intervals, about, about three samples a day, but it is, Proportional to reach you. So the user is able to collect a lot more frequent samples if possible. And that allows them to get much better information on, you know, what their nutrient budget is, and really where they should focus a lot of their efforts in nutrient management.

[00:18:33] Katie Stammler: Awesome. Thanks, EJ. It's really, really incredible to see where you guys have taken technology and I know you're just a subset of people that are working on this type of thing.but of course that progress always comes with challenges and limitations. So I'd like for us now to discuss some of the different challenges that you faced with implementing the new technologies and Vince kind of Thank you.

[00:18:57] Started alluding to some of the installation, parts of things, but I've been, so I'm going to turn to you to talk 1st, about any other challenges that you're facing, with, using the technologies.

[00:19:11] Vincent Kelly: Great. Thanks, Katie.

[00:19:18] The

[00:19:22] biggest challenges that we see are, just  having folks understand that.These are not optical, well, and there are some optical nitrate sensors out there. But when we're talking wet chemistry or ion chromatography, It's a little more complicated, than sticking a multiprobe in the water and, but having said that, it has advantages.

[00:19:52] So we can use onboard standards for calibration, which is something that most optical and electrode type sensors cannot do. So it's a bit more complicated, but we have better tools for evaluating accuracy, accuracy and performance. And so, What I identified some years ago was just trying to reduce the demands and time required in the field for folks, so that these could really achieve Broad deployment, broad acceptance, similar to, sans or, or, you know, dissolved oxygen type sensors that also have some of their own inherent challenges.

[00:20:36] And so, for us personally, as a company, it's about improving our documentation, improving our methods, and improving the training of customers in the field. And just trying to whack them all fair failure points like this. They're simple things you can you probably saw in the photo There's a lot of pinch clamps and things so there's a number,you just have to have attention to detail and good documentation and procedures to help folks Handle that I think I mentioned.

[00:21:06],challenges with sample delivery and and I would say You I came from an oceanography background and we sort of thought as fresh, thought of as fresh water and estuarine water as easier to measure because often the concentrations are higher than open ocean work.that was a lie. Because it turns out there are a lot of interferences in these flashy fresh, freshwater streams, just when we really need the data the most.

[00:21:39] So just at that Friday night at 11 o'clock when there's a big storm, we also got a lot of sediment with it and other interferences that can become a challenge. And so I think GreenEyes is handling that. We have a lot of tricks up our sleeve and how we handle that. I'm sure Colm and Nate as well are evolving or have evolved with that.

[00:22:01] But I think these are, you know, typical growing pains for a still relatively young industry of field monitoring of nutrients. And that I would say that we've done We have done, we've done quite well.but so the number 1, challenge is for just customers to realize it's not a multiprobe, wet chemistry, we're just going to need to spend a little more time in the field and a little more attention to detail.

[00:22:30] And then, and maybe we keep an eye on it a little bit more. And in the end, if we do those things, we can actually have higher accuracy and understand what we're measuring even better than a optical or electrode based on. Thank you.

[00:22:46] Katie Stammler: Awesome. Thank you. And Colm, when we met earlier, you had also raised a different challenge with  regulations and stuff.

[00:22:53] Would you be able to speak with that?

[00:22:56] Colm Lynch: Sure. Yeah.I suppose the first thing I'd say I'd echo what Vince is saying in terms of technical challenges.I think we're all facing the same thing in terms of getting, you know, Over some hurdles and we're going about it in different ways. And because obviously we have different technology platforms.

[00:23:11] And so I definitely would identify with that. And I would also identify with the commercial challenge as well, in terms of getting analyzers out there. That's probably the biggest challenge. One of the things that drives, let's say, traction in the marketplace for environmental monitoring, especially in Europe, is, underpinned by regulation.

[00:23:33] So, where you get an authority where there's regulation and consent on discharge licenses, which is also policed, by the EPA or whoever the local authorities are, you then get people who will look for compliance, and compliance will drive monitoring. And this is how you get your monitor out or your analyzer into the field and there is a number of ways that then in terms of who are the end user for the analyzer.

[00:23:57] So, whoever is discharging into our waterways and maybe potential sources of this nutrient ingress. So, which could be. Activities coming from wastewater treatment, also coming from maybe agricultural runoff, and things like this. And in some cases, it can be regulation. In some cases, it can be training.

[00:24:17] In some cases, it's just working with people to get them to understand the impact of maybe something that they're doing, that they really don't understand what the net effect of that is on the collective of a water body. So, I think one of the challenges we need to do as a community, and I'm talking as a global community, is to really look at that regulation and temper the regulation and balance it in such a way that people don't see it as, you know, policing us or, you know, kind of nanny state sort of thing, as opposed to bringing people on a journey with you so they understand the impact.

[00:24:49] So, I think if I can speak to Europe for a second. Probably the leaders in Europe in this area is the Netherlands.I'd love to say it was Ireland, but it's not. It's, it really is the Netherlands. And because of the, how close they are to seawater level, at land in the Netherlands, I think it's something like 90 percent of their drinking water is sourced within three meters of the surface.

[00:25:15] So they are very cognizant of nutrient levels within their waterways. So as a society, they push for the need to measure control and therefore reduce the,,at source your, your pollution, root cause. So, And I think that is one big constraint in terms of getting these technologies out into the field.

[00:25:40],but if that was removed, you still need to overcome the challenges that Vin spoke to.so, you know, in the different, water matrix, how can the analyzers overcome what's out there?,how can you deploy for long periods of time without interference or without, having to go to service in these remote areas?

[00:26:01] And so there's a number of challenges there. And I think individually, we are all quite a long way along the road in terms of resolving those challenges. But I would say, as you mentioned, Katie, probably regulation, if it was pushed from the top to regulation, I think it would remove an awful lot of inertia in terms of getting this data.

[00:26:22] Katie Stammler: And thanks, Colm. And really, you know, thinking about myself and my team and the grab samples that we take and who those individuals are, if you put that equipment out, it isn't just a sonde, and which is complicated in itself. It isn't just filling a bottle. So you do need to have that more technical expertise.

[00:26:43],on the ground locally to operate those things. And I think that's important to know as well that, you know, it doesn't take the place of the individual who is going out and getting to know the stream in the system. It's that person is still there doing that work. So that's, that's, really like that as well.

[00:27:01],EJ, I'm going to turn to you to talk about national water monitoring plants.

[00:27:07] EJ Neafsey: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that is definitely going to be needed going forward in the United States and Canada is, you know, a national nutrient monitoring program so that we can, you know, understand, you know, what our nutrient budget is at the various, you know, stream reach levels, and this will allow us to really optimize the practices that we put out in the field.

[00:27:27] So it could be a combination of, you know, nutrient reduction at the paddock scale for our producer community. Great. It can be looking at some green infrastructure urban communities to take some of that impervious surface runoff and be able to capture it for it ends up in our rivers and streams and lakes, but we're going to need to have some data to be able to monitor and to gauge the effectiveness of those practices so we can right size them and you know make on field edits as as we go forward.

[00:27:56] And another important part of, you know, really linking sensor data with action is to make sure we're working with the regulatory communities so that they understand, you know, exactly how our technologies work, and so that we can, you know, incorporate that into their, their data governance and data quality plans, so that we can, you know, build confidence in what our technology is reporting, and so it can, you know, really help them make the decisions that they need to make our water safer and cleaner and better for everyone to use.

[00:28:27] Katie Stammler: Yeah, this is a good point to their E. J. there. I know there's always all the conversations about even inter lab comparisons. And did you have your lab your sample analyzed at this lab or this lab? And is it comparable? Did you filter on site? Did you not filter on site? So, yeah, having that sort of standardized information so that people trust the data and have an understanding that it is just as reliable as lab data.

[00:28:53] So I, I always like to end things on a, on a high note and talk about, you know, hopes and dreams about the future. So I'd like to talk about, you know, what the future of nutrient monitoring, might look like. And we're going to start where we ended last time. We're going to start with EJ.

[00:29:08] EJ Neafsey: Yeah, so really our idea of the future is we want to make sure that our sensors are smaller and tougher so we can make sure that we're having more data in more places.

[00:29:18] And it also means integrating those with digital twins so that we can create products that are useful to the customer, which is really the public.

[00:29:28] Katie Stammler: Amazing. Thanks, EJ. And Nate, you're the, you're the guy that's on the ground doing  lots of the monitoring. So we're going to, we're going to end with you on this one.

[00:29:37] Nathan Manning: Yeah. You know, I think, the National Center for Water Quality Research is in sort of a unique position, to talk about sort of what might be needed in the future, right? So we have a data set that goes back 50 years.we have lots and lots of data and we've done lots and lots of different collection techniques, laboratory techniques.

[00:30:00] We've deployed some of the sensors that, you know, the other panelists, have developed, right? So we have, you know, things like the new labs out in the field.and, you know, I think one of the things that we've, we've sort of come across, right, is, the length of deployment for these things, right.

[00:30:23] Between service sort of service intervals, right. Needs to be long and, That you're getting meaningful, you know, sort of patterns in the data, right? Being able to pick up trends.you know, a three week deployment is probably not enough, right? You need to have sort of an entire season at the minimum, right?

[00:30:44],you know, making these things, you know, a little more portable, maybe a little more, you know, easier to deploy. And a lot of them have become that, right? Like o Over the years we've seen a lot of the improvements that these, deployable sensors have made, and. They've made big improvements.and then, you know, one of the other things we're, we're sort of spread out across the state, right?

[00:31:13] When, when the lab started 50 years ago, there were, you know, 2 rivers that we monitored that were nearby the lab.we now monitor, you know, 23 sites across Ohio and Michigan, and so having the ability to.you know, through telemetry, you know, interact with these sensors from a remote position, right?

[00:31:34] To change, you know, it's sampling,,you know, the time between samples remotely or, you know, to check on, you know, the levels of the different, different chemicals in, in, you know, some of these wet labs, would be great for, you know, an organization like ours, where we may have these things deployed to a place that, you know, is, you know, A 6 hour drive, you know, round trip, and isn't logistically easy to get to.

[00:32:05],and so I think. the automation of these, you know, the. The chemical testing, as well as sort of the. the ability to interact with them at a distance. Right, I think it is really important moving forward.

[00:32:26] Katie Stammler: Yeah, I agree. Anytime you can interact with your equipment at a distance is.

[00:32:30] is really, really handy. I always say it's a game changer when we got modems for our auto samplers and that sort of thing.we have some new turbidity probes that we're using that have to be charged back in the office.

[00:32:45] Nathan Manning: Right.

[00:32:46] Katie Stammler: You know, that kind of, you know, advancing the technology so that there's a swappable battery or something,

[00:32:53] Nathan Manning: you know, And that, you know, that adds up to gaps in your data.

[00:32:57] Right. And one of the things that we do in lab is, you know, really analyze our data and look at patterns in it.and what we found is, you know, You really have to have high frequency, like, you know, just a weekly sample isn't going to tell you much, right? If you're doing weekly sampling, you also have to have the storm sampling, right?

[00:33:19] To be able to capture those events, and really be able to differentiate between the rising and the falling limb of these storm events.and I think, you know, these, these sensors are, are getting us there.and I'm excited to see, you know, the advancements in them over the coming years. very much.

[00:33:40] Katie Stammler: Absolutely. Well, thank you all for, that part of the formal panel discussion, and we'll move over to the, to the Q and A. So, I think you guys should be able to to see them as well, but I'll read them out and then you can, if you, if there's a question that you feel like you would like to answer, please feel free to to jump in.

[00:34:01] So, the 1st question up there is when you design a remote analysis system, what is your target service interval?

[00:34:13] Colm Lynch: So, I can jump in on this 1, if that helps, Katie, and. We've got a number of different intervals, depending on where we're deploying. So if you're going to go to a very remote area where access is not easy, for example, we're doing something in Spain at the moment, where we're using solar panels to power the instrument, which is much easier in Spain, as you can imagine, than other places in terms of hours of sunlight.

[00:34:38] We're looking to go there about once a month. which Nate was saying, you know, might be, you might need longer than that.but so if we can get somewhere between one month and six months, there's actually the kind of the window that we're looking to do the service interval at the service interval is driven by the number of data points you want per day.

[00:34:59],so I would say that, and, you know, if you're taking maybe three to four data points a day, Six months is easily achievable, if you want more than that. So it's trying to get into the mind of how many data points is enough. So if you look at the wastewater industry, they might want it every 15 minutes or every hour.

[00:35:18] But maybe from monitoring on a environmental impact scale, maybe every couple of. or two or three times a day might be sufficient. And if I could just use one example in terms of that, in Ireland, we deployed, well, an agency deployed to try and identify a source of a contamination to a watershed that was leading into an estuary.

[00:35:39] And, it was coming from agriculture and, and, and how they were able to identify what was going on there was they took samples four times a day, but what they were looking for was not just the nitrate in terms of the nutrient because. If the source of the, of the nutrient was coming from an agricultural runoff, it could be from a fertilizer or it could be.

[00:36:00] And I see one of the questions that Sandy has put in the thing is, could it be from manure, which is so, and if it's from a manure type source, you're going to get the, formation of ammonia, and then you're gonna get that oxidizing to nitrite and then nitrate. So the beauty of the analyzer that we have, it'll pick up both of those.

[00:36:20] And if you are picking up nitrite. That is an indication of you have a runoff from a manure type source, and it's somewhere upstream. And depending on the level of that nitrite, because it's highly liable, that it, you know, it can tell you it's how quickly it's happened beforehand. So, so I would say answer the question in two parts, is one that you would look to maybe do, probably three to four samples a day, deploy for six months without servicing, and then look at the type of analysis that you're getting to identify the type of pollution event that's coming downstream.

[00:36:53] Katie Stammler: Cool, which I think, Colm, you, you kind of got into the, yeah, I'll go to you as well, Vince. the second part of the, or the next question that was, how do we, how do you use the technology to start identifying sources? But yeah, go ahead, Vince, to jump in.

[00:37:07] Vincent Kelly: Yeah, yeah, I'll just be quick.at GreenEyes, so we would set a minimum service frequency of 4 weeks.

[00:37:15] And currently, our instruments sample, Between every one hour and every four hours, typically two, so 12 samples a day, and that normally gets us, six, six weeks, but we can push that we can drop the frequency and often get to eight weeks. So for green eyes, we're in that four to eight week range on service intervals.

[00:37:41] Katie Stammler: What's involved with service intervals, like having reagents and that kind of thing.

[00:37:45] Vincent Kelly: Yeah, and so,

[00:37:53],on the, new lab, it's these bags of reagents that have to be swapped out and, with,,cleaning of some of the inlet tubing, replacing the filter that you see. Sometimes you have a sample chamber. We might need to clean that out and nothing. Nothing Is particularly challenging. It just takes some attention to detail.

[00:38:16],We'll run some cleaning solutions through it, make sure the mechanical parts of the syringe is still sealing and things like that. So, on a, on a single channel, new lab for reactive phosphorus. That servicing might only take a half an hour. One of our really complex systems, it could be two hours.

[00:38:34] Katie Stammler: Okay, so the next, couple of questions come from Sandy Bin and about more of the identify, if we can use the technology to help us identify, sources of nutrients. So, whether that might be at a smaller scale or at a watershed scale.

[00:38:58] Anyone want to jump on that one? You can also type the answer if we're, or, or we can say that was a hard one. 

[00:39:05] EJ Neafsey:Yeah, I mean, really, just to put in my two cents, it really depends on the spatial scale and where you're installing the sensors. So if you're really getting down to a stream reach, which maybe is a couple hundred meters to a kilometer, maybe you can get into that neighborhood of identifying sources.

[00:39:21] But if you're integrating over, you know, maybe a large, larger river, it gets, gets a little more, more difficult. You're certainly into that non point source domain. And of course, you know, when, when we're doing this, we want to make sure that we're taking collaborative approach with all of our, our butters and all of our producers.

[00:39:38] And I mean, I know, at least from a fertilizer perspective that I would like to be told if I'm, if I'm wasting money, I never really like to spend more than I need to. So there needs to be a collaborative approach with all of our land users in the community.

[00:39:52] Nathan Manning: Thank you. Go ahead. On that same sort of thought.

[00:39:59] So I had mentioned before being able to distinguish between the rising and the falling limb, of a storm event, that difference, the hysteresis loop, right? It'll change over time and we can measure that change, right? And so if you have super high frequency, right, every 15 minutes during a storm event, one of the things that can tell you is essentially how.

[00:40:27] Proximal those nutrients are to the, to the river, right? How close are they? Are they coming from overland, you know, surface flow? Is it subsurface flow? Is it, you know, sort of deep sediment flow?,and so having these deployable sensors, right, that can sort of kick in during a storm event and give you that, you know, 15 minute interval.

[00:40:54] You know, I think will help. With sort of understanding sort of where in the landscape, these nutrients are how long they're taking to get into the into the rivers and and the pathways that they're taking right are they are they, you know, ending up in in field tile and being rushed out to the river. You know, and those change, right?

[00:41:18] that loop, the shape of that loop, the direction it goes, you know how complex it is.and so I think that's, that's something that is going to really help, that these, these sort of sensors can really help us get, get a better understanding of.

[00:41:33] Katie Stammler: Yeah, I like that, yeah, tying it to event sampling would be very interesting.

[00:41:37] But go ahead.actually col, did you wanna say anything to, I know you

[00:41:41] Colm Lynch: well. I, I, it's a really good point by Nate. And, I, I just wanted to say that, so the way that we would go get around that is that we have an iot platform, so everything's pushed in the cloud, and you're sitting at home in the comfort of your living room in the middle of a storm event.

[00:41:53] And you can actually, from there then change the duty cycle of the analysis to every 15 minutes for, for the period of time that the storm is a very. Is outside and then you can choke it back again, whatever you need to do to adjust the frequency and that can all be done remotely. And also the data then is presented to you on your PC or whatever at home.

[00:42:13] So yeah, that's definitely doable.

[00:42:16] Katie Stammler: Nothing better than sitting on your couch on the weekend, watching a movie, dialing, dialing into your equipment.

[00:42:25] Never not working. That's what I say. Go ahead.

[00:42:30] Vincent Kelly: Yeah, thanks, Katie. The thing I would add is, this is commonly the case. It's more parameters are better than fewer parameters. And so now, customers and monitoring folks are having more options for different instrents. The number of the different nutrient species that you can measure is growing.

[00:42:47] And then it's really nice to have traditional water quality. data to go along with. So you can relate nutrient pulses with turbidity. And as Nate was talking about, sometimes you can see the initial overland rush of nutrients. And then you can see the subsequent ground water, ground water flow of nutrients at your site, and it helps to have some basic water quality data to to interface with that.

[00:43:17] So anytime you can add the traditional sensors to nutrient sensors or the nutrient sensors to your traditional monitoring network, it's going to help you, un piece, you know, put that puzzle together.

[00:43:31] Katie Stammler: Sort of related question. So the real time versus continuous and the ability to download later as you develop the technology, how do you decide what's needed and what's offered?

[00:43:44] So yeah, similar to that, like how, how quickly does the analysis happen? How quickly is that kind of posted? Are you downloading it on the regular? So I think that's maybe what the question is getting at.

[00:43:57] Colm Lynch:,I think for, for us on Mountain Katie, we, our maxim duty cycle is every 15 minutes. So that's the maxim we can produce a dataset.

[00:44:04],Instant. The minute that the analysis set is done, it's pushed to the cloud. So the data is available instantaneously and you have many, many options of communicating with the sensor, but probably for remote monitoring. That's probably the neatest, but you can go to the,,to the actual device itself.

[00:44:23] You can pull data off it. You can download CSV files also from the web portal. So I would say accessing the data is that's not an issue.

[00:44:37] Katie Stammler: Questioning the analysis standards and impediment to the sensor and technology information innovation

[00:44:48] to the I think the actual reagents is that part of what's what's the challenge

[00:44:56] Colm Lynch: or perhaps maybe is it is this are we talking about Sam? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, it's interpreted the analysis standards. You mean in terms of the laboratory accreditation standards or the. Yeah, maybe there's two parts of that question.

[00:45:11] So one part of it is if you're, if you're using this data in terms of a regulatory compliance, maybe the question is. What standard is the data going to stand up to on a scrutiny?,so from our perspective, we don't, have standards on the analyzer. It is an ISO accredited,,ETV, analyzer, but it doesn't conform, let's say to what you might find in an ISO accredited laboratory.

[00:45:37],that's not something you would typically find with an analyzer.

[00:45:40] Katie Stammler: Okay, yeah, and I think that kind of goes along to with the question there that's compared to traditional lab analysis, how sensitive are, are they? And if anybody else wants to answer one or one or both of those. Go ahead, Vince.

[00:45:57] Vincent Kelly: The sensitivity is generally comparable. The challenge becomes that we're taking methods designed for a laboratory with controlled temperature and and filtered water, and we're asked, we're, we're having to go outside the box on that and handle different things. And so.in general, you know, it's good enough if we're going to talk in milligrams per liter where I think everybody's technology is probably better than 0.

[00:46:29] 0, you know, in that 0. 01 milligram per liter area. It's certainly achievable. But I would also add that sometimes we have to do some, you know, our real time data, we call it preliminary. Because there can be post data processing, and if we have a temperature effect that we want to correct for, you know, this summer, in fact, we saw temperatures, were, you know, 100 degrees.

[00:46:55] That's not a stable 20, you know, that's not 70 degrees that we're working in the lab so it can have some effects. Again, these are tractable problems. Absolutely.

[00:47:13] EJ Neafsey: Yeah, I'd just like to add that from an R& D perspective, the Standards really do give us a target to hit. So it's, it's massively good thing when we're, we're, we're trying to, you know, develop a technique, that's going to be, you know, comparable with existing, existing standards. So that's definitely helpful.

[00:47:30] And, also, you know, just in terms of, you know, comparing to, you know, traditional grip, grab sampling, it really does help us make the case that, you know, it's, it's within that range and you do get a lot more data because there's a lot of events that you'll be able to take to capture. That really do have a management implication that we wouldn't if we're, you know, just going out for our usual monitoring program using jars and people.

[00:47:54] So that's definitely helpful for us.

[00:47:58] Nathan Manning: Yeah, I would, I would add to that. You know, we have our own in house analytical chemistry lab that does all of our sample processing and stuff. But we do deploy these sensors in certain places, and I would agree that. For the, for the most part, their results are fairly similar to what we're getting, you know, out of the lab, the one thing that I would, would mention is that you can often see sort of, I don't know if degradation is the right, but you know, there's, there's a service interval involved with these.

[00:48:35] And so, you know, if there's high sediment in your system or something, you can see sort of, you know, some fluctuation in the data that is related to those environmental.you know, conditions that change as as a general rule. I do believe that these sensors are, you know, reasonably close to what you would get out of a laboratory setting.

[00:48:59] Katie Stammler: Awesome.the last kind of technical question here is, if you can describe how the new lab or the other technologies, TP and TN tools digest the aerobic component of the parameters.

[00:49:17] Vincent Kelly: So that

[00:49:18] Katie Stammler: A and organic,

[00:49:20] Vincent Kelly: yeah, organic. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Hmm.yes. So when we developed the total nitrogen total phosphorus method, we tried to emulate the Jorge Valderrama method, where we're doing simultaneous oxidation of nitrogen and phosphorus, to nitrate and phosphate.so this is a 30 minute digestion at 120 degrees c with.

[00:49:46] Basic persulfate solution.and so again, and this is what I think all the manufacturers want to have comparable data. So we're trying to follow established methods on how we do things.and so, It takes a while. You know, this is not a the digestion is 30 minutes for for green eyes. You know, we have 10 minutes of heating 10 minutes of cooling.

[00:50:11] That's 40 minutes. Another 5 minutes of flushing and mixing, you know, we're really at. There's no way we could do it any faster than once an hour. And to be honest, our units.sample at, along with nitrate and phosphate data every two hours, really, the most reasonable fastest method, but we are able to pretty much emulate, a, the laboratory, digestion.

[00:50:36] And we're now doing that on solar, solar power.

[00:50:42] Katie Stammler: Anybody else want to address that question at all?

[00:50:47] EJ Neafsey: Yeah, at least in terms of like what we're looking at, we're looking at orthophosphate. So that's going to be the fraction that's available for to drive algal blooms, and it's going to be dissolved into the, into the sample. and into the environment. So we use EPA standard filtration to, you know, exclude any of that solid fraction.

[00:51:04] And so, you know, because we're looking at orthophosphate, we eliminate the need to do any, any sort of digestion.

[00:51:11] Katie Stammler: When you're filtering the samples, like I'm thinking about our streams that can get pretty full of sediment pretty fast. Like, does that potentially mean that your filters might need to be changed more frequently if you're in a high sediment area?

[00:51:26] EJ Neafsey: I mean, if, if, you definitely have to, you know, tailor your, your service intervals toyour environment. And so if there's more turbidity in, in the environment, then those filters are gonna to be serviced more frequently. So that's just a basic cost of doing business to get the high quality data that we all need.

[00:51:40] Katie Stammler: Mm-Hmm.that is, that's the last of the questions that's in the q and a. So I don't know if, anybody else, any of our panelists wanna have, you know, anything that you, that you missed that you were. Would like to say, now or otherwise, I'll, hand it back over to Max when we're ready.

[00:52:01] Colm Lynch: There's just one other thing, maybe just very briefly, Katie. Angel asked a question, I answered it by typing into a thing, but it's just regarding the salinity. And it's a really good question, because that's quite challenging. And so, just very briefly, our analyzer just operates on sodium chloride as a non hazardous element, and this just enables us to move from freshwater to.

[00:52:21] Fully saline water without any need for recalibrations, which is pretty unique. But yeah, so if anybody out there is working in a saline challenging matrix, yeah, that's something that we can take care of. Yeah, go

[00:52:33] Katie Stammler: ahead, Vince.

[00:52:39] Vincent Kelly: Yeah, I just want to say thanks for the folks that joined the meeting because, this is, I apologize if this is a bit of a sales pitch, but in truth, We really need to make these measurements like so everyone here all the panelists and probably everyone has joined this webinar understands that nutrient pollution is the number one driver of water quality degradation and we don't measure it at anywhere near the frequency.

[00:53:10] Both time and space, spatial coverage that we really need to to understand the problem. It's an exciting time for us. And for me, I've been doing this stuff for for some time. There's a lot more opportunities to measure the efficiencies of nutrient remediation procedures, wetland restorations, and it's an exciting time for users because you can be on the like leading edge.

[00:53:35] helping the society make these measurements and improve them. GreenEyes relies on our customers an awful lot, to improve these methods. And so, you know, this is a movement that's happening. thanks for for joining the webinar.and, and we, you know, we look forward to hearing from you. And now that there are more quality options out there for autonomous nutrient monitoring, it's really, it's super important and it's an exciting time.

[00:54:09] Katie Stammler: Thank you, Vince. That's great. Closing soon. Thank you to our panelists for taking the time and being here to the audience members who showed up and and listened and asked good questions and to the Habs Collaborative and Cleveland Water Alliance for making this whole webinar series possible.

[00:54:30] So I don't know Max if you have anything else to to close with but otherwise we'll close here. So thank you for joining us.

[00:54:39] Max Herzog: Yeah, I'll just echo the thanks and thanks Kitty for moderating today.if folks want to, review the recording of this session, it will be shared by email to you later.

[00:54:48] And if you want to go back and look at the last two sessions, one focused on technology for harmful algal bloom monitoring and one focused on the use of the data for harmful algal bloom management and nutrient management. Those are available on Cleveland Water Alliance's YouTube.encourage you to sign up for Great Lakes, HABS Collaborative and Cleveland Waterlines mailing lists to, stay abreast of future, you know, informational opportunities.

[00:55:12] And, yeah, thanks so much for being here.

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